MEMOIRS
OF THE
NATIONAL MUSEUM MELBOURNE
No. 13
D. J. MAHONY, M.Sc. DIRECTOR
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES
MELBOURNE Brown, Prior, Anderson Pty. Ltd., 430 Little Bourke St., Melb., C.L.
SEPTEMBER, 1943
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CONTENTS.
PAGE The Problem of “cae ome of Man in Australia. weed D. a Manony. Plates ae ce. Se ois ig ; 7
The Keilor Fossil Skull: Anatomical Ppegesen ef i Wunperty. Plates IV-IX Puweitner. 6 57
The Keilor Fossil Skull: Palate and sia Dental Arch. 6d WILLIAM Apam. Plates X-XI ¥s 5 71
The Keilor Fossil Skull: a ee Evidence of Antiquity. By D. J. MAHONY oa Te SS errr ia is ae
A Revision of the Genus ec aaaed 7 es re zl and Crark. Plates XII-XVII na 83
A New Species of Pauropus from Victoria. By O. W. Tiras .. .. .. ‘151 The Koraleigh Stony Meteorite. By A. B. Epwarps and G. Baker... .. 157
Mem. Nat. Mus. Vicr., 13, 1943.
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA.
By D. J. Mahony, M.Se., Director, National Museum of Victoria.
Plates I-III.
To appreciate what is meant by antiquity of man, the signifi- cance of the term antiquity in this connection should be considered. The word may be used in the historical or in the geological sense. In the historical sense it applies to events or to man’s handiwork during early Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations or even later; in the geological sense it involves much longer periods of time. The earliest historical traditions are generally supposed to date back 7,000 years; but the Pleistocene period is estimated to have ended some 15,000 or 20,000 years ago and all that has happened since then is geologically recent. In Europe the earliest fossil human bones are probably 130,000 years old, and the oldest stone implements 400,000 years. To grasp what these figures mean we may imagine ourselves walking down the avenue of time into the past and covering a thousand years at each pace. The first step takes us back to William the Conqueror, the second to the beginning of the Christian era, the third to Helen of Troy, the fourth to Abraham and the seventh to the earliest traditional history of Babylon and Egypt; but we have to continue more than twice as far before leaving geologically recent (Holocene) times and entering the Pleistocene period, 130 paces to Heidelberg man, and about a quarter of a mile to the oldest undoubted stone imple- ments of Europe. Should we decide to continue our journey until we meet the most ancient fossil organisms, we would probably require a time-car, for the journey on the same scale would exceed 250 miles according to the latest estimates.
There is convincing evidence of the historical antiquity of man in Australia, and good reason to believe that he migrated there before the end of Pleistocene times. The data are set out in the following pages.
The problem is bound up with several others. Before Europeans arrived two types of mankind inhabited the Australian region, one being confined to the mainland, the other to Tasmania. Tasmanians, now extinct, differed from Australians in physical appearance and in cultural level. What are the affinities of these
7
8 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
two types with other races of mankind and with each other? Are they mixed or pure races? These are problems for physical anthropologists. The few fossil skulls found in Australia have Australoid or Tasmanoid characteristics, and there are no fossil remains that suggest that the Australian region was ever occupied by other types of mankind before the arrival of modern Euro- peans. The Australian wild dog, the dingo, was the only large terrestrial placental mammal, man excepted, living in the area and it is confined to the mainland. What are its affinities with other species of dog? Could it have evolved in Australia? If not, where did it come from? Did it find its way overland unassisted by man or did it come as the domestic dog of human immigrants who crossed stretches of sea by canoe? These are problems for zoological systematists and palaeogeographers, and the answers are of some importance since fossil dingo bones have been found associated with remains of extinct marsupials in deposits that suggest some geological antiquity. Did the Tasmanians once oceupy the mainland of Australia or did they go direct to Tasmania from some other locality such as New Caledonia? If they migrated from Australia, did they do so by a land-bridge which once joined island and mainland, or by canoe after the land-bridge disappeared? If they once occupied the mainland and were later partly exterminated, partly absorbed by an invasion of Australoid migrants, do Australian aborigines retain traces of the racial intermixture? Geologists and anatomists can furnish the answers. Finally, we must assess the value of evidence for antiquity of human bones and artefacts found embedded beneath the surface ; it must be based on knowledge of the relative ages of Pleistocene and Holocene horizons in Australia and their correlation with similar horizons in the northern hemisphere. This is the province of geologists.
The literature on these subjects is widely scattered in books and scientific periodicals, and no comprehensive statement of the problem of antiquity of man in Australia as it now stands has been published. In view of the recent discovery in a river terrace at Keilor near Melbourne of the fossil human skull (Pl. 1) which is described elsewhere in this volume by Dr. J. Wunderly and Dr. Wm. Adam, as well as a second skull and limb bones, an attempt is made in the following pages to summarize current opinions on the subjects. These are widely divergent, and the problems offer an attractive field for further research.
Many further references to Australian Post-Tertiary geology could be added to the bibliography, but those selected will suffice for a general survey of the subject.
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 9
AUSTRALIANS AND T'ASMANIANS
Wood Jones (1935 b) summarized the most generally accepted current opinions on racial affinities of Australian aborigines. He said that the Australian belongs to the Dravidian race; he is not a black man nor does he have fuzzy hair; he is a member of the straight- or wavy-haired, brown-skinned race that has no near kinship with the true negro. The physical characters, blood group- ings and culture of Australians all point to them as being the advance guard of the great pre-Dravidian migration that, starting probably in the Mediterranean region, spread across India into Ceylon and then to the Malayan region. With the Veddas of Ceylon and with other scattered remnants of this migration the Australian native has very real affinities."
Wood Jones (1935 a) also gave a summary of what is known of the extinct Tasmanians. He said that in colour the Tasmanian was so dark a shade of brown that casual observers described him as black. The scalp hair was black and grew as crisp, frizzy little curls, but unlike the true peppercorn hair of the African negro, the hair of the Tasmanian grew to a considerable length. ‘The average height of the men was five feet five and a quarter inches, more than an inch less than that of the average male Australian. The Tasmanian, according to him, was a primitive Negroid.’
Meston (1936) pointed out that Tasmanians had the dark skin, flat nose and wide nostrils adapted to hot climates, but disadvan- tageous in cool-temperate regions such as Tasmania; David (1924) als» noted this point. The inference is that the race evolved under tropical conditions and migrated to Tasmania at a fairly late stare of its evolutionary history.’
Some investigators, however, have expressed other views con- cerning the racial affinities of Australians and Tasmanians.
Turner (1908) held that Australians and Tasmanians belong to distinct races, but a proportion of natives in southern and western Australia have skulls that point to possible intermixture and racial affinity with Tasmanians; he inferred that the Tas- manians were direct descendants from a primitive Negrito stock and had become specialized in many ways as a result of long isolation. Klaatsch (1908) considered that Australian aborigines are a relic of the oldest type of mankind. Keith (1910) concluded
1. For blood grouping see Cleland, Cleland and Johnston, Tebbutt, Tebbutt and McConnel, Lee, Birdsell and Boyd, Phillips, and F. J. Fenner (1939); for descriptions of skulls, Berry and Robertson, Biichner, Burkitt, Burkitt and Hunter, Fenner, Hrdlicka, Howells, Klaatsch, Morant, Robertson, Shellshear, Wagner, and Wood Jones; for teeth and palate, Campbell.
2. For descriptions of Tasmanian skulls see Berry and Robertson, Buchner, Crowther and Lord, Hrdli¢ka, Morant, Ramsay Smith, Turner, Wagner, Wood Jones, and Wunderly; teeth anit palate, Campbell (in Wood Jones, 1924).
3. See also Davies (1932).
10 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
that the Tasmanian is the most primitive type of Negro and the Australian the most primitive type of Negroid. According to Berry and Robertson (1914 a), Mollison’s variation index shows that Tasmanians and Australians belong to a common stock, and that the Australian agrees much more closely with an admittedly mixed race such as modern Italians than with supposedly pure stocks such as Andamanese and ‘Tasmanians; and that the Australian, as regards skull type, is less highly evolved morpho- logically than the Tasmanian. Sollas (1924) suggested that the Tasmanians are survivors of a primitive race elsewhere extinct or merged into a predominant alien population, and that the Australian is a survival from Mousterian times, but not a direct descendant of the Mousterian races of Europe. Hrdlicka (1928) said that the Tasmanian is probably a mere local variant of the Australian. F. J. Fenner (1939), after examining in detail 1182 adult Australian skulls, divided them into three sub-types; two of these, occurring respectively in the coastal Northern Territory and the Queensland areas, are differentiated from the common southern type, which occurs over the greater part of Australia. He considers that these types are probably due to two factors: (a) fusion of Australoids with Tasmanoids, and (b) a later wave of Papuan and possibly Malayan infiltration into the northern part of the continent. He also considers that blood grouping, if reliance can be placed on the data, suggests that Melanesian infiltration has penetrated a considerable distance southward. Wunderly (1938 a, b), from an examination of Tasmanian skulls and other evidence, concluded that the Tasmanians were Negritos, but that the natives of the west coast were a mixed race of Tasmanian-Australian origin due to migration of Australian aborigines to this part of Tasmania one or two generations before Kuropeans arrived. Howells (1937) discussed various theories ; that Australia represents the original home of mankind; that the Australians are descended from Neanderthal man; and that they are the product of a mixture between (a) a ‘*White’’ anda N egrito or Negro stock, (b) two differing Negroid strains, or (¢) Tas- manian and Polynesian. He considers that the Australian repre- sents an earlier stage in the development of Homo sapiens than does any other existing race. From a survey of several hundred skulls of Pacifie Ocean peoples, Wagner (1937) included the peoples of Tasmania, Australia, Melanesia and New Guinea in one large Australoid-Melanesian group. Craniological agreement which binds together this group includes many similarities, but not in all characters ; some well-defined types, such as Australians and Tasmanians, can be demonstrated within the group. He says
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 11
that the Australian type extends throughout Australia, but there is some variation, probably due to migration of Melanesian people from the north, so that Australian skulls fall into six sub-types found respectively in Northern Australia, Queensland, West Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria. The similarity of Tasmanian and Australian skulls is striking, the Tasmanians being closer to the West Australian sub-group than to any of the others. Possibly an original Tasmanoid population in Australia was driven west and south by later incomers.
It is generally agreed that mankind and all other placental mammals originated outside the Australian region.
The ancestors of both Australian and Tasmanian aborigines no doubt reached Australia by way of that avenue of migration along which many races of mankind have passed towards the Pacific—the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and New Guinea. Some Australoid and Negrito tribes are found among the races inhabiting Malaya and New Guinea. The fact that an Australoid skull of some geological antiquity has been found in New Guinea (F. J. Fenner, 1941), and that ancient Australoid skulls (Wadjak man) have been described from Java by Dubois (1920), lends strong support to the theory that the forefathers of the Australian race migrated along this route in the distant past. Dubois’s claim that Wadjak man is of Pleistocene age has not been substantiated (von Koenigswald, 1937).*
Huxley, Wood Jones, Pulleine and others hold that the Tasmanians voyaged from New Caledonia; Howitt, Haddon, Wunderly, Meston and others consider that they migrated from the mainland of Australia across a land-bridge or by eanoe. Howitt (1898) pictured both Tasmanians and Australians as arriving in Australia by way of a land-bridge formerly connecting Asia and Australia, which was broken at Wallace’s line by a narrow stretch of sea that might be crossed in vessels no better than modern Australian bark canoes, the Tasmanians arriving first and occupying Tasmania while it still formed part of the mainland. Tindale and Birdsell (1942) claim that small tribes with Tasmanian affinities survive in the Atherton rain jungle, North Queensland; possibly, however, these tribes may have originated by infiltration of people from New Guinea or adjacent islands. The Keilor skull, which combines Tasmanian with Australian characteristics, supports the theory that Tasmanians once occupied the Australian mainland.
During Pleistocene glacial phases sea level fell, and Tasmania was connected or almost connected by land with Victoria; in
4. See also Fromaget (1940 a, b) and Mijsberg (1940).
12 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
interglacial periods it rose and the two were separated by water. There has probably been no land-bridge since mid-Pleistocene times ; the reasons for this opinion are given in a later page. Under present conditions, the chain of islands between Wilson’s Promon- tory and ‘Tasmania provides an easy route for migration by boat, with no stretch of open water exceeding 30 miles and land in sight across every gap. Tasmanian canoes were very primitive, but the natives used them for visiting 'asman, Maatsuyka and other islands separated from Tasmania by stormy seas.
THE DINGO
At one time it was considered that the dingo is a distinct species of dog peculiar to Australia (Etheridge, 1916), but Wood Jones ,(1921) demonstrated that it is merely a variety of the domesticated dog, Canis familiaris, with no claim to separate specific rank, and this opinion is endorsed by other zoological systematists. He says that the restricted genus Canis differs in dentition from the wild dogs of south-eastern Asia, the most probable immigrants in a ‘“‘walk overland”’ colonization. He holds that the supposition that the dingo is indigenous, that its phylogenetic story was unfolded within the confines of Australia, is untenable, and when we come to inquire into the possibility of the dingo arriving in Australia unassisted by, and unassociated with, man, we are forced to own that the difficulties of the problem have not always been appre- ciated by those who have advocated this solution, for no land- bridge that could have admitted either the dingo or man, separately or in company, could have failed to be the high road of entry of a host of other placental mammals. ‘“‘The progenitor of Talgai man came with his wife, he came with his dog, and with his dog’s wife, and he must have done the journey in a seaworthy boat capable of traversing this unquiet portion of the ocean with his considerable cargo. Besides this living freight, and the food and water necessary for the adventure, he carried other things—he carried a knowledge of the boomerang, of the basis of the totem system, and various other cultural features, all bearing a strange suggestion of very distinctly western origin.”’
No trace of the dingo, living or fossil, has been found in Tas- mania nor in the islands of Bass Strait, so it apparently did not reach south-east Australia until the land-bridge between Tasmania and the mainland had disappeared, and it did not accompany the Tasmanians as their domesticated dog.
Few human relics have been found associated with Di protodon, Thylacoleo and other extinct marsupials, but fossil bones of the dingo occur with them in several places.
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 13
THE PLEISTOCENE PERIOD
The outstanding feature of the Pleistocene or Quaternary Period is the series of rhythmic alternations from cold to mild climates which gave rise to glacial and interglacial phases. During the maximum glaciation, ice-caps covered most of northern Europe, America and Asia, and also Tasmania. Most glaciologists consider that glacial and interglacial phases were contempo- raneous in both hemispheres. In Europe four glacial phases were separated by mild interglacial intervals and were succeeded by the present post-glacial phase. Some authorities, however, hold that there were more than four glacial epochs in North America; others consider that the two first glacial phases are Pliocene, not Pleistocene, in age (Boule, 1923), but this is merely a question of nomenclature. Interglacial phases probably lasted longer than glacial, and the second interglacial period greatly exceeds the others; to this period the oldest undoubted relics of mankind belong.
Several theories have been advanced to explain these climatic alternations, but none is generally accepted.
Changes in relative levels of land and sea are due to one of two causes or to a combination of both: increase or decrease in the volume of the oceans (eustatic changes), and local elevations or depressions of the earth’s crust (tectonic movements). In Pleistocene times tectonic movements have been negligible in con- siderable areas.
During glacial phases, withdrawal of vast quantities of water from the oceans to form ice-caps and glaciers lowered sea level; in interglacial times ice melted and sea level rose. Interglacial climates must have been milder than the climate of to-day since strandlines then formed are now raised beaches owing to eustatic changes in sea level.
Daly (1934) estimated that the melting of existing Antarctic and Greenland ice-caps and existing glaciers would cause sea level to rise about 130 ft., but he pointed out that change in level would not be equal throughout the oceans for three reasons: redistribution of load on the elastic terrestrial globe causing defor- mation; slow transfer of plastic deep-seated matter consequent on that deformation; and cessation of gravitational pull on adjacent ocean waters by ice-caps. For the same reasons, the estimated quantity of water withdrawn or set free during glacial and inter- glacial phases can give only a rough indication of corresponding changes of sea level in any particular locality.
During glacial phases boulder-clay (tillite) accumulated beneath ice-caps, terminal moraines were formed at the margins of ice-
14 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
sheets and glaciers, and fluvio-glacial sands and gravels (outwash- aprons) spread beyond the moraines. Lowering of sea level changed parts of the continental shelves into dry land and exposed large areas of sand which was then blown by the wind and gave rise to dunes. In cold dry areas thick beds of dust (loess) accumu- lated, as they are doing to-day on the steppes of Southern Russia and Siberia; other regions, now arid, had abundant rainfall. River erosion became active and river valleys were deepened in response to low sea level.
During interglacial phases sea level rose, low-lying country was submerged, and new coast lines were established at higher levels. The flow of rivers was checked and alluvium was deposited in their valleys.
In response to these climatic and geographic changes, plants and animals, including mankind, migrated to and fro. Some species died out; of the genus Homo only H. sapiens survived.
Daly (1925) considered that in post-glacial times a world-wide strandline at about 10-20 ft. above present sea level was formed during a slight general fall in temperature about 4,000 years ago when water was abstracted from the oceans to thicken existing ice-caps; Milankovitch’s radiation curve indicates about 10,000 years. Wright (1937), however, has brought forward evidence to show that the 15-foot raised shoreline of Western Europe is pre- glacial, not post-glacial nor interglacial.
In many regions evidence of the early glacial and interglacial phases has been obliterated wholly or in part by erosion during succeeding phases, and correlation of raised beaches with river terraces, and of drowned valleys with glacial phases consequently presents many problems. The highest raised beaches due to eustatie changes are not necessarily the oldest, but they must rather be correlated with the mildest interglacial phase.®
If climate is governed by periodic changes in the orbit of the earth, there are astronomic data for estimating Pleistocene chronology in years (Zeuner, 1935); the method is based on detailed stratigraphical investigations of glacial deposits, river terraces and loess in Central Europe, and on Milankovitch’s (1930) solar radiation curve (Fig. 1). This curve (Fig. 1) is the mathematical solution of a problem in astronomy concerning periodic changes in some elements of the earth’s orbit that cause corresponding fluctuations in the total radiation received by the earth from the sun. The period covered is the past 600,000 years. Changes in Pleistocene climates indicated by the full geological
5. For general accounts of the Pleistocene, see Boule (1923), Soll 92 and Wright (1937). ee er a ee)
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 15
record correspond so closely to maxima and minima in the solar radiation curve that there seem to be sound reasons for correlating them. In Central Europe there were four Pleistocene glacial phases—the Wiirm, the Riss, the Mindel and the Giinz—each with 60°
WA oh ALATA WAM TAN SSAA WN
R : Se ; OO 0 00 _ 250 \R, 200° 150 “00 0
FIG. 1. Milankovitch’s Solar Radiation Curve. (From Zeuner, 1935.)
more than one climax of cold; these are dated from the solar radiation curve as follows:
Years Years Post-glacial . .. .. -- Interglacial M/R . —- MMPS ons pitas wee DOO Mindel 2... .. .. 430,000 Wirm2........ 67,000 Mindell. .. .. .. 472,000 PETES Ban 5 cena 2 AO AIOO Interglacial G/M . — Interglacial R/W . 143,000 Giinz 2. yo eee ot | iat > ee £5201 0 Giinz1......... 586,000 BRINE cabs ble n2s" we <4 xs, OOOO
According to this chronology, Homo heidelbergensis flourished about 130,000 years ago, and H. sapiens migrated into Europe after the close of Wiirm 1 about 40,000 years later; palaeolithic culture in Central Europe dates back about 400,000 years; meso- lithic appeared after the close of Wiirm glaciation; and neolithic began 7,500 years ago. In the Near East neolithic culture began earlier.
RELATIVE DURATIONS
2
72
g5 Se ee 2 samme hes SR ISAAC,
G.- M. MINDEL-RISS INTERGLACIAL R-W eC Ker INTERGL!
400.000 YEARS AGO 300.000 YEARS AGO Catal
FIG. 2. Penck and Briickner’s Pleistocene Time Dragon.
16 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
Penck and Brickner (1909) from purely geological evidence worked out a time scale for Pleistocene stages in the Alps, and their estimates agree in a general way fairly well with the figures given above. Their quantitative graph (Fig. 2) is reproduced from Daly (1934).
AUSTRALIAN Post-TERTIARY GEOLOGY
Towards the end of the Tertiary period, Australia and Tasmania underwent a tectonic uplift which ushered in the present cycle of erosion. The old Murray Gulf, until then occupied by the sea, was drained; and the Darling, the Murrumbidgee and the Murray, which had previously entered the sea by separate mouths, were engrafted to form a single river system. At a later stage a flat-domed anticline arose across the lower course of the stream; through this the river has cut a gorge 200 ft. deep in places, and for 150 miles between Loxton and Murray Bridge, South Australia, it flows through this canyon (Howchin, 1929). In early Pleistocene times the climate became colder and culminated in successive glacial phases, evidence of which can be seen in Tas- mania, at Mount Kosciusko, New South Wales, and in the Owen Stanley Range, New Guinea. Below the snow line the country was well watered during the glacial and possibly the interglacial phases, but then desiccation began and the modern arid climatic cycle in Central Australia was inaugurated. Successive eustatice alternations of high and low sea level gave rise to raised beaches and drowned strandlines. Hodge Smith and Iredale (1924), from geological and biological evidence, concluded that an old shore-line extends along the 70 fathom (420 ft.) submarine contour from Broken Bay, New South Wales, to south-eastern Tasmania. Other strandlines at about 200 ft. and 70 ft. below sea level have been recorded (Cotton, 1926). Similar drowned valleys have been observed in Tasmania (Lewis, 1934, Edwards, 1941). The highest known raised beach, 380 ft. above present sea level, at Ooldea in South Australia, contains fossils which Chapman (1920) regarded as Lower Pleistocene. In the south-east of South Australia a series of dunes, generally consolidated and roughly parallel to the coast, and remains of successive elevated coast lines extend as far as Narracoorte, about 60 miles inland (Tenison Woods, 1862, Howchin, 1918, C. Fenner, 1931, Tindale, 1933, Crocker, 1941). The Narracoorte ‘‘Range”’ follows along a fault searp which has been revealed by marine denudation in some places and is masked by dunes in others. If the raised strandlines correspond with interglacial high sea levels, and the consolidated dunes were formed during glacial epochs, this district may furnish a key to
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 17
Pleistocene history; Hills (1939 b), however, holds that tectonic movements caused the coast to retreat to its present position. In many parts of Australia are remains of a raised beach at about 15-20 ft. above sea level containing mollusea and foraminifera which suggest a climate somewhat warmer than that of the present day (Howchin, 1923, Tindale, 1933). This beach does not appear to correspond with Wright’s pre-glacial 15-foot beach of Western Europe, but was probably formed during the slight general post- glacial refrigeration already mentioned; Daly (1934) estimated that the change happened about 4,000 and Cotton (1926) 3,000 to 5,000 years ago, but Milankovitch’s curve indicates 10,000 years. River terraces exist at various heights up to 100 ft. above present stream level. Extensive dunes fringe the coast in many places; the older consolidated dunes contain remains of extinct marsupials and in places are covered with volcanic ash, and the youngest dunes are still accumulating. Hills (1939 a) considers that the consolidated dunes were formed during the low-water glacial phases, and that the comparatively minor dunes of loose sand are post-glacial.
Some Australian raised beaches and submerged shore-lines may be due principally or entirely to eustatic changes in sea level; but tectonic movements in certain localities are indicated by such features as the anticline across the lower course of the Murray River (Howchin, 1929), and in north-western Victoria and adjoin- ing areas by elevation during Pleistocene and Holocene times accompanied by faulting and warping (Hills, 1939 b). If we accept as approximately correct Daly’s estimate that the melting of all ice-caps and glaciers would raise average sea level about 130 ft., the Ooldea raised beach at 380 ft. above present sea level and about 80 miles from the coast must have been elevated, at least in part, by tectonic movement. The fact that voleanoes were active in south-eastern Australia during Pleistocene and post-Pleistocene times suggests that earth movements were in progress.
The problem of correlating Pleistocene glacial deposits, river terraces, raised beaches, submerged strandlines, sand dunes and alluvial deposits in Australia has not yet been solved. We have no knowledge of the order in which extinct marsupials died out, and consequently their fossil remains do not date the deposits in which they are found; some species and genera possibly did not survive the early Pleistocene stages, but others such as Diprotodon appear to have lived until recent times; Thylacinus and Sarco- philus are extinct on the mainland but survive in 'Tasmania.
Lewis in 1923 demonstrated three Pleistocene glacial phases in Tasmania and in 1933 he gave a more detailed account of them.
18 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
He used local names for identified phases since he was not con- vinced that they are contemporaneous with Pleistocene glacial phases in the northern hemisphere. He could find no evidence of a fourth phase corresponding to the fourth phase of Europe. The three phases are:
1. The Margaret; the latest, mountain tarn stage.
2. The Yolande; the most obvious, cirque-cutting stage. _
3. The Malanna; an ice-cap stage, the oldest and most extensive, but preserved only as fragments.
Lewis considered that his investigations do not preclude other glaciations. There may be (1) an obliterated pre-Malanna glacia- tion; (2) a glacial phase between the Malanna and the Yolande; or (3) a subdivision of the Malanna into more than one phase.
He said that the Malanna ice-cap covered from a third to a half of Tasmania. It was followed by a lengthy interglacial phase during which he considers that the Pieman, the Derwent and other rivers cut gorges 1,000-2,000 ft. deep in hard rocks. Yolande glaciation moulded the topography of those parts of the island more than 2,000 ft. above sea level and is responsible for the most obvious cirques, moraines and glacial deposits, but it lasted a much shorter time than the Malanna and was less intense. An inter- glacial phase probably followed; Lewis could not prove this, but considered available evidence pointed to it. The third, least intense and most recent glacial phase is the Margaret, which gave rise to mountain tarns.
Tentative proposals for correlating non-glacial Pleistocene features with glacial phases have been suggested by David (1924), Tindale (1933), Lewis (1934) and Edwards (1941). None of these authors indicates whether heights of raised beaches and terraces were measured by instruments estimated by eye.
David assigned the maximum Tasmanian ice-sheets and the ice- eap of Mount Kosciusko at 5,000 ft. to the Mindel phase, and moraines of the Tasmanian National Park at 2,500-2,800 ft. to the Riss. He considered that erosion of V-shaped valleys superim- posed on older U-shaped valleys of the Pieman River, Tasmania, and of the Snowy River at Kosciusko began in the Riss-Wiirm interglacial phase, and that the extensive rock platform at 65-85 ft. above sea level in the Ringarooma Valley and the peat deposits of Mowbray Swamp, both in Tasmania, were formed at the same period. To Wiirm glaciation he assigns lake basins in the Tas- manian National Park at 3,200-3,500 ft.; glaciation at Blue Lake, Kosciusko, at 6,150 ft.; and the newest torrent gravels of Eastern Gippsland, Victoria. Minor post-Wirm glaciation followed at the
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 19
Tasmanian National Park near the 4,000 ft. contour and also gave rise to high-level tarns at Kosciusko and moraines near ‘Towns- hend’s Pass in the same district at 6,400-6,700 ft. This was followed by deglaciation, rising sea level, voleanic eruptions at Mount Gambier, South Australia, and Tower Hill, Victoria, and then by a negative eustatic movement in sea level of about 10-15 ft.
In Tasmania Lewis recognized raised beaches and river terraces at 50-100 ft., 40-50 ft. and 5-15 ft. above sea level, and drowned valleys at 150 ft., 30-60 ft. and 20 ft. below sea level. He tentatively correlates these and other features with the three glaciations. Conglomerates of quartzite pebbles at 50-100 ft. above sea level in southern Tasmania, claypan deposits underlying Mowbray Swamp,’ and the Helicidae sandstone (consolidated dunes) at 100 ft. on the islands of Bass Strait he regards as pre-Malannan. The channel of the Derwent River is eroded to 150 ft. below sea level and the strandline must have dropped by this amount; he correlated this with eustatic lowering of sea level during Malanna glaciation, when Tasmania and Australia were united by a land- bridge. River terraces and raised beaches at 40-50 ft. he assigns to the Malanna-Yolande interglacial phase; the conglomerates of these terraces in southern Tasmania consist almost entirely of pebbles of dolerite and Permo-Carboniferous mudstone. Vast changes in physiography took place during the Malanna-Yolande interglacial phase. There is some evidence of river erosion 30-60 ft. below sea level which he considers to correspond with the Yolande phase. The formation of the 5-15 ft. raised beaches and the lowest river terraces he correlates with the Yolande-Margaret interglacial phase. The development of existing river courses and a channel 20 ft. below the floor of the Derwent estuary he attributes to the Margaret glacial phase. Since the latest glaciation he considers that there has been a progressive rise in sea level and that the valley of the Derwent has been drowned as far upstream as New Norfolk.
Edwards observed in north-west Tasmania at least two raised shorelines, one at 5-15 ft. and the other at 40-50 ft., with river terraces at corresponding heights and, in the Mersey and Forth valleys, suggestions of a third strandline at about 100 ft. above sea level in the form of doubtful remnants of river terraces; Johnston (1888) had noted a raised beach at this level on Chappell Island. The valley of the Tamar can be clearly followed on the Admiralty Chart to 15 fathoms and less clearly to 20 fathoms, and contours of submarine valleys in the neighbourhood of Hunter Island and Three Hummocks Island can be traced to 25 fathoms,
6. For notes on Mowbray Swamp see Noetling (1911).
20 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
indicating a submerged shoreline at 120-150 ft. Many basalt-filled valleys pass below sea level and there is some geological evidence that they are older than the 120-150 ft. submerged strandline, but no depth can be suggested for the corresponding submerged shore. He considered that in view of the magnitude of eustatic changes in sea level, there can be little doubt that successive glacial and interglacial stages are contemporaneous throughout the world, and that Tasmanian river terraces and strandlines must be corre- lated with those of the northern hemisphere. There is considerable evidence for a world-wide eustatic fall in sea level of about 15-20 ft. in post-glacial times and we should therefore expect four sets of terraces, but in Tasmania, where the record is not complete, only three have been demonstrated. In his opinion the 40-50 ft. raised strandline may correspond to the Riss-Wiirm interglacial stage, and the 100-150 ft. strandline to the Mindel-Riss stage; according to figures given by Daly (1934) for corresponding raised beaches in Europe and North Africa, their heights are of about the right magnitude. The 120-150 ft. submerged strandline is older than the 40-50 ft. raised beach and presumably younger than the 100- 150 ft. raised beach, and on the suggested correlation it should correspond to the Riss glacial stage. The pre-basaltic strandline should be correlated with an earlier glacial stage, possibly the Giinz, but he points out that the basalt-filled valleys may have been brought to their present positions by faulting.
David’s, Lewis’s, and Edward’s tentative correlations of Aus- tralian Pleistocene and Holocene phenomena are tabulated on the adjacent page.
Tindale (1933) recorded six raised strandlines between Narra- coorte, South Australia, and the present coast. They are situated at heights ranging from about 15 ft. to 220 ft. above sea level on the seaward side of parallel lines of dunes. He correlated them with six raised beaches on the Atlantic coast of the United States investigated by Cooke (1930). Below are tabulated Tindale’s and Cooke’s names for the South Australian and American terraces, Cooke’s tentative correlation with glacial and interglacial phases (American nomenclature), and the equivalent European periods according to Daly (19384) :
S.A. Strands U.S.A. Strands Glacial and Interglacial Phases Woakwine Pamlico Mid-Wisconsin Mid-Wiirm Reedy Creek Chowan Peorian Riss-Wiirm Intergl. West Avenue Wiscomico Sangamon Riss-Wiirm Intergl. Kast Avenue Sunderland Yarmouth Mindel-Riss Intergl. Cave Range Coharie Aftonian Giinz-Mindel Intergl.
Narracoorte Brandywine Pre-glacial Pre-glacial
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
Post-Glacial .
Wiirm — Glaciation (Margaret) .
Riss-Wiirm Inter- glacial ( Yolande- Margaret)...
Riss Glaciation (Yolande)...
Mindel-Riss Inter- glacial (Malanna- Yolande) . ..
Mindel Glaciation (Malanna)...
Giinz - Mindel In- terglacial. ...
David, 1924
Progressive fall in sea level. 10-15 ft. raised beach. Eruptions at Tower Hill and Mt. Gambier. Deglaciation with rising sea level.
Last severe glacia- tion. Lake basins, National Park, Tasmania, and Mt. Kosciusko.
V-shaped superim- posed on U- shaped valleys of Pieman and Snowy _ Rivers. Ringarooma flats excavated. Mow- bray Swamp peat deposits.
Moraines, National Park.
Maximum ice- sheets, Tasmania. “Calotte” ice, Mt. Kosciusko. Kosciusko- Snowy River moraines.
Lewis, 1933, 1934
21 Edwards, 1941
Progressive rise in 5-15 ft. raised
sea level.
Margaret _ glacia- tion. River chan- nel 20 ft. below floor of Derwent estuary.
5-15 ft. raised beaches. Lowest river terraces.
Yolande glaciation. River erosion probably to 60 ft. below sea level.
Raised beaches at 40-50 ft. River terraces at corre- sponding heights. Gorges cut 1000- 1200 ft. deep.
Malanna glaciation. River erosion to 150 ft. below sea level.
beaches and ter- races.
40-50 ft. raised
beaches. 120-150 ft. sub- merged _ strand- line.
100-150 ft. raised beaches.
22 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA David, 1924 Lewis, 1933, 1934 Edwards, 1941
Giinz Glaciation . ? Malanna glacia~ ?>Submerged tion in part. basalt-filled val- leys. Pre-Glacial'. . . Gravels at 50-100
ft. Helicidae sandstone at 100 ft. Claypan de- posits underlying Mowbray Swamp.
Contour maps prepared by Noetling (1909) from soundings recorded on Admiralty charts show that a lowering of sea level by 25 fathoms (150 ft.) Would almost connect Tasmania and Australia by land, and a fall of 30 fathoms (180 ft.) would com- plete the land-bridge.’ Lewis (1934) correlates the greatest fall in sea level that he found in Tasmania, about 150 ft., with the Malanna glacial phase, and Edwards (1941) with the Yolande. If either of these opinions is correct, and there have been no appreciable tectonic movements, island and mainland have been separated by sea since the second or third Pleistocene glacial epoch, a period antedating the migration of Homo sapiens into Hurope.
The fauna of Tasmania and adjacent islands in Bass Strait differs from that of the Australian mainland in several respects, suggesting that the two regions have been isolated from each other long enough for evolutionary changes to have taken place. The Tasmanian region is small and its topography and climate resemble those of the adjacent mainland, particularly Gippsland. Differences in fauna may be illustrated by birds and mammals. Tasmania has about 200 species of birds, most of them in common with Australia, of which about one-fourth are passerine, a ratio of 1 to 3 in contrast to a ratio of 1 to 1 on the mainland. Of nine good species confined to the Tasmanian region, two are restricted to Tasmania proper and seven are also found on adjacent islands. In addition, many well-defined subspecies are peculiar to this region. Tasmania has 32 species of land mammals; two mono- tremes (Platypus and Echidna), 20 marsupials, and 10 placentals (rats and bats). The Echidna is a subspecies confined to Tasmania and adjacent islands. Twelve of the marsupials are found also in Australia, but eight good species and three subspecies are restricted to the Tasmanian region; of these, four species are found only in Tasmania, and four species and three subspecies also inhabit adjacent islands. Macropus billardieri, one of the
7. For supplementary soundings see Dannevig (1910).
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 23
species now confined to the Tasmanian region, became extinct on the Australian mainland only 70 years ago; and bones of two others, Thylacinus cyanocephalus and Sarcophilus ursinus, are found in Holocene deposits on the mainland (Mahony, 1912, Hale and Tindale, 1928). Among the placentals, two rats are confined to Tasmania, the others being also found in Australia. For the above details of birds and mammals I am indebted to George Mack and C. W. Brazenor respectively. The fact that the fauna of islands in Bass Strait is essentially Tasmanian indicates that these islands continued to be connected by land with Tasmania long after the Tasmanian region and the Australian mainland were separated by sea.® :
GEOLOGICAL EvipENCE OF HuMAN ANTIQUITY IN AUSTRALIA
Fossil or sub-fossil human bones have been found in a few Australian localities. Those from Talgai, Aitape, and Keilor are very probably of Pleistocene age: geological evidence of the age of the Keilor skulls and bones seems irrefutable. There are insuf- ficient data on which to base even a guess at the age of the Tartanga bones, except that they are much younger than the Pleistocene anticline through which the Murray in this locality has cut its canyon, but considerably older than those found in the adjacent Devon Downs rock shelter. Evidence concerning the identification and age of the alleged human tooth from the Wellington Caves bone-breccia is unsatisfactory. The Devon Downs bones and the mineralized skulls found at Cohuna and elsewhere in the Murray valley are geologically recent though probably ancient in the historical sense.
Many claims for antiquity of man in Australia have been based on artefacts found, or alleged to have been found, in consolidated dunes, beneath lavas or tuffs of the Newer Volcanic period, in beds containing bones of extinct marsupials, associated with raised shorelines, or buried beneath alluvium. The Newer Volcanic eruptions probably began in Pliocene or early Pleistocene times and continued after the Pleistocene period came to an end, and we know nothing about the order in which various extinct mar-
8. For further details of Australian Post-Tertiary geology see W. Anderson (1890 a), Andrews (1902), Aurousseau and Budge (1921), Bryan (1925), Cameron (1901), Campbell (1910), Chapman (1928), Chapman and Gabriel (1918), Chapman and Mawson (1925), David (1907, 1932), David and Etheridge (1890 b), Dennant (1887), Etheridge (1876, 1890), Etheridge and others (1896), Grant and Thiele (1902), Gregory (1861), Hall (1909), Hard- man (1883, 1884, 1885), Harper (1916), Hart (1893), Hills (1940 a, b), Howchin (1887, 1912, 1918, 1923), Hunter (1909), Jack and Etheridge (1892), Jackson (1902), Johnston (1888), ate and Coulson (1936), Keble and Macpherson (1943), Kitson (1900, 1902), Lucas (1887),
arshall and others (1925), Murray (1887), Pritchard (1910), Richards and Hedley (1925), Singleton (1941), Saint-Smith (1912), Selwyn (1854), Somerville (1920), von Sommer (1849), Siissmilch (1922), Whitehouse (1940), Woods (1862), Woodward (1894), and Woolnough (1912).
24 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
supials died out or when they became extinct; unless there is corroborative evidence, mere association with volcanic rocks or with strata containing bones of extinct marsupials does not prove that artefacts are of Pleistocene age, but geological evidence strongly suggests that the Myrniong artefacts belong to this period. Some shell middens are associated with inland shorelines about 10 ft. or 20 ft. above present sea level, which are probably about 4,000 years old; if this estimate is correct, and the middens were formed not long before sea level fell, these middens are ancient in the historical, but not in the geological sense, and the men who made them lived at about the time that Abraham went into the land of Canaan; it is possible, however, that these shore- lines are more than 4,000 years old. In some localities deposition of alluvium is still in progress, in others it has long ceased; evidence for antiquity of bones and artefacts covered by alluvium therefore depends on local conditions.
The Wellington Tooth Fragment
Since some confusion exists concerning this specimen, its full history is given below.
The first to observe bone-breccias in the Wellington caves appears to have been George Rankin, of Bathurst, New South Wales, in 1830; later in that year Major Thomas Mitchell visited the caves and collected fossil bones, which he sent to Sir Richard Owen. Mitchell (1838) published an account of the caves with plans and a list of fossil marsupials collected there and determined by Owen.
Krefft (1867, p. 91) wrote: ‘‘Homo, Melanian variety. Bones of the extremities found in a cave at Wellington Valley, being— left and right femur, left and right tibia, left and right humerus, portion of fibula’; he makes no suggestion that the bones were ancient or fossilized. On p. 112 he says that in one of the Welling- ton caves ‘‘human remains were obtained, but though very old they are not fossil.’’
The history of the exploration of the caves between 1867 and 1882 is set out in a New South Wales Parliamentary Paper (Anonymous, 1882). At the suggestion of Sir Richard Owen, the New South Wales Parliament in 1867 voted funds for the explora- tion of the caves by the Curator of the Australian Museum, at that time Gerard Krefft. In October, 1869, Krefft reported that he had sunk two shafts in the bone-breccia and had obtained many fossil bones, including those of Thylacoleo, Diprotodon, Noto- therium, and Canis dingo; he also gave a ‘‘List of photographs of Australian fossils for transmission to Professor Owen, F.R.S.,”’
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 25
in which, under Plate Il, he mentions ‘‘the 5th metatarsal bone of a man (recent).’? Owen, in a letter to Krefft, dated January 8th, 1870, remarked: ‘‘... the only disappointment was the absence of human remains and works; but this is an instructive negative fact and accords well with former experience of research in the Wellington Caves.’’ Krefft’s more detailed list of fossils, dated May, 1870, makes no mention of human bones or teeth. In a geological report made in the same year, Professor A. M. Thomson, who visited the site with Krefft, said that ‘‘in the caves at Welling- ton no vestiges of man, whether in the shape of bones, weapons or works of art, have been discovered.”’
In another publication, not recorded in the Parliamentary Paper, Krefft (1870) referred to the fractured crown of a molar tooth, probably human, found in the Wellington caves, and four years later (Krefft, 1874) he wrote: ‘‘I have found the fractured crown of a human molar tooth in the same matrix as Diprotodon and Thylacoleo at Wellington in this colony. Man may there- fore have been the contemporary of these animals and also of Dromornis.”’ These are apparently Krefft’s only published refer- ences to the tooth. None is given in the Parliamentary Paper of 1882. Krefft’s appointment at the Australian Museum was ter- minated in August, 1874.
Etheridge (1891) re-examined the fragment, which consists of about two-thirds of the crown broken off from the remainder of the tooth, and wrote—‘that it is the crown of a human molar is, I think, beyond much doubt; but to guard against mistake I placed the specimen in the hands of Mr. P. R. Pedley,® who corroborates Mr. Krefft’s determination.’’ The tooth, though mineralized to the same extent as the marsupial teeth, was not in the matrix, and Etheridge was not convinced that it came from the bone-breccia. He mentioned a recent unmineralized skeleton of an aboriginal woman found in No. 2 cave; this is possibly the ‘‘human remains’’ recorded by Krefft in 1867. Later, Etheridge (1916) found among the Krefft MSS. in the Mitchell Library in Krefft’s own hand- writing an explanation of the plates that had been published in the Parliamentary Paper referred to above. In explanation of Plate 12, Krefft wrote: ‘‘Figs. 3 and 4. Side view, natural size, and view from above enlarged of a human molar tooth, taken from the solid breccia of Wellington Cave by the writer.’’ Attached to these documents is what appears to be a small plan of the work going on at the caves under Krefft’s supervision, but possibly prepared by the workman in charge, giving depths and details; in a footnote to this plan occurs the following remark: ‘‘In a
9. Pedley was then a leading dentist in Sydney.
26 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
well-hole where Krefft found human skeleton in red breccia.’ This skeleton, as far as I can ascertain, had never before been mentioned in any publication, and Dr. Walkom, Director of the Australian Museum, has informed me that no record of it can be found in the Australian Museum.
C. Anderson (1926) considered that the fossil bones of the bone- breccia are those of animals which either fell through sink holes or were swept in by flood waters; that they probably differ con- siderably in age; and that the human tooth, therefore, may possibly belong to a later period than some of the other bones.
Finally, Dr. T. D. Campbell has kindly allowed me to say that in 1935 he had an opportunity of briefly examining the specimen, and in notes made at that time he recorded that the attrition of the tooth fragment does not appear to accord with that usually found on aboriginal molars; and this appearance, together with other features, left in his mind a definite doubt that the tooth fragment is human.
Both geological evidence of antiquity and specific determination of the tooth are unsatisfactory.
The specimen is in the Australian Museum, Sydney.
The Talgai Skull.
The Talgai skull was found in 1884 by a man employed at Talgai Station, near Clifton, Darling Downs, Queensland, and was in private possession until 1914, when it was forwarded to Professor Edgeworth David. Shortly afterwards, David and Wilson (1914) published a preliminary note on the skull. Stewart Smith (1918), who described it in detail, says that late in 1914 Professor David visited 'Talgai and there found the original discoverer, then a very old man, who pointed out to within a few yards the spot in the bank of the gully where he had found the skull 30 years previously. He said that it protruded from the bank about 3 ft. above the bottom of the gully. Here black soil 6 or 7 ft. thick overlies red- brown clay, and according to the finder, the skull was embedded in the upper part of the clay. No bones of extinct marsupials have been found at this site, but they have been found in similar clay at various places in the Darling Downs, such as King’s Creek, 10 miles from Talgai. David supplied Stewart Smith with geological notes and the section reproduced in Fig. 3.
The skull is that of a male youth with unerupted wisdom teeth. It is mineralized and has been considerably distorted by pressure of the clay in which it was embedded.
Geological evidence cannot be regarded as satisfactory since it depends on the memory of an untrained observer who found the
’
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 27
specimen 30 years before he pointed out the site to David; but colour, state of mineralization, and distortion of the skull are similar to those characteristic of skulls of extinct marsupials found in the red-brown clay of the Darling Downs. Whether this formation is Pleistocene or Holocene in age has not been deter- mined, but it is probably Pleistocene.
According to Stewart Smith the skull is very primitive,
aes
SECTION
° Skull found Sek 2 TaN - airy ™P e Cr Q ‘TTEM 3 2 ° ub “4. if pYVARWICK 12 Miles FIG 3.
Talgai: Locality Plan and Geological Section. (Stewart Smith, 1918.)
especially in respect to the large facetted canine teeth, but it is undoubtedly of the Australian type, and available evidence fails to reveal Tasmanian affinities. He said that the cranium is similar in all respects to the cranium of the modern Australian, and the facial skeleton is of Australian type; but in the palate and canine
28 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
teeth there are, in conjunction with the most primitive characters found in modern skulls, others more ape-like than have been observed in any living or extinct race, except Eoanthropus. Burkitt (1928) concluded that the position and facetting of the canine tecth fall into line with those of modern aboriginals, but that the teeth anterior to the molars are more primitive, especially in size; and that Stewart Smith’s conclusions regarding the primitive character of the palate remain unaltered. He said that the palate of the Talgai skull with unerupted wisdom teeth is as large as the palate of the average modern adult male aboriginal with the full complement of molar teeth.
Campbell (1925) remarked that measurements of the teeth of the Talgai youth are greater than average measurements of corre- sponding teeth of modern aboriginals, but, with few exceptions, all lie within the extreme range.
Wood Jones (1934 a) published dioptrographic drawings of the palates of a large modern aboriginal skull from Wentworth, New South Wales, and of the Talgai skull. He says that the teeth of the Wentworth skull are worn and the canines are absent, but even with this disadvantage it clearly demonstrates the fact that the Talgai skull has no real claims to be considered outside the range of variation of the recent aboriginal. He adds that since Stewart Smith’s original publication, investigations by Campbell and Burkitt have rightly tended to diminish the importance of certain features taken by Stewart Smith to indicate a peculiarly ape-like dentition; and that it is fair to say that the Talgai skull should be regarded as that of a young aboriginal with large palate and large teeth, but still not wholly outlandish even in regard to these features.
Dr. J. Wunderly has informed me that some canine teeth extracted in the Melbourne Dental Hospital from jaws of Euro- peans are larger than any recorded for Australian aboriginals.
The skull is in the Anatomy School, University of Sydney.
The Tartanga Skeletons
Tartanga lies in the Murray River canyon near Nildottie, South Australia, where the valley is a mile wide and is bounded by cliffs of Tertiary limestone about 40 ft. high. The river is over 100 yards across and the narrow low-lying island where the bones were found separates the stream from Tartanga lagoon.
Part of a human skeleton exposed by erosion at Tartanga was sent to the South Australian Museum in 1928 by W. R. Roy, of New Devon Downs. In consequence, Hale and Tindale (1928) excavated both this site and the adjacent Devon Downs rock
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 29
shelter with great care. Palates and teeth of human skulls they discovered were examined by Dr. T. D. Campbell.
Hale and Tindale cut a trench across the outcrops of five layers of consolidated sand and clay having a total thickness of about 6 ft. 6 in.; these beds dip eastwards at a low angle, and they are overlain to the east by recent unconsolidated mud and silt. The first-found fossil skeleton was exposed by denudation in the upper- most consolidated layer. These and other human bones found at this site are heavily stained with iron oxide and considerably mineralized.
In the top layer was the much fragmented skeleton of a child with a fairly complete skull, of which the authors give measure- ments and dioptrographic drawings. Dimensions of all teeth except the unerupted third molars are greater than the average recorded for Australian aborigines, the second incisor being equal to the maximum, but, as in the Talgai skull, the upper third molars are of less than average size. The estimated area of the palate is 3,600 sq. mm., a size found only in exceptionally large Australian adult male skulls, but the teeth suggest a child 10-12 years old. The body had apparently been buried from the upper part of the bed in which it was found. In the next underlying bed were portions of a left maxilla, the right ramus of a lower jaw and three loose teeth. The teeth, which indicate a child about 12 years old, are large, and crenulation of the occlusal surface of the second and third molars is more marked than is usual in teeth of modern Australian aborigines. In the third bed from the surface were the greater part of the bones of the trunk and a skull fragment; this was a burial, apparently from the upper part of the upper- most bed.
With the bones was evidence of occupation of the site—burnt stones, food debris, flakes of quartz and chert, and implements of chert and bone. Shells of a freshwater mussel are abundant; the shell is relatively thicker than that of Unio vittatus, which lives in the neighbouring lagoon, but otherwise resembles it, and Hale and Tindale gave this mussel specific rank with the name Unio (Hyridella) provittatus.
The authors conclude that full discussion of the Tartanga remains must await detailed study ; that material at present avail- able suggests an early Australian race linking Talgai man with modern aborigines ; and that geological and physiographic features indicate at least some antiquity.
Tindale (1941) suggested that the Tartangan may have resembled the Tasmanian aboriginal, but he brought forward no evidence to support this view; he adds that Tartangan man
30 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
seemingly lived immediately prior to the formation of the post-
glacial (12-20 ft.) marine terrace. ; The bones were in a deposit formed after the river had cut its
canyon through the Pleistocene anticline previously mentioned. All specimens are in the South Australian Museum, Adelaide.
Devon Downs Human Remains.
At Devon Downs cliff shelter, occupational detritus, where excavated by Hale and Tindale (1928), was about 20 ft. thick and divided into twelve layers. The shelter had previously been described and figured, but not excavated, by H. L. Sheard ( 1927).
Human remains were found in the second, third, fourth, sixth, and eleventh layers from the surface. None was mineralized. In layer 2 were the bones of a young baby; a burial. In layer 3 a child of 15 to 18 months old had been buried; the skull was almost complete, and most of the other bones were recovered; deciduous teeth are all present and are very large. From layer 4 a deep grave penetrated layer 5 and part of layer 6; it contained a child’s skeleton and an almost complete human lower jaw; the teeth are similar to those from layer 3. In layer 6 were the greater part of a lower jaw, some teeth, and a few fragments of the calvarium of a child about 5 years of age; the jaw and teeth resemble those of recent young aborigines of similar age. In layer 11 was a single, much-worn crown of a left deciduous incisor; it is large but con- siderably worn by attrition.
Hundreds of artefacts and animal remains were distributed throughout the occupational detritus. Bones of Sarco philus, now confined to Tasmania, occur in the lower layers.
The authors believe that the accumulations in Devon Downs shelter are younger than the Tartangan strata; that the artefacts in successive layers of the well-stratified occupational detritus indicate five successive cultural phases; and that faunal modifi- cations are possibly due to changes in climate,
The thickness of stratified detritus and variation in artefacts and fauna in successive layers indicate that the shelter was used by aborigines for many centuries.
All specimens are in the South Australian Museum, Adelaide.
The Keilor Skulls and Bones.
Two mineralized human skulls and some other bones were found in undisturbed ground at a depth of 19 ft. in a terrace adjoining the Maribyrnong River and 45 ft. above river level. The sandpit where they were found is a mile north of Keilor village, which lies 10 miles north-west of Melbourne. The sandpit was worked by
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 31
R. Hughes, sand contractor. Except for two small pieces of bone near the foramen magnum and a hole in the side made by the pick of the workman who unearthed it, one skull is complete, but its lower jaw is missing. It is large and it combines Australoid with Tasmanoid characteristics in about equal proportions. Anatomical descriptions of the specimen as a whole by Dr. J. Wunderly and of the palate and dental arch by Dr. William Adam will be found elsewhere in this volume of Memoirs, together with notes based on geological investigations by R. A. Keble and Miss Hope Macpher- son, which indicate that it dates back to the Riss-Wirm Inter-
FIG. 4. Quartzite Flake, Keilor.
glacial phase of Pleistocene times. The second skull and most of the other bones have not yet been received by the Museum.
Mr. Hughes has supplied the following note on the circumstances of the discovery:
“Early in October (about Oct. 10th), 1940, a fossil human skull was found by James White, who was employed by me, in a pit which I opened for moulding sand near the junction of Dry Creek and the Maribyrnong River about one mile north of Keilor. I was present at the time together with Thomas Murphy. White was working on the face of the pit when his pick went through the skull and broke it into three pieces. It was about 15 ft. below the surface of the ground and 18 in. above the floor of the pit. One fossilized limb bone and several other fragments of bone were found alongside the skull. The sand above the bones showed no signs of having been disturbed by a burial and the skull could not have fallen from above since it was embedded in undisturbed sand. We washed off the sand with which it was coated. I took the skull and pieces of broken bone to the National Museum on November 4th, 1940, and left them there. Some weeks later Mr. Mahony, Mr. Keble and Mr. Brazenor of the National Museum visited the sand pit with me and I pointed out to them the spot where the skull was found. Up
c
32 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
to this time the face of the pit at this point was in the same condition as when the skull was found. Since then five pieces of another skull were found at the same level and about six feet distant from the first skull.”
(Signed) R. Hughes, Aug. 22nd, 1942
Dr. E. 8. Hills found a quartzite flake protruding from undis- turbed sand in the wall of the pit close to the spot where the skull was unearthed. The flake (Fig. 4) is evidently an artefact.
Owing to war-time conditions it has been impossible to carry out systematic excavation and sieving of sand to find other bones, teeth and artefacts.
One skull, some fragments of bone and the quartzite flake are in the National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne.
The Attape Skull
This specimen is mentioned since New Guinea is close to Australia, the skull is Australian in type, and there is geological evidence of its antiquity. It was described by F. J. Penner (1941).
Aitape District is situated in the western part of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. In 1929, P. 8. Hossfeld, of the Northern Australian Geological Survey, found fragments of a fossil human skull in situ in a bed of littoral marine clay outcropping in the east bank of Paniri Creek near Barida Village, Aitape, 10 miles from the coast and about 300 ft. above sea level. The skull was overlain by 4 ft. of undisturbed littoral deposit containing marine mollusea, and above this by 6 ft. of gravel on which rested soil. The littoral marine deposit forms part of the Upper Wanimo Series which is considered by Survey authorities to be Pleistocene in age. There is no record of other mammalian bones at this site.
The fragment was broken into four pieces while being unearthed. Three of these fitted together accurately. The reconstructed cal- varium comprises the greater part of the frontal bone, parts absent being the left external angular processes and both orbital plates. The nasal process is almost entire, and the sutural impres- sions of the nasal bones and the nasal processes of the maxilla are preserved. On the right side, the sutural impression of the frontal process of the zygomatic bone is undamaged. Portions of both parietal bones are present, their broken edges running roughly parallel to the coronal suture and about three centimetres behind it. The specimen shows no evidence of being waterworn. Fenner suggests that the fragment is portion of the skull of a female about 45 years of age. He discusses its racial affinities and considers that it belonged to an individual not differing greatly from the southern type of modern Australian aboriginal, but he adds that occasional rare Australoid types of New Guinea skull
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 33
differ from the Aitape fragment little more than do average Australian skulls. There are no characters suggesting affinities with Tasmanians; the absence of the paramedian parietal groove, stressed by Wunderly as characteristic of Tasmanians, and the fairly obvious narrowness of the parietal region definitely exclud- ing this possibility.
The skull is in the Australian Institute of Anatomy, Canberra.
Other Fossil Human Remains
Basedow (1925) mentioned the fossilized posterior half of the left parietal of a human skull found in ‘Pleistocene (or Pliocene?)’’ gravels SSE. of Tennant’s Creek district, Central Australia. He gives no exact locality, no indication of how the age of the deposit was determined, nor at what depth the specimen was found, nor who discovered it. I can find no record of where the specimen now is. H. M. Hale and N. B. Tindale, of the South Australian Museum, have informed me that they handled the specimen some years ago, and that Basedow then told them that it had been found on the surface; it was stained brown but not mineralized, and in their opinion it did not suggest geological antiquity. After Basedow’s death they prepared his collections for submission to the Institute of Anatomy, Canberra, which afterwards purchased them, but the specimen was not then recog- nized among his effects.
The Melbourne Argus of December 6th, 1915, published the following note:
“While digging out marl at Jimmy’s Point, Lakes Entrance, a labourer recently unearthed three human skulls, evidently of very primitive type. They were near the base of the escarpment, and about ten feet from the grassed surface. Each of them was in a remarkably good state of preservation. Professor Flynn from Tasmania, who was making an official tour of inquiry at the Lakes with the Chief Inspector of Fisheries, Victoria, examined the skulls, and said he would report to the Melbourne University, and that they were of great archaeological interest.”
I have been unable to find what became of these skulls; they are not at the Melbourne University.
Under favourable conditions, such as contact with water carrying carbonates in solution, organic matter may be rapidly mineralized. There are certain springs in which twigs, ete., become coated and impregnated with carbonate of lime in a few weeks. Mineralization of human bones cannot therefore be taken as proof of geological antiquity; the age of the deposit in which the bones are found and evidence that they are contemporaneous with it, not subsequent burials, are the only acceptable proofs of geological antiquity.
34 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
However, since mineralization of bones predisposes some people to attribute geological antiquity to them, Australian examples with no claim to such antiquity are mentioned below.
In the surface deposits of the vast alluvial plain through which the Murray, its anabranches and tributaries wander, mineralized human skulls and other bones have been found at or close to the surface at Renmark, Swan Hill, Cohuna, Moulamein, Nyang, Balranald, Euston, and Nacurrie. Alluvium has here accumulated to a depth of at least 150 ft. during Post-Tertiary times, and all surface deposits are Holocene.
Except in the case of the Cohuna skull, no claim has been made that these skulls differ from those of modern Australian aborigines. Wood Jones, who examined some of them, is of the opinion that there are no morphological features by which they ean be differentiated from those of modern aborigines (Wood Jones, 1934; Mahony and others, 1936). F. J. Fenner (1938) described two of them (a child of 4 or 5 years old and an adult), both pathologic, together with three similarly pathologic skulls of recent aborigines, and he found that in features other than pathologie the adult skull is typical of the adult male Australian.
The Cohuna skull, however, has had some fame to which, as shown below, it is not entitled. It was found during the excava- tion of an irrigation channel near Cohuna, Victoria, in November, 1925, at a depth of two feet in red loam. No other human bones were discovered at this place, but normal aboriginal skeletons were unearthed close by at about the same depth. George Terry of Cohuna brought the skull under notice. A geological report on the site made by the writer of this paper in March, 1926, recorded that there is no evidence of geological antiquity; the report was published some years later (Mahony and others, 1936). Dr. W. R. Browne has informed me that he agrees with this opinion after examining the site in 1940 in company with Professors Priestly, Burkitt and Shellshear. The skull was acquired by Sir Colin Mackenzie, Director of the Australian Institute of Anatomy, who did not describe it but sent some data, with measurements and a tracing along the middle line of the skull, to Sir Arthur Keith. Keith (1931) published an account based on this information, and expressed the opinion that it is the most primitive known type of human skull. The error arose from the fact that Mackenzie mistook for bone the adhering mineral incrustation, which is up to a quarter of an inch thick in places; for this information I am indebted to Professor A. N. Burkitt. Professor J. L. Shellshear has kindly allowed me to say that, after Sir Colin Mackenzie’s death, he removed the incrustation, and that from his observations
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 35
on the skull he finds that it falls within the range of modern aboriginal skulls, to which it is similar in all respects. Campbell (1943) says that the intact, major portion of the Cohuna dental arch is typical of a large aboriginal dental arch.
Shellshear (1939) described a partly mineralized normal abori- ginal skull found on the beach of Stradbroke Island, Queensland.
The flexed, desiccated body of an aboriginal partly encrusted with stalagmite was was found in one of the Mosquito Plain caves near Mount Gambier, South Australia (Woods, 1862). It was exhibited in a number of towns in Australia and Tasmania as a **Petrified Woman,’’ and is reported to be now in a Berlin museum. It was probably a recent burial similar to that described by Tindale and Mountford (1936). Other records of recent human remains found in caves are given by Etheridge (1893) and by Etheridge and Trickett (1905); as a rule aborigines fear dark caves and do not enter them.
Artefacts
At the Doone tin mine in north-eastern Tasmania, stanniferous sands and gravels were treated by sluicing the sides of an open cut with a powerful jet of water. A stone implement was found in material brought down by sluicing, and David (1923) claimed that it is contemporaneous with the stanniferous sands which he believed to be Pleistocene in age and of fluvio-glacial origin. The writer of this paper examined the implement soon afterwards and noticed that one side was more weathered than the other, which suggested that it had long lain on the surface of the ground and had then fallen into the open cut. Meston (1936) gave reasons for believing that it had fallen from the surface and that it is of recent origin.
In the Derwent Valley, Tasmania, is a midden which Lewis (1934) correlated with the Yolande-Margaret (Riss-Wiirm) inter- glacial phase, but Meston has shown that it is almost certainly modern.
Consolidated calcareous dunes in the Warrnambool district, Victoria, extend along the coast and are overlain in places by bedded tuff ejected from Tower Hill. These dunes may have been formed during one of the Pleistocene glacial phases (Hills, 1938 a). The dune rock was formerly quarried for building pur- poses, and some of the slabs bore impressions of footprints of large struthious birds. In 1890 a slab quarried at a depth of 50 ft. displayed impressions supposed to resemble human foot- prints and also marks such as would be made by two people sitting side by side on soft sand (Officer, 1892). The specimen is in the
36 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
Warrnambool Museum, but the stone is friable and the impressions are almost obliterated ; photographs taken while they were distinct were published by Branco (1905) and by Klaatsch (1906). Gregory (1904) rejected as man-made both tracks and other impressions. The tracks are narrow and are identical in shape with those made in snow by kangaroos (Noetling, 1907). There can be little doubt that the tracks and other impressions were made by kangaroos, not by human beings.
About 45 years ago OC. C. Brittlebank, Government Plant Pathologist, while making geological observations, found a stone implement in a bed of gravelly clay 1 ft. 6 in. thick resting on Permo-Carboniferous glacial strata and underlying Newer Vol- canic lava flows near the junction of Myrniong Creek and the Werribee River, about six miles north-west of Bacchus Marsh,
¢ Sub-basaltia ot ~~ Gravel cm Termo Carb ra men - SA» eae i CC - ff FIG. 5,
Site where the first sub-basaltic Artefact was found (X). Sketch from a photograph by C. C. Brittlebank.
Victoria (Plate I). He presented the specimen to the National Museum, but did not publish any record of it. The implement is a wedge-shaped slab of hard slaty rock measuring about 7 inches by 6 inches, the narrowest part (4 inches) being at the thicker end. One face, somewhat roughened by weathering, is slightly concave, and near its centre are indentations made by pounding with another stone; the opposite face is slightly convex, rougher, and shows no signs of usage. Flakes have been struck off the edges of one side and of the thinner end, as if to make a crude chopper.
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 37
The other side is straight and smooth, apparently a natural cleavage surface, and the smaller end is bounded by two fractures. Weathering has dulled sharp edges. A few years later Brittlebank found two more artefacts in the same sub-basaltic gravel; one of these is the axe illustrated in Plate III, figs. 3 and 4. One-third of this axe protruded from the outcrop and the rest was embedded in tough sandy red clay which had to be picked away to free it. The other specimen, though less deeply embedded, was also firmly fixed in the clay. Both were found within a few yards of where the first was discovered. His letters to the Museum record that Brittlebank found the first artefact in an excavation made for the purpose of observing the effect produced by heat from the lava on the underlying gravelly clay. At about 1 ft. 8 in. or 2 ft. from the outcrop of this bed he found the implement in tough gravelly clay and almost in contact with the base of the lava flow. Since it differed in shape and size from the surrounding quartz pebbles, he examined it closely and, observing the chipped edge, he took it to water and washed away the adhering red sandy clay and small pebbles. He then saw that it was an implement made of hard slate. He was convinced that it could not have fallen through a fracture in the basalt to the position where he found it, nor have been placed there in post-basaltic times. Brittlebank being an experienced and accurate scientific observer and a sound geologist, his evidence must carry great weight. It has been suggested that the first-found implement may have been buried in recent times by surface material sliding down the slope of the hill (Mahony and others, 1933), but these authors did not know that Brittlebank found two other artefacts in the same gravel. Since the basalt was extruded, valleys several hundred feet deep have been cut through it into the underlying rocks, and the basalt where the artefact was found forms a small isolated plateau, locally known as The Island, since it is almost surrounded by the deep valleys of the Werribee River and Myrniong Creek. The area is close to the eastern margin of the Ballarat Plateau. The Island is about 1,200 ft. above sea level, and the adjoining Bacchus Marsh basin, through which the Werribee River flows, is nearly 900 ft. lower and is only 5 miles distant as the crow flies. Brittle- bank made a geological map and section of the locality and marked on it the site where he found the first sub-basaltic implement (Plate IT): his manuscript map is in the National Museum of Victoria.
The Werribee River is a puny stream. At Bacchus Marsh its drainage area is 115 sq. miles and its average discharge 250 gallons of water per second; in summer it usually ceases to flow. Between
38 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
Ballan and the Bacchus Marsh basin, a distance of eight miles as the crow flies or eleven along the course of the river, its bed falls 95 ft. per mile’ and the river flows through a gorge ranging from 400 ft. to 600 ft. in depth. Possibly in its early development, when the stream was cutting its valley into the Newer Volcanic lava, it flowed over a waterfall into the Bacchus Marsh basin, and owing to erosion the ledge over which it fell retreated upstream and finally disappeared, leaving a steeply inclined river bed. Rainfall may formerly have been greater than it is now.
For a period of five years Brittlebank (1900) conducted experi- ments at numerous points to determine the rate of erosion of the bed of the gorge, and his results work out at 0°58 inch per century. The period of experiment was probably too short and his methods not sufficiently accurate to give a figure other than an approxi- mation to the right order of magnitude. No data are available for similar streams elsewhere. The average rate of degradation of the Mississippi basin is estimated at 0°34 inch per century, and Niagara Falls are retreating upstream at an average rate of 4 ft. 6 in. per annum (Chamberlin and Salisbury, 1905), but the general fall per mile of the Mississippi is low and the rate of retreat of Niagara Falls is exceptionally rapid, so these figures are of little value in an enquiry into the rate of formation of the Werribee gorge, but they indicate that a waterfall causes rapid erosion.
If we assume that the rate of erosion of Werribee gorge during its whole development was very high and averaged 20 times the amount that Brittlebank’s figure indicates for the present time, say 12 inches per century, the excavation of the gorge would take 60,000 years. Though this figure is hypothetical and probably too small, it indicates that the sub-basaltie gravel bed at Myrniong in which the implements were found is Pleistocene in age.
In the Great Buninyong Estate mine, near Ballarat, Victoria, fragments of bones of extinct marsupials were found 240 ft. from the surface in black pyritic clay underlying a basaltic lava flow; the bones were near the base of the lava. The clay is a swamp deposit and the basalt is a lava flow from Mount Buninyong, a scoria cone in the vicinity (Hart, 1899). The bones, which are mineralized and impregnated with pyrites, were identified by De Vis (1899) as those of Diprotodon and an extinct kangaroo, Macropus faunus. One fragment, probably part of a Diprotodon rib, is about 6 inches long, irregular at one end and terminated at the other by two cuts from opposite sides which do not meet
10. Figures for drainage area, discharge and fall of river bed were supplied by the Victorian State Rivers and Water Supply Commission: river gaugings at Bacchus Marsh were taken over a period of 15 years.
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 39
_ but are separated by an irregular broken surface (Plate ILI, figs. 5and 6). The cuts were considered by De Vis to have been made _ byasharp implement, not by teeth of carnivores, and in his opinion the specimen is an artefact. Gregory (1904) rejected this sugges- tion, and held that the cuts were made accidentally by the shovel of the miner who unearthed the bone. The surface of each cut, however, is not flat as would be expected if made with a shovel; one, especially, looks like the result of several short strokes of a pocket knife used as in cutting plug tobacco. Possibly the miner who found it tested its hardness in this way. The shape of the fragment and the relative positions of the cuts do not suggest an artefact. A. 8. Kenyon, who examined the specimen at about the same time as Gregory, recorded that the cuts had crushed the ites in the bone, and were therefore made after the bone had | fossilized (Mahony and others, 1933). Many years ago the specimen was covered with size to prevent oxidation of the pyrites; no pyrites can now be seen and it is therefore difficult to determine the appearance of the cuts when the bone was found. A face cut for experimental purposes in 1934 on one of the other Buninyong bones has exactly the same appearance as those on the supposed artefact. De Vis identified one of the other fragments as probably the head of the same rib from which supposed artefact was made; if this is correct, it seems more reasonable to suppose that the bone was broken by the jaws of a carnivore than that a man would make an implement out of one part of the rib and then discard it close tothe rejected portion. The specimen was formerly in the Ballarat School of Mines but is now in the National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne.
Cuts and scratches on bones of extinct marsupials from the Darling Downs, Queensland, and several localities in Victoria, considered by some observers to have been made by human agency, have been attributed to tooth marks of the marsupial lion, Thyla- coleo, by De Vis (1884) and by Spencer and Walcott (1912). J. E. Tenison Woods (1883, 1886) noticed sears on the bone of a large struthious bird associated with midden material near Penola, South Australia, and suggested that they were made by aborigines; he considered that the bird is the extinet Dromornis." _ Asmall quartzite upper mill stone (Plate ILI, figs. 1 and 2) was found in 1908 by A. J. Merry of Terang while making an excava- tion for the foundations of a concrete culvert over Pejark Swamp drainage channel where it crosses the road from Terang to Noorat, Victoria. One side has been rubbed flat, and a depression (‘‘husk- ing hole’’) has been made on the other (Plate ILI, figs. 5 and 6) ; IL. See also Etheridge (1890).
40 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
similar implements are commonly found on the surface in Victoria. He gave the specimen to the National Museum and supplied the following information. The excavation, which is 10 ft. deep, passed through soil 3 ft., bedded voleanic tuff 2 ft., black clay 3 ft., and yellow clay 2 ft. The yellow clay and the base of the black clay contained numerous fragments of marsupial bones. ‘The millstone was embedded in the yellow clay 2 ft. below the level of the bed of the drainage channel and 3 ft. distant from it. Merry, while digging in the yellow clay, felt his shovel strike against a solid object and, thinking it might be a large fragment of bone, he dug it out carefully. Shortly afterwards he showed it to Dr. Beaton, a local medical practitioner, and after the adhering yellow clay had been washed off, both of them recognized it as a stone imple- ment. Merry found another stone implement in clay thrown out of the excavation, but could not be certain which part of the hole it came from. He added that R. Harvie, who had been employed in excavating the drainage channel in 1893, told him that he had dug up a grindstone from similar yellow clay 4 ft. below the bedded tuff layer at a site about one chain west of the culvert, and that a petrified human skull had also been found 5 ft. below the tuff about 100 yards west of the culvert, but the skull was broken up and thrown away by the workman who found it. Sir Baldwin Spencer and R. H. Walcott, in December, 1908, made excavations alongside the drainage channel near the culvert but found nothing except fragments of marsupial bones. Spencer and Walcott (1911) recorded the implement without giving full details since their paper concerned scars and scratches on fossil marsupial bones from this and other localities. Further excavations should be made at this site.
Stone implements are said to have been found under tuff near Mount Schank, South Australia, but no particulars are available.
In 1854 a basalt axe-head was found by A. C. Swinton at a depth of 4 ft. in alluvial wash in which he was sinking a shaft that bottomed on bedrock at 5 ft. (Howitt, 1898); the wash was cemented gravel with three false bottoms and was situated in a small tributary valley of the main lead near Maryborough, Vic- toria. About 40 years later, Swinton, at the request of Howitt, marked on a plan the position of this shaft, and Stanley Hunter, an officer of the Geological Survey, examined the locality. Hunter found that the tributary referred to by Swinton is one of the heads of the Bet Bet sub-basaltic lead (buried river valley) and he considered that the lower deposits of wash in the tributary may be of the same age as the sub-basaltie wash of the Bet Bet lead. At a later date Hunter told Gregory that he did not attach much
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 41
importance to the discovery of the artefact since it might have fallen into a wombat hole or a natural hollow in the ground (Gregory, 1904) ; it seems unlikely, however, that wombats would burrow in consolidated gravel or that prospectors would sink a shaft where there was a natural hollow.
In Dicker’s Mining Record, 1864, p. 120, a figure is given of a basalt axe-like implement with a hafting groove found in undis- turbed gravelly clay at 22 inches below the surface at Ballarat. It was 8 inches long, weighed 5 Ib., and was patinated. The imple- ment (fig. 6) is similar to a type commonly found on the surface in the Western District of Victoria.
Voisey (1934) recorded kitchen middens of oyster and other shells along the base of low cliffs that mark an old coast line extending from Grassy Head to Collombatti, about 10 miles inland, in the Kempsey district, New South Wales. The old strandline
tat t"
\
: WN
Y
are
ass SS
<~ wy
WE
Wy
Y} iA
FIG. 6. The Ballarat Implement. (Reproduced from Dicker’s Mining Record, 1864.)
is about 10 ft. above present high-tide level. McCarthy (1943), who described these middens and the contained implements, quotes Professor L. A. Cotton’s opinion that they were formed between 5,000 and 11,000 years ago. Near the mouth of the Burdekin River, Queensland, is another locality where oyster-shell middens con- taining stone artefacts are associated with an old shoreline 4 miles inland and about 20 ft. above high-tide level (Jardine, 1928). Since primitive people do not carry large quantities of shellfish to camps several miles inland, the inference is that these middens were formed before the sea retreated to the present shoreline. W. Ander- son (1890 b) made a similar suggestion in regard to middens 30 ft. above sea level near Pambula and Noorooma, N.S.W.
South of the Embley River on the western side of Cape York Peninsula and about three-quarters of a mile inland from the coast
42 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
there are large shell middens forming a series of heaps and mounds from 20 to 30 ft. high which extend for several hundred yards (Jackson, 1902).
Middens several acres in extent and up to 10 ft. thick composed of oyster and other shells have long been known in ‘Tasmania. Noetling (1910) caleulated that the time required for them to accumulate is 5,000 to 7,000 years. His calculations are based on assumptions, which may or may not be approximately correct, concerning the number of natives formerly inhabiting ‘Tasmania, and shellfish consumed per head per day. David (1923) thought that a considerably longer time is indicated.
At the Reedbeds, Fulham, near Adelaide (White, 1919; Howchin, 1919), and at Shea’s Creek, near Sydney (Etheridge and others, 1896), artefacts have been found near the coast in swamp deposits or estuarine beds a few feet below sea level.” Both deposits are considered to be geologically recent.
The only records of implements in river terraces are those of Ferguson (1894), who found some in terraces a little above the level of the present streams in the valleys of the Hopkins and Wannon Rivers, near Wickliff, Victoria, and the artefact found near the Keilor skulls.
Large areas of Central Australia are covered with ‘‘gibber,’’ that is, with wind-worn fragments of hard rock derived from strata disintegrated by subaerial denudation. Among the gibber stones Howchin (1921) found flaked pieces of siliceous rock with patinated surfaces; he regarded them as ancient artefacts of an earlier cultural phase than that of modern aborigines. Wood Jones and Campbell (1925) and Tindale (1932) have furnished sound reasons for believing that the flaking was fortuitously caused by natural agencies.
Bennett (1867) recorded that sandstone with grooves similar to those made on grindstones or outcrops of sandstone by aborigines when sharpening their stone axes was found in the Hunter River valley, New South Wales, under 30 ft. or more of alluvium. In this locality alluvium accumulates rapidly and instances are cited of some flats having been buried under 4 ft. of silt during a single flood (MacPherson, 1886).
During the construction in 1913 of the Sugarloaf Dam near the junction of the Goulburn and Delatite Rivers, R. B. Comer, engineer, State Rivers and Water Supply Commission, collected hundreds of stone implements for the National Museum of Vic- toria. Among them was an axe fashioned from a pebble found more than 20 ft. below the surface, and four others from 28 ft.
12. See also David (1923 a) and Tindale (1937 b).
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 43
the latter came from an excavation at the head of a gully near Mount Tinnigar, Devil’s River.
At Hasemer’s brick pit, Forbes, New South Wales, Andrews (1901) recorded middens and bones of Diprotodon in alluvium at a depth of 18 ft. from the surface. There is no available evidence as to whether alluvium is now accumulating at this site. Andrews has informed me that he saw the pit only after complete removal of these objects, but that he considers that Hasemer’s statement concerning them was an honest one; he cannot, however, vouch for the association of the midden with the bones.
A stone tomahawk was unearthed at a depth of 2 ft. in 1870 by miners digging a water-race in shingly alluvium at the side of the valley of the Upper Dargo River, Victoria (Howitt, 1898). Howitt, who visited the locality soon afterwards, did not consider that there is evidence of geological antiquity.
Wilkinson (1887) recorded a stone axe found at 14 ft. below the surface at Bodalla, near the coast of New South Wales, about 80 miles north of the boundary of Victoria.
At West Maitland, New South Wales, a primitive stone axe with a ground edge was found in ferruginous clay at 11 ft. below the surface during the sinking of a mine shaft (Enright, 1923). Immediately below the surface is a bed of reddish clay 8 ft. thick and below this is ferruginous clay 7 ft. 6 in. thick in which the specimen was found. Surface topography suggests that the clay beds were not recently deposited.
Near Cape Otway, Victoria, artefacts were recorded in a mixture of beach material, pebbles, humus and broken shells resting on Permo-Carboniferous sandstone and apparently intermediate between it and dunes 200 ft. high (Etheridge, 1876). David and Etheridge (1890) considered that the deposit, since it underlies a dune of this size, must be ancient, but Gregory (1904) held that the implements were buried by the advancing dune, or that the shelly material was a surface layer resting on the dune and extend- ing beyond its edge.
Certain rock carvings in the Flinders Range, South Australia, are patinated, and Basedow (1914) claimed that they are ancient. The evidence has been discussed by Mountford (1929 a), who thought that some of the carvings are of considerable age, and by Ward and others (1933), who do not believe that any claim to antiquity can be substantiated.
Mountford (1926b) described a rock-carving from Panara- mitte, South Australia, which he believes depicts the head of a crocodile, a reptile long extinct in South Australia and now repre- sented there only by fossils.
44 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
Typography of certain stone implements found in Australia may furnish evidence of antiquity. Crude flint implements deeply patinated are fairly abundant in the south-east corner of South Australia, and McCarthy (1940) holds that both typography and patination indicate their antiquity, and he compares them with products of the Hoabinhien cultural phase of the Far East. Tindale (1937a) considered that Tasmanian implements show typological evolution and that certain artefacts found on Kanga- roo Island and elsewhere in South Australia are primitive and ancient. Hale and Tindale (1928) recorded six successive cultural stages in implements found at Tartanga and Devon Downs, South Australia. Throughout Australia are found implements the uses of which are apparently unknown to modern aborigines; among them are microliths which recall those of Azilian age in Europe resembling small Gravette points and Chatelperron points (Casey, 1934, 1936; Campbell and Noone, 1943).
Australian aborigines use both highly specialized and very crude stone implements and even unflaked stones with natural sharp edges (Mountford, 1940). In basing inferences on typography, this fact must be borne in mind. Little is known about length of time required for patination to occur, but it evidently varies both with rock type and with atmospheric conditions; deep patination therefore cannot always be assumed to indicate antiquity.
SUMMARY
Evidence set out above indicates that mankind migrated into Australia at a period that is certainly ancient in the historical and almost certainly in the geological sense, as is shown by the geological investigations of R. A. Keble and Miss Hope Macpher- son and by the Myrniong implements.
The evidence also strongly suggests that the earliest migrants belonged to a Tasmanoid (Negrito) race that had no domestic dog, and that this race occupied the mainland and found its way to Tasmania. Ata later date came a wave of Australoid (Dravidian) immigrants with their domestic dog, the dingo; on the mainland they dispossessed the Tasmanoids and absorbed some part of them, but they did not cross Bass Strait to Tasmania, except in small numbers during modern times.
Tasmanian and Australian, especially West Australian, skulls have certain characteristics in common, Anatomical studies of the Keilor skull by Dr. J. Wunderly and Dr. Wm. Adam indicate that this arises from racial intermixture rather than from close kinship between the original Tasmanoid and Australoid races.
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 45
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Professors J. L. Shellshear and A. N. Burkitt, Drs. J. Wunderly, W. R. Browne, A. B. Edwards and T. D. Campbell and Messrs. H. M. Hale and the late A. S. Kenyon, I am indebted for reading the first rough draft of this paper and for offering suggestions that have been embodied in its final form; to W. Baragwanath, Director of Geological Survey, for having the map and section (Plate 1) redrawn by A. E. Kennedy; to C. W. Brazenor for photographs used in Plate Il; and to L. A. Baillét of the Melbourne Technical College for photographs used in Plate ILI.
APPENDIX
In a scrapbook purchased by the Melbourne Public Library in 1889 is an engraving (Fig. 7) of a human head carved in wood and accompanying manuscript notes which are quoted below. The carving is said to have been found 60 feet below the surface at Creswick in 1851. It is evidently the specimen mentioned by Smythe (1869, p. 150), who considered it a forgery; he said that an engraving of it, together with letters and documents testifying to its authenticity, had been
The Creswick Carving.
46 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
published. The artist S.T.G. is doubtless S. T. Gill, a number of whose sketches of scenes in Victoria, including three of Creswick, were published in 1855 by J. J. Blundell & Co., to whom F. J. Bury’s letter (see below) is addressed.
The craftsmanship is unlike that of primitive man either ancient or modern, and the features are European in appearance. In my opinion no claim for its antiquity can be taken seriously. Perhaps, as a practical joke, the head was carved by one of the miners from a piece of semi-fossil wood and buried at a spot where Smith and his friends would find it.
I have been unable to discover if the carving still exists or where the woodcut and documents relating to it were published.
The manuscript notes are as follows:
Copy or DECLARATION. True Copy (W.S.).
We, James Smith, Robert Tapley, and John Mackie, do solemnly and sincerely declare, that the Carving of the Human Head, now produced, was found by us on Wednesday, the 21st day of February, 1855, in a Hole on the Black Lead, Creswick, at a depth of 60 feet 6 inches from the surface. The Head was found at the bottom of a drift, which drift formed a superstratum to the clay. The Head is at present in precisely the same state as when found by us.
And we make this solemn Declaration conscientiously believing the same to be true, and by virtue of the provisions of an Act, made and passed in the 9th Year of the Reign of Her present Majesty, intituled, An Act for the more effectual abolition of Oaths and Affirmations taken and made in various departments of the Government of New South Wales, and to Substitute Declarations in lieu thereof, and for the suppression of voluntary and extra judicial Oaths and Affidavits.
(Signed) James Smith, Robert Tapley, John Mackie.
Made and signed before us at Creswick, this 24th day of March, 1855,
(Signed) F. J. Bury, J.P., Bernard Smith, J.P., James Green Taylor, J.P.
ExtTrActs FROM LETTERS FROM THOMAS Burr, Eso., District SURVEYOR.
I was present at the time this affirmation was made, and have cogent reasons for believing that this is no imposition, from the circumstance of having, in con- nexion with mineralogy, for many years been accustomed to study the fracture of different substances, it has led me to examine minutely the surface of any matter put into my hands; and the entire surface of this Head presents a homo- geneous appearance, which indicates that, at whatever time it was carved, the whole was done at the same time, and that the mass had been exposed to the same circumstances subsequently, except one or two small abrasures, which were evidently recent, and were known to have been made since the time that this specimen was brought to the surface. The wood appears to be the root of one of the Eucalyptus tribe, but the substance has been so changed either by heat, or by pressure, or these combined, as to be converted into Graphite.
It may be as well to observe, that, in connexion with the Carved Head here shown, there was a large quantity of Wood, similarly altered in appearance or substance. This Wood belongs to Genera and Species identical with that at present growing in this part of the Continent of New Holland, namely, Eucalyptus, Casuarinae and Banksia; the cones of the latter, more especially, being met with in profusion, and beautifully preserved.
(Signed) Thomas Burr.
Ballarat 29th Sepr. 1855.
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 47
F. J. Bury to J. J. BLunpett & Co,
Gentlemen.—In reply to your letter of the 20th instant, on the subject of the Carving in Wood found at Creswick on the 21st February last—I beg to state that the carving in question was brought to me by James Smith and party within a few hours after its discovery and remained for some time in my possession. The strata in which the carving was found was Black Clay, and the ground was first opened and worked by Smith’s party; in the same hole, and in several adjacent ones, large portions of Wood and honeysuckle cones were, at various times, found at depths varying from fifty to eighty feet.
The Declaration, subsequently signed before me, was made in consequence of reports having been circulated that the carving had been executed by Smith’s party.
I am, Gentlemen, Your most obedient servant, (Signed) F. J. Bury.
To Messrs. J. J. Blundell & Co., Melbourne.
EXPLANATION OF PLATES
Priate I. The Keilor skull before removal of incrustation.
Pirate II.
C. C. Brittlebank’s geological map and section of the area near the junction of Myrniong Creek with the Werribee River where he found stone implements in sub-basaltic river gravel. Heights are shown relative to his house, “Dunbar,” which is about 1200 ft. above sea level.
Pirate III.
Figs. 1 and 2. The Pejark implement. Top and base.
Figs. 3 and 4. One of the Myrniong implements: a crude axe or chopper made by flaking both sides of one end of a flat quartzite pebble. Aspect from each side.
Figs. 5 and 6. The Buninyong bone. Aspect from each side.
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50 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
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54 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
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THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 55
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The Keilor Skull before removal of incrustation
56 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA
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Zeuner, F. E., 1935. The Pleistocene Chronology of Central Europe. Geol. Mag., 72, pp. 350-76.
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THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: ANATOMICAL DESCRIPTION
By J. Wunderly, D.Sc. Hon. Craniologist, National Museum, Melbourne Plates IV-LX
The Keilor skull, when found, was almost completely covered with a mineral incrustation, the greater part of which has since been removed from the outer surface. The mandible and a part of each zygomatic arch, of the right temporal bone, and of the occipital bone, are missing. The skull was unearthed by a work- man whose pick penetrated the cranium and shattered a piece of the right parietal bone measuring about 35 x 27 mm. The bone of the skull is mineralized and is very firm.
Photographs were taken after the removal of the incrustation (Pl. IV-VI). Contour drawings have been made (PI. VII-IX) and measurements are shown in Tables I and II in comparison with corresponding data for series of Australian, Tasmanian, Melanesian, and Polynesian male skulls. All figures in these tables, except those for the Keilor skull and Tasmanian skulls, are quoted from Wagner (10); figures for Tasmanians are from Wunderly (11) and Morant (6). In both tables two columns of figures are shown under each heading except that referring to the Keilor skull; the first are measurements and the second show the number of specimens measured.
Orbitale, both poria, basion, and opisthion are all present. The difficulty in locating the prosthion, to which Wagner and others have alluded, is somewhat reduced in the Keilor skull, because some of the alveolar bone in this region has been lost through post-mortem damage, leaving a fairly sharp point of bone, which is the only one that can be used for measurements. Visual examina- tion suggests that about 2 mm. of the alveolar bone has been lost, but the measurements have been made from the existing point of bone. All measurements from the alveolar point and prosthion are therefore approximate. A suitable point for measuring the bizygomatie breadth is available on the right side; on the left side, however, a point was used on a line joining the lateral edges of the broken anterior and posterior ends of the arch; this measure- me is estimated to be between 1 and 2 mm. less than the correct value.
The means in Table I were not all calculated from measurements
57
58 THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: ANATOMICAL DESCRIPTION
made according to the biometric technique of Buxton and Morant (3). Those used by Morant (6) were calculated from measure- ments made by other authors. The symbols in the table are those used by Morant and other authors of papers published in Biometrika, with two additional symbols, Z:, Zz. Wunderly’s (11) figures for the orbital breadth of the Tasmanians apply to the dacryal orbital breadth.
The inferior border of each nasal bone is missing. The maximum width of the nasal bones, measured at their existing lower borders, is 165 mm. Their width at the fronto-nasal suture is 19 mm. As the lateral margins of the pyriform aperture exhibit the positions to which the nasal bones originally extended, their maximum width has been measured on these margins; it is 20 mm.
All linear measurements are in millimetres.
ANATOMICAL CHARACTERISTICS
The skull is long, but it is not high or wide relative to its length. The surface of the bone is generally smooth. The areas of muscle attachment are not as rough as in many Australian skulls.
The median curvature of the frontal bone is as broad as that found in the majority of the skulls of Australian and Tasmanian males. The superciliary and supra-orbital ridges are moderately prominent, but the nasion is not deeply depressed.
The parietal eminences are not as prominent as they are in many Tasmanian skulls, but they are more noticeable than in the majority of Australian crania. The Keilor skull exhibits occipital protuberance to an extent that is unusual in the skulls of males of the Oceanic races, except the Tasmanian.
The cranial sutures are not complicated. The metopic suture is patent throughout almost its whole length. Parts of the coronal and the metopic sutures are fused outwardly. The posterior one- third of the sagittal suture lies in a slight depression.
The orbits are distinctly rectangular and their transverse axes are inclined upwards at their median ends more than in some Tasmanian, but less than in the majority of Australian skulls. In the upper margin of the right orbit there is a notch about 3 mm. is and in that of the left orbit a shallow groove about 5 mm. wide.
The margins of the narial aperture are not so broadly rounded as in many Tasmanian and Australian skulls. On the right the inferior margin is single and well defined, while on the left it is double and it has fairly sharp edges. The nasal bones are typically Australian, and they lack the extreme restriction and convexity seen in many Tasmanian specimens.
THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: ANATOMICAL DESCRIPTION 59
The canine fossae are deep. The facial part of the skull exhibits, in addition to the Tasmanoid characters that have been referred to, several others which are described elsewhere in this volume by Dr. Wm. Adam.
The Keilor skull has none of the extreme features that are seen in many Australian male crania, such as the acute keeling of the vault, the very rough areas of muscle attachment, and the general ruggedness of bone construction.
On account of the inerustation on the inner aspect of the cranium, it was not possible to measure the ¢ranial capacity in the usual way. Lee’s formula No. 10 was, therefore, used in caleu- lating it. This formula is as follows:
‘000365 (Length X Breadth X Auricular Height) + 359°34.
Anatomically, the skull exhibits a mixture of Australoid and Tasmanoid characteristics in about equal proportions. In general form it resembles the cranial type of the South Australian males, but the parietal eminences and the superciliary ridges are more prominent than is usual in them.
CRANIAL Contour Drawtnas
Contour drawings of the Keilor skull are shown in PI. VII, VIII and IX.
Type contours were obtained from four male Tasmanian skulls in the Anatomy School, University of Melbourne; war-time con- ditions prevent access to a larger series. Since the number of specimens is small, mean measurements for Tasmanian type con- tours in Table IT are not as accurate as mean values for various racial groups quoted from Wagner (10, Table 27 ).
The irregularity in the line and the asymmetry on the right side of the transverse, vertical and horizontal contours of the Keilor skull are due to damage caused at the time of discovery.
Sagittal Contour (Pl. VII).
The sagittal contour was drawn while the skull was orientated at right angles to the Frankfurt horizontal plane, and not as described by Bennington (1) and Wagner (10).
The points marked on the drawings are those used by Wagner and are as follows: nasion, N; gamma, 7, in the same horizontal plane as nasion, when the skull is orientated in the Frankfurt plane; glabella, G; bregma, B; vertex, V; lambda, A; inion, I; basion, BA; opisthion, OP; porion, AUR; orbitale, SUB. ORB; and alveolar point, AP.
Fifty-seven measurements of the sagittal contour of the Keilor skull are recorded in Table II together with Wagner’s mean
60 THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: ANATOMICAL DESCRIPTION
measurements for skulls of males of a number of racial groups. The Keilor skull excels all groups in sixteen of these measure- ments; less than half the groups exceed the Keilor skull in twenty- one of the remaining measurements.
The sagittal contour of the Keilor skull closely resembles the corresponding contour of South Australian male crania figured by Wagner (10, fig. 25, Pl. IIT), and by Fenner (4, fig. 5, p. 258).
Approximately 50 per cent. of the measurements of the Keilor skull exceed those of all groups except three.
Horizontal Contour (Pl. VIIT)
The horizontal contour was drawn through the glabella while the skull was orientated in the Frankfurt plane. The points marked on the drawing are as follows: glabella, F ; occipital point, O, as far as possible in the median sagittal plane; and the points on each side where the contour cuts the temporal lines, TR and TL.
Twenty-nine measurements are shown in Table II together with the measurements of Wagner’s contours for males of several racial groups. In seventeen measurements, those of the Keilor skull exceed those of all these racial groups.
Transverse Contour (Pl. IX)
The transverse contour was drawn through the poria while the skull was orientated at right angles to the Frankfurt plane. The points marked on the drawing are as follows: the points at which the contour cuts the sharp ridge on the crista zygomatica, ZR and ZL; the mid-point, M, of the base line; and the point A, where the vertical from M meets the contour. The ends of the contour line represent the poria on the skull.
Twenty-nine measurements of this contour are included in Table II together with those of the corresponding contour of racial groups. In sixteen measurements the Keilor transverse contour exceeds those of the corresponding contours of all the groups. Only the Sandwich Island group exceeds the Keilor skull in the length of the vertical axis.
CRANIAL MEASUREMENTS
(a) Absolute Measurements
Table I gives measurements of the Keilor skull and mean measurements of crania of various Oceanic groups; figures for the Oceanic groups are quoted from Wagner (10, Table 23), except those for Tasmanians, which are from Wunderly (11) and Morant (6). This table shows that the Keilor skull is comparatively large. In seventeen of the twenty-eight measurements it exceeds the mean measurements of all groups shown in the table. Over 60 per
THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: ANATOMICAL DESCRIPTION 61
cent. of the measurements of the Keilor skull are greater than the mean measurements of all the racial groups recorded in Table I.
Hrdlitka (5) measured nearly 1,000 Australian skulls. The following table shows that three of the more important measure- ments of the Keilor skull are comparable with the maxima recorded by Hrdlitka, for the corresponding measurements of skulls of males of six Australian regional groups:
Max. Max. Basion-
Group Glabella Parietal Bregmatic
Length Breadth Height Northern Territory .. .. .. .. .. 206 139 147 te tes ae ee A 6 142 150 New South Wales... .. ........ 204 141 147 ih a 194 140 138 south Australia .............. 216 146 143 bo dy Oe AO an, 143 147 MMMM SADE aed ss ot ay 107 143 143
(b) Cranial Indices.
Six indices have been recorded for the Keilor skull.
The following table compares these indices with corresponding indices for eight racial groups, data for which are quoted from Wagner (10), Wunderly (11), and Morant (6):
Breadth- Height- Height- Foramen Length Length Breadth Magnum Orbital Nasal
Or Aw MPG 72'1 100-0 82:1 75:9 54:0 Total Australia . 70-1 71:8 102-4 84:6 76:2 54:0 Tasmania—A* . 74:2 70°6 93:9 81:6 78:2 59:9
B* . 742 71:3 96-3 82:1 — 59:1 Melanesia .. .. 71:7 74:1 1042 84:2 79-4 53°4 New Guinea .. 72:0 73°3 102°1 81:5 82:0 51:6 cae: SD ES BREE Sr 74:1 100:7 888 82:1 47-9 Marquesan .. .. 76-7 74:2 97-0 86°7 81-9 44-4 Sandwich Islands 78-5 47:5 98°8 87:7 81:0 49-0
*A from Wunderly (11) and B from Morant (6).
In respect of four of the six indices, the values for the Keilor skull occupy the middle third of the total range of nine racial values, while, in the remaining two indices, they lie in the lowest third.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The foregoing notes reveal the following particulars about the Keilor skull:
1. It combines Australoid and Tasmanoid characteristics in about equal proportions.
62 THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: ANATOMICAL DESCRIPTION
Compared with the average male skulls of several Oceanic races, it is large.
The form of its contour resembles closely that of the South Australian male skull.
The anatomical characteristics, absolute measurements, and contour drawings indicate masculinity.
The cranial sutures and other features indicate an individual of middle age.
The Australoid and Tasmanoid anatomical characteristics are consistent with the theory that the Australians had a bi-racial origin, and also with the supplementary theory that Australia was originally peopled by Negritos. The presence of characteristics of the two racial types is more important than their proportional relationship.
S. St 1S teers
The theory of remote bi-racial origin of the Australians is independent of recent admixture with races, which are known to have entered Australia in the north and the north-east in com- paratively recent times; this admixture is still going on.
The characteristics of the Keilor skull are also consistent with the geological evidence, which is given elsewhere in this volume, that it is of some geological antiquity.
TECHNIQUE OF EXAMINATION
In the examination of the Keilor skull, the English biometric technique described in several papers published in Biometrika (1, 3, and 8) has been followed with a few modifications suggested by Wagner (10) and by Wunderly (11).
Orientation.
The skull was orientated in the Frankfurt horizontal plane. The apparatus used for supporting it is a modification of Martin’s Kubuskraniophor. Several years ago the adjustable clamp of the kubus was found to cause considerable damage to fragile skulls; the clamp was therefore removed and various parts were added, as shown in fig. 1.
Two vertical bars, A and B, have been fixed to each side of the kubus frame, and each carries an attachment that is adjustable horizontally, one, C’, for insertion into the auditory meatus and the other, D’, into the orbit. Each adjustable attachment consists of a rod ©’, D’ fitted into a thick-walled tube, C, D, provided with a thumb-serew to lock the rod in position. The free end of each rod is shaped almost to a knife edge for a length of about 18 mm. The knife edge on C’ is on the upper surface, and that on D’ is on the
THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: ANATOMICAL DESCRIPTION 63
lower surface. The knife edges, when adjusted to support a skull, are in the same horizontal plane. Attachment C’ is not adjustable vertically, while D’ is adjustable both vertically and horizontally and it can be clamped in either direction by thumb-screws.
An adjustable part, E, attached to the front of the frame pro- vides support under the maxillae; this part resembles a tuning fork with the handle attached to the kubus, and the two arms bent so as to give support under the maxillae. The two arms are separated about 20 mm. so as not to interfere with measuring, or drawing in the median sagittal plane.
FIG. 1.
The two poria points can rest on the ends of the knife edges, or the ends can be inserted as far as necessary into the meati. In either case, the knife edge, resting against the inferior border of each orbit, must be adjusted vertically to correspond horizontally with the poria. If the inferior border of one orbit or one prorion is missing, a skull can still be orientated reasonably accurately. Fragile skulls can be given additional support in the kubus by means of thread, wire, or plasticine.
By turning the kubus so that different aspects rest on the bench, the skull can be orientated in the Frankfurt plane or in any plane at right angles to it.
64 THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: ANATOMICAL DESCRIPTION
Contour Drawings
The cranial contour drawings shown in Pls. VII, VIII and IX are made in accordance with directions given by Bennington (1) and Wagner (10). The modified kubus enables the sagittal and the transverse contours to be drawn at right angles to the Frank- furt plane, and not with the orientation used by Wagner and others. A skull may be supported face downwards while the trans- verse vertical drawing is made, and thus both right and left sides are directly represented in the drawing.
Craniometric Measurements
The anatomical points, between which measurements were made, are those defined by Buxton and Morant (3), with certain reser- vations suggested by Wagner (10). Points not anatomically obvious have been treated as closely as possible in accordance with the directions given by these writers,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks are due to Dr. J. M. Baldwin, Government Astrono- mer of Victoria, for accurate adjustment of drawing apparatus; C. W. Brazenor for photographing the skull; D. J. Mahony, Director of the National Museum, Melbourne, for advice and revision of the manuscript; and Professor §. Sunderland, the University of Melbourne, for assistance in the location of various points on the Keilor skull.
PLATES
IV. Skull with incrustation partly removed. Fig. 1. Right profile. Fig. 2. Left profile. V. Skull with incrustation partly removed. Fig. 1. Front. Fig. 2. Back. VI. Skull with incrustation partly removed. Fig. 1. Top. Fig. 2. Base. VII. Sagittal contour. VIII. Horizontal contour. IX. Transverse contour.
REFERENCES 1. Bennington, R. Crewdson. Cranial Type Contours. Biometrika, 8, p. 123, 1911-12.
2 Berry, RB, J, Au, A. We Dy Robertson, and K. S. Cross. A Biometrical Study of the Relative Degree of Purity of Race of the Tasmanian, Australian, and Papuan. Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 31, pp. 17-40, 1910-11,
THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: ANATOMICAL DESCRIPTION 65
Buxton, L. H. Dudley, and G. M. Morant. The Essential Craniological Technique. Journ. Roy. Anthrop. Inst., 63, pp. 19-47, 1933.
Fenner, F. J. The Australian Aboriginal Skull: Its Non-Metrical Morpho- logical Characters. Trans. Roy. Soc. South Australia, 63 (2), 1939. Hrdlitka, A. A Catalogue of Human Crania in the United States National Museum Collections: Australians, Tasmanians, etc. Proc. U.S. Nat. Museum, 71, Art. 24, pp. 1-140, 1928.
Morant, G. M. A Study of the Australian and Tasmanian Skulls, based on Previously Published Measurements. Biometrika, 19, pp. 417-40, 1927. Robertson, A. W. D. Craniological Observations on the Lengths, Breadths, and Heights of a Hundred Australian Aboriginal Crania. Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 31, pp. 1-16, 1910-11.
. Tildesley, M. L. A First Study of the Burmese Skull. Biometrika, 13, p. 176,
1920-21.
. Turner, W. Report of H.M.S. Challenger. Zoology, 10 (1), Crania, pp.
1-130, 1887.
. Wagner, K. The Craniology of the Oceanic Races. Videnskaps-Akademi |
Oslo, 1, Mat.-Naturv. Klasse, 2, 1937.
. Wunderly, J. The Cranial and Other Skeletal Remains of Tasmanians in
Collections in the Commonwealth of Australia. Biometrika, 30, pts. 3-4, pp. 305-40, 1939.
. Wunderly, J. The Origin of the Tasmanian Race. Man, 38, pp. 198-203, 1938.
THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: ANATOMICAL DESCRIPTION
68
TABLE II MEASUREMENTS OF Type Contours: KremLor SKULL AND MEAN VALUES OF
Racrat Groups (MALEs)
3 zs oy <3 >" ES 35 Ky = 2 : S $ x
Transverse Contours
.& bY Se © © Oe B Bhd: Sire ee oo oe oe re ee oe ne eS ie ee pe ese “S78 Es. Ses
ARRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSESARRROOGST*
—_- £ oe te. 616 Sh Le Pf Ok SS ee. Soe. oe
~~ he eS oe ee ee SB iees Fe Se Le See ene Se ee
DARN ial WMWArD mr mH NN Loa) ~~ LAASSSS SSSSSSSSSSSERRARSO oo
o-~ 2 © wy Oe Ses 28 eee tele TSee & A Fee ae Sh A OS RAE Se Oe
CRRVGSSSSESSSSSSSSAARSARLALSSO
Ss a ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ae a ae a ee Sh le he oe 2 Se ie te ee es eee he be Be ee ee Se eee oe ore
SOOAAADA—K—AMNAANANAAINSD wo w= ao LSRRAARAASSSSSSSSAARASLHARIASS
ik oe S68 eee Ge Hk, & hee & bee ee oe ae Oe “ee
ORRSASRSSSSSSSSSARARECRAROLSST*T
NOORAABANVH_TAATANANY—Awn Sony—-—oneqeannm YOLSAAAFASSSSSSSSSARASSRALLSA
ee ee a ce ee “en. 6 ee ee eee oe oe
KRASSSSSSSSSSSSSSRSRR
SMM NMNSCMOMMMMMNBOSCCOCOMMMNoOoOoonNnse
es mW] < ote setety OS —) SM ISS HAR AS KASTEN SAKASSISANRH
Horizontal Contours
ie ee 6 O24 bi Od Sa Oe Wake. 16 a ie - Fie F Boe 2 ee bee Say tes 2 Ee
+ oe 6. ee 2 ee a Skee We ee ea aie oe eee © oe eee oe
SIVRASSSFARSSSSRBSSSSAPTARSSAS
o bie @ hee be Be Se 1 cee 8
tne Se oe ee eo Se 2 me UR Se 2 6S Re 6k OR he ee
te bh the Oe be Le Meee eb Se (ORAS pentane cody rion ereerer pe:
BSAARRISFSRAARSSSSRRESSSSFARSHSA
cis, oe ele Be ee a ee eee Be nt 8 6 ee OR ee eee ee ee ee
ete) yeh 4 EO el Mg A ae ie a
SIARRSPLFRASSSSSSS
RASFRRSSRA
Se ee ee ee ie ie
> & eee SE. = 2 ee. “Fe Se “es, Se Ee Se 8 Oe ee SS
BARRRSSRLSRAARSSSSSSRRFSAAGRAA
i - wis ech se SM Oe 8 Oo OW e Be FF eee See S
& # 2-2 Oe ab 6 ie 2 2 Be FS FSS BAe Ae Se 8 eer eee
WPS PSD MmAMDAAADAAIMNAN— rey MN A= TN
TORR ADODRANDOSTANTAAUOHTONHAALHA SRARRSSSSFRARARSSSSSSRAFSRQARGRANA
Se ae ee ee ee ee > eR we eee, ee le ae erie a eee Ae ee
BIARRSSSSARASSSSSSSSRAGIRSHRRAA
SCOMSMMNMMNMOCCOMOCOCMMMNONoCooooonoe
mo Ee ey OPA RS de Ae eae ed eA KASSOSCERERER
69
THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: ANATOMICAL DESCRIPTION
Taste II—(Continued)
MEASUREMENTS OF TyPE Conrours: KEILOR SKULL AND MEAN VALUES OF
Ractat Groups (Mates)
=
3 = ra 35 | = wid gs =¥ = 2 33 ca x 3 w
»
2
‘a
se
MA fos f= £5 fH Ss st 2 gs he tes = tin, toe ee SR eR ere ES Se ee 5 ee es cu ee te ee
ee eee ee ee er ke ee et ee eee ee ee a, ee eet py a ee oe tee he
WON = tON—— ON THAR ANMONnOTHATHN a = NAnR—nRnOtTH— TA Ee ee ae eee te Oe he eR a Vee oe b's ee ee ee ee ne a oe a aie 6 ie Ye oe eed a! ee Ce a ee 5 Poe a Pk Se Se oe eS eS aes ooo eee eo Pee — « Fie oe Se SS RSS RY 88 88 eee eee
a ee a a, Se ee a ee ee ee ee, ee ee ae er ar ire a a ee ee ee ot oe ee oe
RSERKS HAAARSSBS RRARPARS AP SRAARRSSSRS LRM ARAARSRSSRCAESSSRA
A PES TSPT SES Sree ss sess see sescr Messer e th et se MM seset sts wh sk ce fh
° TANMS DN DAHDOSDMOM ONS AMS DDONDAAONNADNNADTODNDO TMoO—NHtFAORN—M—NnHAGCMONYO
BSELS A“ AFARSSSSSRRRA FRAN AP RAAARASSSSRER OM RHAS SAS SHRLALGSRA
a ei el ee ie ee, ed ie oe ee ee, ”~A 22 ££ 2 &-2 @ &f 2 = & & © % 8) eae Sue! See eo eee a 6-8 FS Se SS Wee. Oe See eee) os eee we a Te a i tt ee * 6.8 € Ss £°S 8. Fs © oa Se eee
i?
DBABLS*TSVAASRSSSRSISOS SRA KLHS AFRESSSSL"VRRIRSRSSALIOSRAR — SR RRS SRS SS CS EE Se Se OS Sek tt He ee eke See Be ee yee peg yes eee eee DOUNNONNDR OANA TH TON TANG —TAIMONMRNOMO-SNRO—eToOEMMOeHnRTOAAaRA aaa aint nti ee aan abe 9 SR at Set ede ae =n Wyraee oe calen eee PCRS ee et et eee ee cay ee RRBRS*OWNRASRBSSRSSAOARGAR AO SRARFISSSRSLAOMSHSRBNRSTREGL ERAT Soe 8 RS ee See ke Ree Se eee ee ECR os Selon o@ 2 TH tess t s 2 to s 8S :: TITIVEO ANIM DOOMMONNNNHD THCOENANMAMNQOON TA wOScSo—NOONNCONMOTTO SRABRSTOGRARARSSORSSAOS SANT ALSSRRAFSSSSSSOMMEH ABRSSRLSFSARARA ef 3 8-£.6 8 S23 878s 2 8 oP 2-88 Ee S. aries Ww ee FT oe RU ee Ree TPO LIT TULL VIL ii iiisece RRSSS°ZHAAZRSSSSSRARAARASI“AXIBARY AARS
ZPSCS° MASSE SBRSSEBALFHRSAS-FSBARAASTSBX-Wgggssesssegrsaas
x from
Zs
> ee QOZ—nuMmtnon@aan AaDR AA
8 » E a SO yy Aa aye
iid dp
GI base line
Oa e? &S
FIG. 2 The Keilor Skull
FIG. 2 The Keilor Skull
It;
The Keilor Skull
VII.
PLATE
Nat. Mus. Vicrt., 13.
Mem.
4noyuo’y [0441605 :4;NHg AOp1ay OY
‘HdS
Praty VIL.
TL ——- TR
The Keilor Skull: Horizontal Contour
Mem. Nat. Mus. Vicr., 13. PLATE IX.
2
M4 | M
The Keilor Skull: Vertical or Transverse Contour
Mem. Nar. Mus. Vicr., 13, 1943.
THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: PALATE AND UPPER DENTAL ARCH.
By William Adam, D.D.Se. Plates X-XI.
Standard anatomical terms are used in describing the palate and teeth; the methods adopted for measurements are those of the Galton Laboratory, London University. The points between which measurements were made are those defined by Buxton and Morant (3) ; in addition, other measurements suggested by Camp- bell (4) are included. Standard anthropometric instruments and modifications of standard precision instruments were used. Data concerning recent Australian aborigines are quoted from Campbell (4) and those for recent Tasmanian aborigines are from an unpublished thesis submitted by the author of this paper for the Degree of D.D.Sc., in which his researches on jaws and teeth of 56 ‘Tasmanian skulls are recorded; a typescript copy of this thesis has been deposited in the Melbourne University Library.
Although measurements are recorded to one-tenth of a milli- metre, it is not claimed that this degree of accuracy is attained in every instance owing to the difficulty of precisely locating the position of certain points since the alveolar margins have been slightly abraded post-mortem.
The mandible is missing.
The upper jaw is large, well developed and somewhat projecting. The infra-orbital (canine) fossa is large and deep. The right maxilla is slightly larger than the left.
The following measurements give figures for the Keilor skull, modern Tasmanians and modern Australians. G’TH is the Nasion- Alveolar Point chord; LB, the Nasion-Basion chord; and GL, the Basion-Alveolar chord. LB and GL for the Keilor skull were measured by Dr. J. Wunderly. The Tasmanian group includes both males and females; the figures in brackets are maximum and minimum measurements.
The Australian group (males) is Morant’s pooled A group, first sample (Morant, 6, p. 487); the figures in brackets indicate the number of specimens measured :
Keilor Tasmanian Australian eee, ae bes 74:2 63°2 (575-74) 66°8 (79) tn Nh ES te ell 96°2 (88°5-111) 102°1 (137) Pewee. she 337, JOS 96°3 (89-109) 103°2 (106)
G 71
72 THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: PALATE AND UPPER DENTAL ARCH
Flower’s method (5) of determining the degree of prognathism is used for estimating the Gnathic Index. The length of the Basion- Alveolar Point chord is multiplied by 100 and divided by the length of the Basion-Nasion chord.
Gnathice Index oo Reilor-skwl ..c) wee Vs SPOR Tasmanian adults .. .. .. 101°4 (93°3-107 6) Australian adults .. .. .. 1045 (93:'1-115°3)
The condition is thus expressed : Orthognathous—when the index is below 98. Mesognathous—when the index is between 98:1 and 103. Prognathous—when the index is above 103.
The Keilor skull and average Tasmanians are therefore mesog- nathous and average Australians are prognathous.
The palate is large and the upper dental arch is horseshoe- shaped, with the third molars and post-dental processes curving well inwards (Pl. X, fig. 1). It is not quite symmetrical, the right side being slightly larger than the left. The sagittal suture is plainly visible, but the transverse and pre+maxillary sutures are obscure, possibly on account of incomplete removal of the cal- careous incrustation which originally covered the whole palate. There is a narrow, low maxillary torus which is slightly higher on the left than on the right side ; it is continuous with a large palatine torus. The palate is very broad in relation to its length.
An interesting feature is an unerupted tooth lying in the sagittal plane in the maxillary torus on the left side ; it is probably a super- numerary tooth, since all teeth of the permanent dentition or their sockets are present. Most of the tooth is covered with bone and its form cannot be determined. Professor A. Amies of the Melbourne University radiographed the palate from various angles, but the anaes incrustation in the nasal fossae prevented satisfactory results.
The following are measurements of the palate: the first three are those used by the Galton Laboratory and the remainder are Campbell’s:
G’1. Palate length; from orale to staphylion, 56°5 mm.
Go. Palate breadth; distance between points on the alveolar border on the palatal side of the upper second molar teeth, 47-2 mm.
EH. Palate depth from Gy, chord to the median palatal suture, 13-5 mm.
p-p- Inner palatal width on the alveolar border opposite the second
premolars, 41 mm. CC Inner palate width opposite the cuspids, 33-5 mm.
THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: PALATE AND UPPER DENTAL ARCH 73
FIG. 1. Keilor.
FIG. 2. FIG. 3. Tasmanian. Australian (from Campbell, 1925).
74 THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: PALATE AND UPPER DENTAL ARCH
Al.Sta. Chord from alveolar point to staphylion, 59°5 mm.
AL Sp. Chord from alveolar point to tip of posterior nasal spine, 64°5 mm.
Su.Sta. Chord between point of intersection of transverse palatal and median palatal sutures and staphylion, 16:3 mm.
Fo.Su. Chord between posterior edge of incisive canal and transverse suture, 27°2 mm.
ial Length of post-dental process, 11 mm.
eRe Maximum width of palate opposite second molar, 71°5 mm,
Max.L. Maxillary length from alveolar point to alveolon, 61:3 mm.
Fig. 1 is a type contour of the palate, drawn by the method adopted by Campbell; fig. 2, a Tasmanian palate; and fig. 3 illus- trates an Australian palate and the points used by Campbell (4, fig. 5, p. 37).
The Palatal Index as defined by Flower indicates the proportion of the breadth of the palate to its length; it is based on measure- ments of the external dimensions of the alveolar arch.
Palatal Index
x.x. X 100 Max.L.
Turner (6) classified palates as dolichuranic, Palatal Index below 110; mesuranic, between 110 and 115; and brachyuranie,
= 1166
FIG. 4.
above 115. The Keilor skull and Tasmanians (average 111°9) are therefore brachyuranic, and Australians (average 1077) doli- churanic.
The maxillae are intact; three molars on each side and the right second premolar are present, together with some roots of teeth which have broken off post-mortem. The sockets of all missing teeth are present. The bone at the necks of the teeth is slightly abraded. The arch is symmetrical, and the teeth are large and well formed. Attrition is marked, class 3 of Broca (2), and
THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: PALATE AND UPPER DENTAL ARCH = 75
there is a fair amount of inter-proximal wear. The teeth, though well worn, show no caries. There is some recession of the alveolar bony margins, but in life there was only slight if any pyorrhoea; post-mortem abrasion probably accounts for the slight loss of bone at the necks of the teeth.
It is possible to record only the mesio-distal and bucco-lingual diameters of the crowns of the teeth. These measurements were carefully taken, but are only approximate, since the crowns are worn by attrition; those on the left side are too worn for measure- ment.
With vernier callipers readings were taken to one-tenth of a millimetre. The crown measurements are the projective readings taken with callipers placed at right angles to the long axis of the teeth as shown in fig. 4. The terminology is that used by Black (1).
MEsI0-DISTAL DIAMETERS. 2nd Premolar Ist Molar 2nd Molar 3rd Molar Keilor Skull 7:1 11:2 9-9 9-7 Recent Aust. 7°23(6°5-8°25) 11-43(10-13) 10°93(10-12°5) 10°3(8-13 Tasmanian 7°6(6°2-8°8) = 11°3(10°2-12-2) 11(10-12°5) 10°3(8°9-12:5)
BUCCO-LINGUAL DIAMETERS. 2nd Premolar Ist Molar 2nd Molar 3rd Molar
Keilor Skull 10-6 13:2 13 12 Recent Aust. 10°4(8°5-12) —-:12-84(11-5-14-75) 13-1(11-16) — 12:33(10-15) Tasmanian . 10°5(9-5-12°3) 12:7(11°4-14) —-13(11-8-14°8) 12-5(11-13-7)
SuMMARY AND DISCUSSION.
Typical Tasmanian and Australian palates and dental arches are shown in Plate XI for comparison with those of the Keilor specimen. ,
In the table below, measurements of the Keilor Skull and corre- sponding measurements of recent Australian and ‘Tasmanian skulls are set out.
Keilor Australian Tasmanian Gy 56:5 51-5(46°5-59°5) 49(40°5-59) G, (YY) 47-2 39 (32-44°5) 38°6(31-45°5) EH 1375 10°95(7-17°5) 9-1(3:2-13) (Pr) Al.Sta. 59-5 57°8(51-°5-67°5) 52:9(48:7-57:4) (Pr) ALSp. 64°5 62°7(51-73) 56°8(52:3-66) Su.Sta. 16°3 12:7(8-17:5) 9:9(6:2-14:7) Fo.Su. DISe 29:°4( 20-35) 30°5(27:2-35°8) p-p. 41 * 34:2(30-41) 35°5( 32-41) oe 3e°5 26°4(22°5-31) 26°8(23:°7-33) Pd. 11 * §8°85(4-15) 7°5(3°5-10°8) Max.L. 61:3 60°5 (54-67 ) 56°4(51°5-61°5)
25, 71:5 62°1(56-75°5) 63°8(57°5-71)
76 THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: PALATE AND UPPER DENTAL ARCH
From these measurements it will be seen that the Keilor is larger than average Australian and Tasmanian skulls, but with the two exceptions of Gz (the inner width of the palate between the 2nd molar teeth) and ¢.c., all measurements of the Keilor skull lie within those of the largest recorded Australian skulls. Seven of its measurements exceed the maxima of those recorded by the writer for Tasmanian skulls.
The Keilor skull with a Gnathic Index of 99:1 and the average Tasmanian skull with a Gnathic Index of 101°4 are mesognathic; the average Australian skull has a Gnathic Index of 104°5 and is prognathous.
The palate of the Keilor skull is very large and well developed. Though larger measurements are recorded by Campbell for some Australian skulls, the upper jaw of the Keilor skull is larger than most modern Australian jaws and is larger in a number of its measurements than any of the Tasmanian jaws examined by the writer.
The teeth of the Keilor skull, though slightly smaller in their mesio-distal diameters than the average corresponding Australian and ‘Tasmanian teeth, are about the same size in bueco-lingual diameter ; all measurements fall within the range of measurements for corresponding Australian and Tasmanian teeth.
The teeth are too much worn to admit a comparison of cusp form, but the type of wear is similar to that found in Australian and Tasmanian cusps. The food of Keilor man was evidently coarse and required vigorous mastication.
Any supernumerary tooth such as the one situated in the hori- zontal part of the left maxilla of the Keilor skull is rare in primi- tive skulls. No similar occurrence is recorded by Campbell in the series of 630 Australian skulls examined by him nor by the writer in Tasmanian skulls. Since radiographs were unsuccessful, it is impossible to determine its form without dissecting out the tooth.
A comparison of the Keilor palate with those of Tasmanians and Australians (Pl. VII and VIII) discloses that it is more Tasmanoid than Australoid in the following respects:
1. The palatal contour is horseshoe-shaped, with the third molars turning well inwards.
2. It is relatively broad like the Tasmanian palate (brachy- uranic) ; the Australian palate is relatively narrower (doli- churanic).
3. Well-developed maxillary and palatine tori are present.
4, The infra-orbital fossa is deep.
To Mr. L. A. Baillét of the Melbourne Technical College I am
THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: PALATE AND UPPER DENTAL ARCH 77
indebted for the photographs reproduced in Plate X, fig. 1, and Plate XI, fig. 2.
a oe
r 4 8
LITERATURE
Black, G. V., 1902. Descriptive Anatomy of the Human Teeth. S. S. White Dent. Manuf. Co., Philadelphia.
Broca, P., 1879. Instructions relatives a l'étude anthropologique du systéme dentaire. Bull. de la Soc. d’Anthropologie de Paris, p. 149.
Buxton, L. H. D., and G. M. Morant, 1933. The Essential Craniological Technique, pt. 1; Definitions of Points and Planes. Journ. Roy. Anthrop. Inst., 63, pp. 19-47.
Campbell, T. D., 1925. Dentition and Palate of the Australian Aboriginal. Univ. of Adelaide, Keith Sheridan Publication, no. 1. Hassell Press: Adelaide. Flower, W., 1881. On the Cranial Characters of the Natives of the Fiji Islands. Journ. Roy. Anthrop. Inst., 10, p. 161.
Morant, G. M., 1927. A Study of the Australian and Tasmanian Skulls based on Previously Published Measurements. Biometrika, XIX, p. 437.
Turner, W., 1884. Report on the Human Crania and Other Bones of the Skeletons collected during the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger in the Years 1873-1876. Challenger Reports, Zoology, 10, pt. 1, p. 6.
PLATES
The Keilor Palate and Dental Arch. Fig. 1. Tasmanian Palate and Dental Arch. 2. Australian Palate and Dental Arch.
0 98 approx.)
]
Fig.
The Keilor Palate and Dental Arch
Fig. 1. Tasmanian | 1 1 approx.)
Fig. 2. Australian |» 1 02 approx.)
Typical Tasmanian and Australian Palates and Dental Arches
Mem. Nat. Mus. Vict., 13, 1943.
THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF ANTIQUITY.
By D. J. Mahony, M.Sce., Director.
The following is a brief epitome of evidence concerning the age of the river terrace in which a human fassil skull was found near the junction of Dry Creek and the Maribyrnong River, a mile north of Keilor. The skull was unearthed beneath undisturbed strata at 18 ft. below the surface of the terrace, and skull and terrace are evidently contemporaneous.
These notes are based on field work carried out by R. A. Keble and Miss Hope Macpherson, but the inferences are my own. Mr. Keble is preparing a detailed paper on the subject, and he may interpret the evidence differently.
The area at the junction of Dry Creek and the Maribyrnong River was geologically mapped. In this locality there are frag- ments of three terraces which will be referred to as the Keilor, the Braybrook and the Maribyrnong Park Terraces. The surface of the Keilor Terrace, in which the skull was found, is on the 103 ft. contour and is 45 ft. above the adjacent river bed. The Braybrook and the Maribyrnong Terraces are respectively 36 ft. and 27 ft. above the river bed. The river is very shallow.
These terraces were traced downstream in the valley of the Maribyrnong River and their surface levels were determined at intervals with a dumpy level and between these points with an Abney level. The datum to which heights were referred is low water mark at Williamstown (L.W.M.), an official datum used in Victoria. The mean diurnal rise and fall of tide at Williams- town is 2 ft.
All the terraces are paired in some localities; in others erosion has reduced their area and in many places only fragments remain.
Keilor and Braybrook Terraces extend as far as Ascot Vale Gap, where the tidal portion of the river flows between two isolated basalt-topped hills about a mile apart. Maribyrnong Park Terrace extends about half a mile further and follows the o!d course of the river east of Quarry Hill, the eastern hill of Ascot Vale Gap.
Keilor Terrace between Dry Creek and Keilor is about a mile in length and a quarter of a mile wide, but its surface is disturbed by cultivation. Downstream, near the point where the electric transmission line crosses the river, it is about 150 yds. wide and it retains its natural surface. Its most southern portion is about 60 ft. above L.W.M.
Braybrook Terrace at Dry Creek is 7 ft. lower than Keilor Terrace, and at Chinaman’s Ford, where the river becomes tidal,
79
80 THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF ANTIQUITY
the difference in level is 14 ft. The largest surviving fragment is about a mile long and a third of a mile wide and is situated at Braybrook near the western hill of Ascot Vale Gap. Its surface level is here 52 ft. above L.W.M.
Maribyrnong Park Terrace at Dry Creek is 18 ft. lower than Keilor Terrace and at Chinaman’s Ford the difference is 35 ft. The largest remaining portion extends from a little above Ascot Vale Gap east and south of Quarry Hill and is about one mile by half a mile in area. Maribyrnong Park is situated on it. The surface level in this locality is 32 ft. above L.W.M.
Below Ascot Vale Gap, the river has formed an extensive alluvial estuarine flat, the surface of which is about 10 ft. above L.W.M. and the adjacent tidal portion of the river. Flemington Racecourse is situated on it, and it may be named the Flemington Terrace. It merges into the Yarra Delta, the surface of which is about 8 ft. above L.W.M.
The delta deposits are up to 50 ft. thick (Selwyn, 1854) and occupy a drowned valley (Hall, 1909). At. Coode Canal, Arca trapezium, a species now rare in Port Phillip Bay, is very abun- dant at 23 ft. below the surface (Lucas, 1887) and remains of Diprotodon were found at 35 ft. in estuarine sand in the Moonee Ponds Creek valley a mile north of the Footscray railway (Prit- chard, 1899). These organisms suggest some antiquity but do not prove the delta deposits to be Pleistocene in age.
AGE OF THE TERRACES
An outstanding feature of Pleistocene times is a series of eustatic changes in sea level. Relative to present sea level, the level fell during glacial phases and rose during interglacial phases. In Holocene times it fell 10-20 ft. owing to a slight fall in tempera- ture some thousands of years ago (Daly, 1934).
Bearing these facts in mind, the following tentative correlations are made.
The surfaces of the Flemington Terrace and the Yarra Delta were slightly below sea level immediately before the Holocene eustatic fall.
The drowned valley occupied by Flemington Terrace and the Delta represents the eustatic fall in sea level during the most recent glacial phase, the Wiirm.
Keilor, Braybrook and Maribyrnong Park Terraces represent the eustatic rise of sea level during the Riss-Wiirm interglacial phase. Their heights above sea level correspond to the 40-50 ft. raised beaches of northern Tasmania which Edwards (1941) corre- lated with the Riss-Wiirm interglacial phase. Their differences in
THE KEILOR FOSSIL SKULL: GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF ANTIQUITY 81
elevation may represent eustatic fall in sea level caused by decreas- ing temperatures towards the end of the Riss-Wirm interglacial phase.
REFERENCES
Edwards, A. B., 1941. The North-West Coast of Tasmania. Pr. R. Soc. Vict., 53 (n.s.), pt. 2, pp. 233-67, 6 figs., 3 pl.
Hall, T. S., 1909. Victorian Hill and Dale. Pp. 160, 39 illustrations. Melbourne: Thomas C. Lothian.
Lucas, A. H. S., 1887. On the Sections of the Delta of the Yarra displayed at Fisherman’s Bend Cutting. Pr. R. Soc. Vict., 23, pp. 165-73, 1 fig.
Pritchard, G. B., 1899. On the Occurrence of Diprotodon australis Owen near Melbourne. Jbid., 12 (n.s.), pp. 112-14, 1 pl.
Selwyn, A. R. C., 1854. Report on the Geology, Palaeontology and Mineralogy of the country situated between Melbourne, Westernport Bay, Cape Schanck, and Point Nepean; accompanied by a Geological Map and Sections. Parl. Pap. Vict., 1854, A-no. 2la, pp. 10, map, 4 sheets of sections.
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‘els a fon tek ti " :
et
Mem. Nar. Mus. Vicr., 13, 1943.
A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE).
By John Clark, Entomologist, National Museum.
Plates XII-XVII.
Following a study of the large Australian genus Myrmecia it has been considered necessary to divide the species still further. At present two subgenera are recognized ; they are Myrmecia s. str. and Promyrmecia Emery. In the following pages it is proposed to raise Promyrmecia to full generic rank as their stature and jumping habits render them quite distinct from the large non- jumpers of the genus Myrmecia. The status and species of the genus Myrmecia will be dealt with in a subsequent paper.
In the genus Promyrmecia 55 forms are recorded herein; of these 24 are described as new. Most of the species are very local and rare, few being at all common. Only one species, P. pilosula Smith, the ‘‘black jumper,’’ is found in all the States. With our present knowledge little can be said on the distribution of the genus. The species appear to be found mainly in Southern Australia, ranging round the coastal area from Geraldton, West- ern Australia, to Cairns, North Queensland. Few are known from more than one hundred miles inland and none from North-Western Australia and Northern Territory.
Many of the species construct a mound over the nest and a few make their nest under large stones or logs. The majority nest deep in the ground, generally the nest is about 18 inches deep without traces of a mound; such nests are difficult to find unless the ants are seen to enter or leave. These nests have several small entrances scattered over about two square feet. When disturbed the ants swarm out from all entrances and advance in a series of jumps, the jump averaging one and one-half inches along the ground and about half that in height. The longest jump so far measured is three and one-fourth inches. Most of the species are very savage, while a few are quite timid, but all sting severely.
The males and females fly during the summer months, mostly during January and February.
Unless otherwise stated the Types are in the National Museum,
Melbourne. 83
84 A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE)
Family FORMICIDAE Latreille, 1810 Subfamily Ponerinae Lepeletier, 1836 Genus PROMYRMECIA Emery
Myrmecia Fabricius Subgenus Promyrmecia Emery. Genera Insectorum, fasc., 118, pp. 18-19, 1911.
Myrmecia Fabr. Subgenus Pristomyrmecia Emery. Genera Insectorum, fasc., 118, pp. 18, 21, 1911.
Myrmecia Fabr. Subgenus Halmamyrmecia Wheeler. Biol. Bull., xlii, 4, p. 194, 1922.
Myrmecia Fabr. Subgenus Pristomyrmecia Viehmeyer. Ent. Mitteil. Berl., Xxill, pp. 220-21, 1924.
Myrmecia Fabr. Subgenus Promyrmecia Clark. Vict. Naturalist, xlii, pp. 139-40, 1925; Wheeler, Colony-founding among Ants, pp. 54-55, 1933; Clark, Mem. Nat. Mus. Vict., viii, p. 9, 1934.
Worker. Moderately large ants (4-16 mm.) with well-developed hind legs enabling them to make leaps of from one to four inches along the ground. Mandibles linear, calliper-like, usually shorter than head, furnished with both large and small teeth of various forms, Antennae slender, twelve segments, scapes short, rarely extending beyond occipital border; second segment of funiculus longer than first. Eyes large and globular, occupying the anterior fourth of the sides of head; ocelli large and prominent. Thorax usually twice as long as broad, mesonotum separated from the epinotum, by a deep and wide suture. Node large, usually as long as broad, stalk in front very short; ventral surface with a more or less developed spine in front. Postpetiole bell-shaped, strongly constricted behind, much narrower than the abdomen, Legs robust, femur of the posterior pair more or less incrassated toward the base. Claws large, bifurcated near middle.
Female, Similar to the worker but larger, more robust and winged. In general the head broader; mandibles shorter, broader and with stronger teeth; node and postpetiole broader. Wings with two discoidal cells.
Ergatoid females are common in the nests of most species. The development of the mesonotum and scutellum varies considerably in these females.
Male. Smaller than the female, colour and sculpture similar. Head small, convex; mandibles short, triangular, with few, if any, teeth. Clypeus large and convex. Antennae with thirteen segments; scapes short, rarely more than twice as long as first segment of funiculus, second segment longest. Eyes large, occupying fully half the sides of head. Ocelli large. Mesonotum with distinct mayrian and parapsidal furrows. Nodes similar but smaller and more slender. Legs long and slender, claws bifurcate. Anterior wings with two discoidal cells. Cerci long. Genital armature; stipes arched, volsella and lacina laminate.
Genotype Promyrmecia aberrans Forel
The genus is divided into seven groups based on the size and shape of the mandibles and scapes of the workers. In many species the head of the female differs greatly from that of the worker. Text fig. 1 illustrates the differences in the chief species of each group.
A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE)
nobilis Clark picta Smith cephalotes Clark chaset Forel pilosula Smith
° g
naa
FIG. 1.
Kery To Groups
1. External borders of mandibles concave .. . 37 2. Head and thorax with wae more or less obsolete EE as 12
1. Mandibles broad, one- fourth shorter than head, furnished with short, broad teeth. Scapes extend to posterior sixth of head, as long as mandibles .. .. .. .. .. .. .. aberrans Forel 13. Head and thorax striate-rugose .. .. .. .. .. 21 2. Mandibles one-sixth shorter than head, broadest at basal third, teeth longer and sharper. Scapes extend to posterior sixth of head, one-fifth shorter than mandibles .. picta Smith
85
86
38.
43.
49.
56.
A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE)
22. Head and thorax finely striate .. , 3. Mandibles linear, almost as long as “head, as long as scapes, furnished with four large teeth interspersed with smaller teeth. Scapes extend to, or very mae’ Pee eal border . cd. pceeec ee External borders of mandibles convex .. 39. Head and thorax striate .. ..
4. Mandibles slightly longer than head, teeth z as in pilosula group. Scapes extend slightly beyond occipital border .. . 7
External borders of mandibles concave. “Head and thorax finely striate-rugose ..
5. Mandibles slender, slightly longer ‘than head, teeth small, hook-shaped and directed back- wards, Scapes extend to 4% ime border .
Head and thorax finely striate .. .. .
6. Mandibles slender, straight or very feebly concave, as long as, or slightly longer than head, five apical teeth erect, behind these the teeth, shorter, broader and directed back- ward, sawtooth-shaped. Scapes extend to occipital border ..
External borders of mandibles straight or r feebly convex. Head and thorax strongly striate .. .
7. Mandibles slightly longer than head, slender, almost parallel, five apical teeth large and erect, behind these the teeth obsolete, very short, directed backward, sawtooth-shaped. Scapes extend to occipital border .
Key to SPECIES.
. External borders of mandibles concave ..
2. Head and thorax with large more or less obsolete striae: .. hs
3. Black; dorsum. of. pronotum and epinotum and whole of node bright red; mandibles, clypeus and antennae reddish-yellow. Meso- notum smooth in middle, with some large shallow punctures, a few obsolete striae at sides. Node irregularly rugose. ese 12 mm.
*4. Head, thorax and petiole. blood. red, man- dibles and antennae reddish-yellow. Pos- terior corners of head very smooth and shining. | Mesonotum Susan or obliquely rugose. 10-13 mm. :
*5. Black; a large spot behind each eye, one on disc of pronotum and upper surface of node blood-red. Mandibles and antennae reddish. Mesonotum with feeble and oblique rugose. Node smooth. 10-13 mm... .. ..
*From description only.
37
pilosula Smith 42 41
cephalotes Clark 48
varians Mayr
tepperi Emery 66
mandibularis Smith
37 12
aberrans Forel
formosa Wheeler
haematosticta Wheeler
A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE) *6.
13.
*7;
10.
11.
Colour as in froggatti; body more opaque, rugae on mesonotum arcuate and transverse, epinotum and node reticulate. 15 mm... .. Colour as in taylori. Mesonotum coarsely punctate, with indistinct traces of transverse rugules, anterior of epinotum indistinctly rugose, node more coarsely and distinctly rugose. 14mm. .
Posterior half of head, ‘all the thorax ‘and node blood-red, front of head and the legs brownish-black; mandibles, antennae and tarsi yellow. Mesonotum striate trans- versely. Node coarsely reticulate. 11-12 mm. Black; mandibles, antennae and tarsi red- dish-yellow, teeth of mandibles blackish- brown. Mesonotum striate longitudinally. Node irregularly <iitcinallibatn sete 11-13 reel ts
Black ; dorsum ‘of ‘pronotum, mesonotum, epinotum and node bright red; mandibles yellowish-red, antennae and tarsi brownish. Mesonotum smooth and shining with a few scattered shallow punctures. Node circu- larly striate. 10-14 mm.
Head yellowish-red with a broad brown ‘line across forehead, pronotum and node bright red, mesonotum and epinotum reddish- brown, tarsi reddish. Mesonotum striate- rugose longitudinally. Node coarsely and irregularly rugose. 14°5 mm. ,
Head, thorax and node red, mandibles and antennae testaceous, legs brown. Mesonotum coarsely and irregularly punctate-rugose. Node irregularly rugose, with a central longitudinal carina. 15°55 mm... .. .. ..
Head and thorax striate-rugose .
14.
45.
16.
Black; mandibles, clypeus, front of sfsce™ to about ‘the posterior margin of eyes yellow; antennae and anterior legs reddish-yellow, intermediate and posterior legs brownish. Mesonotum finely and transversely rugose. Node irregularly rugose. 9-12 mm.
Red; posterior half of head and two apical segments of gaster black. Mesonotum finely and transversely striate. Node coarsely and irregularly rugose. 10-11°5 mm. ‘ Black; basal half of mandibles and the labrum yellow, apical half of mandibles, anterior tibiae and apical half of femora and all tarsi reddish-yellow; dorsum of pro- notum, epinotum and node red. Mesonotum
*From description only.
taylori Wheeler
sericata Wheeler
froggatti Forel
maura Wheeler
nobilis sp. nov.
eupoecila sp. nov.
greavesi sp. nov.
21
picta Smith
fucosa Clark
87
88 A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE)
22.
17.
18.
19,
20.
ai,
with faint traces of 2 i Node irregularly rugose. 6-8 mm.
Black; mandibles yellow; clypeus, antennae and legs reddish-yellow ; epinotum and node red. Mesonotum coarsely reticulate. Node irregularly rugose. 6-8 mm... ..
Black; apical half of mandibles brown, basal half reddish- yellow; antennae and legs brown; apical half of funiculus and the tarsi reddish; pronotum, epinotum and node more or less marked with red. Mesonotum finely and longitudinally striate-rugose. Node irregularly rugose. 7-9°5 mm. ; Black; mandibles and labrum yellow; “funi- culus, epinotum, node, postpetiole and all legs reddish, scapes brown. Mesonotum and node densely reticulate. 5°5-6°5 mm... . Blackish-brown, mandibles yellow; anten- nae, pronotum, mesonotum and legs brown or reddish-brown, epinotum and node red. Mesonotum with obsolete coarse rugae. Node reticulate-rugose. 4-4-5 mm. .
Black; dorsum of node and a large spot on epinotum red; apex of mandibles, labrum and funiculus reddish-yellow, scapes brown. Mesonotum longitudinally striate - rugose. Node oe and Sina went ania 7-9 mm. eo eee
Head and ied nae striate ..
23.
24.
25.
26.
be.
Black; mandibles, antennae, tibiae and | tarsi yellow. Mesonotum longitudinally striate. Node circularly rugose. 12-14 mm. .. Black ; mandibles, antennae and legs Babs, tarsi reddish, dorsum of gaster covered with golden-red pubescence. Mesonotum finely striate longitudinally. Node japiaesr apd rugose. 10-12 mm. ..
Colour as in michaelseni but spuibedence on gaster more wip Ay ae coarser. 11-13 mm.
Black ; mandibles, antennae ee fee! recneht brown. Pubescence on gaster yellow, very fine, hiding sculpture on first segment. Mesonotum finely striate longitudinally. Node and postpetiole striate- egg longi- tudinally. 12-14 mm.
Black; mandibles and anterior coxae Brogttt legs, including middle and posterior coxae yellow. Gaster densely covered with golden yellow pubescence. Mesonotum and node longitudinally striate. 9 mm. .
urens Lowne
infima Forel
nigra Forel
rubicunda sp. nov.
exigua sp. nov.
dichospila Clark 37
pilosula Smith
michaelseni Forel
queenslandica Forel
ruginodis sp. nov.
chrysogaster sp. nov.
A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE)
28.
31.
32.
33.
35.
Black; mandibles yellow, darker at apex, antennae and legs brown, tarsi reddish- brown. Pubescence on postpetiole and gaster forming a dense yellow covering. Meso- notum striate-rugose longitudinally. Node coarsely and “ae maps reese 4h 9-12 mm. .. ‘
Head, Comesesiales: res ae herd Siete and node bright red; mandibles, apical seg- ments of funiculus and tarsi yellow, antennae and legs brown. Pubescence on_ gaster yellowish, long and abundant but not hiding the sculpture. Mesonotum striate longi- vere Node striate ge 12-15°5 mm. .
Siondine to Shab but the niterlod Boftic f pronotum, disc of mesonotum, lower half of mesosternum and metasternum black. 12-15 Head and gaster black; thorax, node and centre of postpetiole yellowish-red; man- dibles yellow, antennae and tarsi reddish- yellow ; legs, coxae and base of metasternum brown. Mesonotum and node feebly and irregularly rugose. Postpetiole en Se: striate-rugose. 10°5 mm. . ;
Black; top half of pronotum, rn of epinotum and node red; basal half of man- dibles yellow, apical half darker, antennae and tibiae brown, tarsi reddish. Mesonotum longitudinally striate-rugose. Node coarsely and irregularly rugose. Postpetiole finely rugose, the rugae more or less obsolete and longitudinal. 11-11°5 mm.
Head, pronotum, mesonotum ata patter black, epinotum, node and postpetiole light red, mandibles yellow; antennae and legs reddish yellow. Mesonotum longitudinally striate-rugose. Node eo Sire eo ine 11- 12mm... .
Black ; thiandibles altoid antennae aiid tegh brown, tarsi reddish-brown. Mesonotum longitudinally striate-rugose. Node gabe rugose. 10-11 mm. .
Black; dorsum and sides 1ae renner epinotum and node red; mandibles yellow, funiculus and tibiae brown, tarsi lighter. Mesonotum longitudinally striate - rugose. Node coarsely punctate. Postpetiole super- ficially punctate-rugose, the ah cspitny large and shallow. 10-11 mm. ; bales
cydista sp. nov.
chasei Forel
ludlowi Crawley
harderi Forel
scabra sp. nov.
occidentalis sp. nov.
celaena sp. nov.
maloni sp. nov.
89
% A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE)
36.
37.
Head, postpetiole and gaster black, a large reddish patch at each side of postpetiole, thorax and node bright red, mandibles and antennae yellow, legs reddish-yellow. Meso- notum longitudinally striate. Node circu- larly rugose. 13-14°5 mm. .. : Black; dorsum of epinotum, node sal ie parts the postpetiole blood-red; mandibles yellow; antennae and legs reddish-brown. Mesonotum longitudinally — striate - rugose. 11-11-:5 mm. . : + ey
38. External borders of mandibles convex .. .. 39. Head and thorax striate .. .
40.
41.
42.
Head and gaster black; antennae, " tices. node, postpetiole, a small patch on each side of first segment of gaster and all the legs yellowish-red, mandibles yellow. Mesonotum finely striate longitudinally, diverging out- ward in front. Node striate- bho ani circu- larly. 13-14°5 mm.
Reddish-yellow, head and dase two sataeate of gaster black. Mesonotum finely striate longitudinally, striae obsolete behind. Node circularly striate. 14-5 mm... ..-. .. >
Head black; antennae, thorax, ae and gaster yellowish-red; mandibles and legs yellow; base of scapes, anterior edge of pro- notum and a spot on each side of mesonotum brown. Mesonotum very finely and densely punctate-reticulate. Node circularly striate- rugose. 12°5-14 mm. . ;
43. External borders of mandibles concave, teeth hook-
shaped .
44. Stead A Gases eer striate rugose.
45,
46.
47.
Black; node and postpetiole red, mandibles and basal half of scapes yellowish-brown, apical half of scapes, funiculus and legs yellowish-red. Mesonotum finely _ striate- rugose longitudinally. Node piano rugose. 11-12°5 mm.
Yellowish-red, head and cakes lak: man- dibles, labrum and apex of clypeus yellow. Mesonotum finely striate-rugose longitudi- nally. Node irregularly rugose. 12°5-14 mm. Head and gaster blackish-brown; thorax, node, postpetiole and all legs reddish-yellow ; mandibles, anterior edge of clypeus, labrum and antennae yellow. Mesonotum _longi- tudinally striate. Node circularly rugose. 10-11 mm. .. . yh. Seite hee
elegans sp. nov.
opaca sp. nov.
42 41
. cephalotes sp. nov.
hilli sp. nov.
callima sp. nov.
48
varians Mayr
wilsoni sp. nov.
shepherdi sp. nov.
A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAL)
48.
Black; node red, epinotum reddish on some examples; mandibles, antennae and _ legs brown; tarsi reddish. Mesonotum finely striate-rugose longitudinally. Node irregu- larly rugose. 105-14 mm. .. .. .. ..
49. Teeth sawtooth-shaped .
50.
51.
52.
53.
55.
Blackish-brown ; mandibles, “antennae and legs brown. Three apical segments of gaster with long and abundant golden yellow pubes- cence. Mesonotum finely and closely striate longitudinally. Node irregularly, almost circularly rugose. 10°5-12 mm. ..
Black, mandibles yellow, funiculi and legs blackish-brown, tarsi lighter. Mesonotum strongly striate longitudinally. Node striate- rugose. 11-13 mm. .
Head, postpetiole and gaster black ; ‘thorax and node bright red, basal half of mandibles yellow, apical half reddish-yellow, antennae and legs brown, scapes darker. Mesonotum irregularly rugose, somewhat longitudinally. Node circularly rugose. 11-12°5 mm... .. Head and gaster black; thorax and node reddish-yellow; postpetiole generally with a large reddish spot on each side in front; mandibles, antennae and legs yellow, apex of mandibles and base of scapes brown. Mesonotum longitudinally striate. Node coarsely punctate-rugose. 10-11 mm. .. . Head and gaster black; mandibles yellow; antennae, thorax, nodes and legs brownish- red, base of scapes darker. Mesonotum longitudinally striate-rugose. Node coarsely punctate-rugose. 9°5-10°5 mm. .. .
Black; mandibles, antennae and legs brown, tarsi lighter. Mesonotum longitudinally striate-rugose. Node irregularly and eee 4 punctate-rugose. 9°5-15 mm... ..
56. External border of mandibles straight or ’ feebly convex, teeth on basal half obsolete and sawtooth-
shaped .
Fi
58.
Black; mandibles, antennae and legs ‘brown, tarsi reddish ; on some examples the man- dibles and legs quite reddish. Pubescence on gaster bright golden-red, long and abundant. Mesonotum and node longitudinally striate- rugose. Postpetiole finely striate-rugose in front, punctate-rugose behind, appearing as elongate punctures. 12-15 mm... .
Black ; mandibles, antennae and legs reddish- brown. Mesonotum coarsely striate longi- tudinally. Node coarsely and irregularly rugose. Postpetiole and gaster microscopi-
goudiei sp. nov.
tepperi Emery
clarki Crawley
swalei Crawley
testaceipes sp. nov.
dixoni sp. nov.
gilberti Forel
66
mandibularis Smith
91
92 A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE)
59.
60.
61.
*63.
*64.
65.
cally punctate. Pubescence reddish in middle, golden on sides of first segment. 11-14 mm. Black, mandibles, antennae and legs dark brown, tarsi reddish. Mesonotum and node longitudinally striate-rugose. Pubescence on postpetiole and aoe brass yellow. 10- 15°35 am. cwops
Black ; mandibles, ‘antennae, tibiae and tarsi reddish- brown; coxae and femora yellowish- red. Mesonotum longitudinally and coarsely striate. Node coarsely and _ irregularly rugose. Pubescence on postpetiole and gaster brass yellow. 12-16 mm... .. .. «... +. Head, thorax and node _ brownish-black, postpetiole and gaster brown; mandibles, antennae and legs reddish-brown. Meso- notum coarsely striate longitudinally. Node coarsely and irregularly rugose. Pubescence on postpetiole and gaster golden, dense, hiding the sculpture. 9°5 mm. P Black ; mandibles and antennae brown, coxae and legs reddish-yellow, tarsi slightly darker. Mesonotum and node coarsely striate-rugose, more or less longitudinal. Pubescence on posterior third of postpetiole greyish-yellow, long and abundant, pubescence on gaster brass yellow, forming a dense eevee 10-12 mm. . a Black; mandibles ‘and antennae red, legs reddish- -yellow. Mesonotum and node rugose. Pubescence on postpetiole and gaster men greenish-golden. 12-14°5 mm.
Head, thorax and petiole blackish-red ; man- dibles, antennae, legs and gaster red. Meso- notum and node coarsely rugose. Post- petiole sharply rugose longitudinally. Pubes- cence on gaster coarse and long, bright golden. 13 mm. ;
Black; mandibles yellow, antennae and legs brown, tarsi reddish. Mesonotum coarsely striate-rugose. Node irregularly punctate- rugose. Pubescence on gaster yellow, form- ing a dense covering. 12 mm.
Head, thorax and node black; mandibles and antennae reddish-brown, postpetiole and anterior two-thirds of first segment of gaster brown, apical third of first segment and whole of following segments, legs and coxae reddish-yellow. Mesonotum coarsely rugose longitudinally. Node irregularly rugose. 13-14°5 mm. .. a ye, Ba or aE Rs
*From description only.
laevinodis sp. nov.
piliventris Smith
femorata Santschi
rectidens Forel
fulvipes Roger
barbata Wheeler
coelatinoda Wheeler
luteiforceps Forel
fulviculis Forel
A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE) 93
Promyrmecia aberrans Forel
Plate XII, fig. 1
Myrmecia aberrans Forel, Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg., xliv, p. 54, 1900, ¥. Rev. Suisse Zool., xviii, p. 9, 1910, 3.
Myrmecia (Promyrmecia) aberrans Emery, Genera Insectorum, fasc. 118, p. 19, pl. 1, fig. 10, 1911, ¥.
Worker. Length 12 mm.
Mandibles, clypeus and antennae reddish-yellow; head, mesonotum, sides of thorax, postpetiole and gaster black, dorsum of pronotum and epinotum and whole of node bright red; legs, including coxae brown, tarsi reddish-brown.
Shining. Mandibles coarsely and obliquely striate. Head longitudinally striate in front, the striae diverging outward behind and almost contouring the eyes, more punctate-rugose behind at occipital border, clypeus longitudinally rugose. Pro- notum with some obsolete longitudinal striae in middle, transverse in front, almost smooth at sides, numerous large shallow punctures. Mesonotum smooth in middle, some obsolete longitudinal striae at sides, punctate as on pronotum. Epinotum coarsely striate-rugose transversely. Node irregularly rugose, the rugae obsolete in middle. Postpetiole, gaster and all the body densely and very finely punctate.
Hair yellow, short, erect, abundant throughout, shorter and suberect on antennae and legs. Pubescence white, very fine, and adpressed, forming a distinct covering on postpetiole and gaster but not hiding the sculpture.
Head as long as broad, sides straight, occipital border concave at middle, angles broadly rounded. Mandibles about one-third shorter than head, apical two-thirds convex ; inner border almost straight to basal fourth, then abruptly reduced to base, furnished with nine short, broad teeth, the ninth forming the basal angle. Scapes as long as mandibles, not reaching the occipital border by twice their width at apex ; second segment of funiculus one-twelfth longer than first, third equal to first. Thorax twice as broad as long; pronotum twice as broad as long, sides and front strongly convex, dorsum flat or feebly convex; mesonotum as long as pronotum, one-sixth broader than long, convex in all directions, excision deep and narrow; epinotum one-fifth longer than broad, feebly convex transversely; in profile mesonotum higher than pronotum and epinotum, epinotal excision deep and narrow; pronotum evenly convex from apex to base, mesonotum convex, highest in front of middle, dropping behind; dorsum of epinotum feebly convex broadly rounded into declivity. Node one-sixth broader than long, slightly broader behind than in front, convex in all directions; in profile higher than long, anterior and posterior faces straight and vertical, dorsum feebly convex, borders rounded; ventral spine trans- lucent, broader than long, bluntly pointed. Postpetiole twice as broad as long, almost hemispherical, constriction wide. First segment of gaster broader than long, broader behind than in front. Legs robust.
Male and female unknown.
Habitat.—South Australia: Gawlertown (type locality) ; Wilpena Pound (H. M. Hale).
Distinguished by the black mesonotum on the bright red thorax. Wheeler has described several subspecies of aberrans. It is, however, evident that the species he regarded as aberrans is the Victorian species which I had confused with that species pre- viously. As the various forms are not represented in our collec- tions the descriptions of these are given entirely from his work.
94 A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE)
The subspecies mawra Wheeler is regarded as a valid species. Workers and females are not uncommon.
The following forms described by Wheeler are not represented in our collections, but for the sake of completeness his descriptions are included.
Promyrmecia aberrans Forel s.sp. formosa Wheeler.
Myrmecia (Promyrmecia) aberrans Forel s.sp. formosa Wheeler, Colony- founding among Ants, 1933, p. 52, fig. 19.
Length 10-13 mm. :
Head, thorax and petiole blood-red, with the following black markings: a large chevron, extending across the front between the inner orbits, with its point extend- ing backward and covering the ocellar triangle, but leaving the clypeus and the space between the frontal carinae red, posterior portion of gula, neck, pleurae, posterior borders of pronotum and epinotum, peduncle of petiole and in some specimens a median spot on the mesonotum, Mandibles and antennae reddish- yellow; gaster and legs black, sting and four apical joints of tarsi reddish-brown. Posterior corners and sides of head very smooth and shining, sparsely and coarsely punctate. Mesonotum coarsely punctate, longitudinally or obliquely, in some specimens more feebly or more concentrically, rugose. Epinotum and petiole sculp- tured as in the typical aberrans. Postpetiole and gaster very smooth and shining, with fine greyish pubescence only on the sides and posterior borders of the segments. Legs less shining and very finely pubescent.
Described from thirteen specimens taken at Uralla, New South Wales (Wheeler).
Promyrmecia aberrans Forel s.sp. haematosticta Wheeler.
Myrmecia (Promyrmecia) aberrans Forel s.sp. haematosticta Wheeler, Colony-founding among Ants, 1933, p. 51.
Length 10-13 mm.
Coloured like maura, but with a large spot behind each eye, one on the disk of the pronotum and the upper surface of the petiolar node, except for a median longitudinal black streak, blood-red. Femora black; mandibles and antennae distinctly darker than in maura and more reddish. Mesonotal rugae less pro- nounced and in two specimens oblique, or asymmetrical. Petiole smoother, varying from coarsely punctate, without distinct rugae, to loosely rugose-punctate. Post- petiole fully one and two-thirds times as broad as long.
Described from three specimens taken at Uralla, New South Wales (Wheeler).
Promyrmecia aberrans Forel s.sp. sericata Wheeler.
Myrmecia (Promyrmecia) aberrans Forel s.sp. sericata Wheeler, Colony- founding among Ants, 1933, p. 53.
Length 14 mm.
Like taylori in coloration. Sculpture less pronounced, the rugae on the head and pronotum coarse but rounded and interspersed with large, elongate punctures. Mesonotum coarsely punctate, with only indistinct traces of fine transverse rugules. Epinotum anteriorly indistinctly rugose, petiole more coarsely and distinctly, the node of the latter broader than long, the postpetiole nearly as broad as in taylori, and the pilosity, which is whitish, as long and abundant. Appressed pubescence on the gaster and postpetiole golden yellow, decidedly longer and converging from each side to the middle line at the posterior border of each segment.
A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE) 95
Described from a single specimen taken by W. W. Froggatt at Wagga, New South Wales. Another specimen, perhaps to be regarded as representing a distinct variety of sericata, from Meningie, South Australia (L. H. Minchin), measures only 12 mm. and has the mesonotum coarsely, transversely and arcuately rugose with large interspersed punctures and the petiolar node longer and more coarsely rugose.
Promyrmecia aberrans Forel s.sp. taylori Wheeler.
Myrmecia (Promyrmecia) aberrans Forel s.sp. taylori Wheeler, Colony- founding among Ants, 1933, p. 53.
Length 15 mm.
Larger than froggatti but similarly coloured; body somewhat more opaque; the rugae strong on the head and thorax but less sharp than in the preceding forms, arcuate and transverse on the mesonotum, reticulate on the epinotum and petiole. Node of the latter more sharply cuboidal than in froggatti, postpetiole nearly twice as broad as long, like the gaster subopaque and finely punctate, with longer and denser, yellowish pubescence. Pilosity on the body longer and more abundant than in the preceding forms.
Described from a single specimen taken by Frank H. Taylor in the Roma District, Queensland.
Promyrmecia maura Wheeler. Plate XII, figs. 6-7.
Myrmecia (Promyrmecia) aberrans Forel s.sp. maura Wheeler, Colony- founding among Ants, p. 51, 1933, &.
Worker. Length 11-13 mm.
Black ; mandibles, antennae and tarsi reddish-yellow, teeth of mandibles blackish- brown, articulations of legs reddish-brown.
Shining. Mandibles obliquely and coarsely striate. Head finely striate longi- tudinally. Pronotum and mesonotum longitudinally striate, coarser than on head. Epinotum more coarsely striate-rugose transversely, interstices densely reticulate. Node irregularly punctate-rugose, almost circularly rugose. Postpetiole and gaster densely and microscopically punctate.
Hair yellowish, sparse, short and erect, longer on clypeus and apex of gaster. Pubescence greyish, sparse throughout.
Head very slightly broader than long, as broad in front as behind, sides fully con- vex, occipital border deeply concave at middle, angles broadly rounded. Mandibles fully their width shorter than head; external border straight or feebly concave at middle, inner border straight to basal fourth then abruptly reduced to base, furnished with nine large broad teeth, first two smallest, ninth forms an angle between the two apparent borders. Scapes not extending to occipital border by fully twice their thickness; second segment of funiculus as long as first; third slightly shorter. Thorax twice as long as broad; pronotum twice as broad as long, sides and front convex, dorsum flattened ; mesonotum as long as pronotum, almost one-third broader than long, convex in all directions; excision deep and narrow; epinotum one-third longer than broad, convex transversely; in profile evenly convex from apex of pronotum to base of mesonotum, a very slight depression at pro-mesonotal suture, meso-epinotal excision deep and narrow; epinotum convex from base to foot of declivity. Node one-fifth broader than long, sides strongly convex, anterior and posterior borders feebly convex; in profile one-fifth higher than long, anterior and posterior faces straight, vertical, both bluntly rounded into the slightly convex dorsum, ventral spine broad, triangular, bluntly pointed. Post-
96 A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE)
petiole barely one and one-half times broader than long, hemispherical in front ; constriction wide but not deep. First segment of gaster one-fifth broader than long. Legs short and robust.
Female. Length 14-16 mm. } on
Larger and more robust than the worker, colour identical, sculpture similar but coarser; pilosity longer and more abundant. Scutellum small, feebly impressed, about one-fifth of the length of mesonotum.
Habitat—New South Wales: Tarcutta; Gundagai (J. Clark) ; Canberra (G. F. Hill, T. Greaves) ; Red Hill (T. Greaves) ; Monaro (N. R. Flynn).
Promyrmecia froggatti Forel Plate XII, fig. 5
Myrmecia froggatti Forel, Rev. Suisse Zool., xviii, p. 9, 1910, &.
Myrmecia (Promyrmecia) froggatti Emery, Genera Insect., fasc. 118, p. 19, 1911, &.
Myrmecia (Promyrmecia) aberrans Forel s.sp. froggatti Forel,Wheeler, Colony-founding among Ants, p. 52, 1933, %.
Worker. Length 11-12 mm,
Dark red; postpetiole and gaster black; front of face and the legs brownish- black; mandibles, antennae and tarsi yellow.
Shining. Head longitudinally striate-reticulate, the striae straight on middle of head, slightly diverging outward at sides, and continued into the antennal depres- sions. Some large punctures on occipital border. Mandibles strongly and obliquely striate. Pronotum longitudinally and strongly striate. Mesonotum and epinotum transversely striate, continued obliquely on the sides. Node coarsely reticulate. Postpetiole and gaster very finely punctate.
Hair yellowish, erect, rather sparse throughout. Pubescence greyish, very fine and adpressed, most abundant on postpetiole and gaster.
Head broader than long, as broad in front as behind, occipital border concave, posterior angles rounded. Mandibles short and broad, external border concave at middle; inner border nearly straight to basal third, furnished with eleven teeth, the first two small, the third, fifth, ninth and tenth large and blunt; the ninth forms the angle between the two apparent borders. Frontal carinae erect, nearly straight, extending to posterior margin of eyes. Scapes not extending to occipital border by one-fifth of their length; first segment of funiculus as long as second. Thorax fully twice as long as broad; pronotum twice as broad as long, broader in front than behind, dorsum flattened in middle. Mesonotum slightly broader than long, convex and rounded above. Epinotum one and three-fourths times longer than broad, strongly arched from basal to inferior posterior edge; the declivity not defined. Node as broad as long, broader behind than in front, in profile higher than long, rounded above, the stalk in front extremely short. Postpetiole one and one-third times broader than long. First segment of gaster slightly broader than long, almost as broad behind as in front, sides convex. Legs moderately long and stout,
Male and female unknown.
Habitat —New South Wales: Manilla (W. W. Froggatt) ; Quirindi (Col. C. V. Morissett).
Re-described from a co-type received from the late Mr. W. W. Froggatt. :
This is close to P. aberrans, as noted by Forel, but is distinct.
A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE) 97
The sculpture is larger and coarser, the head and node differently shaped, the pubescence much more abundant. In both the post- petiole and gaster have fine microscopic punctures often obscured by pubescence, both segments are more shining in froggatti than in aberrans. The clypeus is much more excised and the clypeal projections more outwardly directed in froggatti, and the labrum shorter and narrower, nearly square, not rounded as in aberrans.
Promyrmecia nobilis sp. nov Plate XII, figs. 2-4
Myrmecia (Promyrmecia) aberrans Forel, Clark, Victorian Naturalist, xlii (6), p. 136, 140, 1925, ¥. Wheeler, Colony-founding among Ants, p. 50, 1933, ¥. Clark, Mem. Nat. Mus. Vict., viii, p. 9, pl. 1, figs. 1, 2, 1934, § 292.
Worker. Length 10-14 mm.
Black; top of pronotum, mesonotum, epinotum and node, red; mandibles and labrum yellowish-red, points of teeth black; antennae and tarsi brownish. Some examples have a reddish tinge on lateral borders of the head behind.
Shining. Head longitudinally striate in middle, the striae between frontal carinae continued from front of clypeus to occipital border; sides of clypeus and antennal depressions not striate, but finely and densely punctate, these fine punc- tures continued between the striae on head; some large scattered punctures on occipital border. Pronotum longitudinally striate in middle, longitudinally arched at sides above: mesonotum smooth and shining, with some scattered shallow punctures; there are faint traces of fine longitudinal striae on some examples. Epinotum coarsely striate transversely, descending obliquely on the sides; node circularly striate, with a central longitudinal carina; postpetiole, gaster, scapes and legs very finely and densely punctate.
Hair yellowish, sparse on head and body, more abundant on the apical segments of gaster, but short and erect; shorter and adpressed on the tibia and tarsi, tibia also furnished with some long bristle-like hairs on the underside. Pubescence greyish, very fine and adpressed on clypeus and funiculus; more abundant on postpetiole and gaster, shorter and finer on sides of thorax.
Head very slightly broader than long, broader behind than in front, occipital border concave, angles broadly rounded. Mandibles short and broad, not as long as head, external border feebly concave at middle; inner border nearly straight to basal third, thence strongly reduced to base; furnished with twelve teeth, first two small, third, fifth, seventh, eighth, tenth and eleventh strong and obtuse; the tenth forms the angle between the two apparent borders. Frontal carinae short, extending to about the posterior third of eyes. Clypeus strongly excised at middle in front, the excision obtuse, sides straight, forming a sharp tooth-like projection on each side. Labrum sharply rounded, projecting outward almost to the points of clypeus. Scapes not extending to occipital border by one-fifth their length; first and second segments of funiculus equal, third somewhat shorter, apical as long as the two preceding combined. Thorax twice as long as broad. Pronotum one and one-half times broader than long, broader in front than behind, slightly depressed above. Mesonotum almost circular, very slightly broader than long, convex and rounded above. Epinotum one and one-fifth times longer than broad ; in profile the dorsum and declivity appear as an even arch. Node circular, as broad as long and as broad in front as behind; the stalk in front very short, barely
98 A REVISION OF THE GENUS PROMYRMECIA EMERY (FORMICIDAE)
one-third of the length of node; in profile a little higher than long, rounded above, anterior and posterior faces vertical. Postpetiole one and one-half times broader than long, broadest at middle. First segment of gaster broader than long, and broader behind than in front. Legs moderately long.
Female. Length 16-18 mm.
Colour identical with worker. Sculpture slightly coarser. Pilosity similar.
Apart from the great size and bulk it closely resembles the worker. The scutellum is very small and inconspicuous. The metanotum is indicated by a sharp ridge. There are no traces of wings, but the anterior wing sclerites are indicated.
Male. Length 13-14 mm.
Black. Antennal scapes and first segment of funiculus, femora of all legs, and anterior tibiae and apical segments of tarsi, red; middle and posterior tibiae brownish.
Mandibles shining, finely punctate. Head finely reticulate, coarser behind, with some large shallow punctures. Pronotum similar. Mesonotum similar in front. Epinotum with coarse reticulations forming faint transverse rugae. Node irregu- larly rugulose, with a strong longitudinal central carina. Postpetiole and gaster finely and