Final answer:
Robert Knox contributed to racial stereotypes through his promotion of scientific racism and polygenism, asserting racial hierarchies in his work 'The Races of Men'.
Step-by-step explanation:
Robert Knox's contribution to racial stereotypes can be traced to his involvement in the promotion of scientific racism and his views on race, which significantly influenced the pseudoscientific belief in the superiority of certain races over others. Knox, a 19th-century anatomist, and ethnologist was a proponent of polygenism, the idea that different races had separate origins. His widely read work, 'The Races of Men' (1850), argued for the inherent differences and hierarchies between races, which significantly perpetuated and justified racist ideologies and discrimination. Knox's influence was part of a broader context in which racial stereotypes were scientifically validated to justify colonization, slavery, and racial discrimination, impacting views on race well into the modern era.