173 



pay particular attention to them, but the nature of the soil thrown 

 out clearly showed that they had also been put to the same use. 



The constant traces of native occupation tlius afforded by these 

 Rock-shelters, seems to indicate that the population, from an 

 aboriginal standpoint, was a fairly numerous one, due, doubtless, 

 to the facilities afforded by the proximity of the lagoon for 

 procuring tish, wiiich we know formed a very large portion of 

 the food of these b'acks. 



T think we may accept a general statement to the effect that 

 the Aborigines of the Port Jackson coastal districts were Shelter 

 dwellers to a greater or less extent, and for the matter of that, those 

 of other districts where suitable conditions prevailed. Wiierever 

 escarpments of the Hawkesbury Sandstone are traced along the 

 various inlets and arms of Port Jackson and the Hawkesbury 

 River, these I'ocky recesses are met with, and the majority reveal 

 traces of habitation in some form or another. 



Caves have from the remotest historical periods of the world's 

 history been the retreat of man, a;id this we see repeated in 

 Australia, in a modified form it is true, within the historical 

 perjod. Such hal)it itions here, however, do not strictly conform 

 to the term cave, but fall within the designation generally applied 

 to them, that of "Rock-shelters." "Caverns," says Mr. John 

 Evans,* "are either long and sinuous, in places contracting into 

 narrow passages, and then again expanding into halls more or 

 less vast ; while others are merely vaulted recesses in the face of 

 a rock, or even long grooves running along the face of some 

 almost perpendicular though inland cliff,'" the two forms owing 

 their existence to causes of a different nature. The stone 

 dwellings here described rather fall within the second category. 

 They usually occur in cliffs and scarps, with horizontal bedding, but, 

 the beds possessing varying degrees of hardness and permeability 

 to water, the softer and lower strata wear away faster than the 

 harder, leaving recesses of greater or less depth. 



The contents of these aboriginal Rock-sheltei's are in the main 

 simply refuse heaps, thus resembling those of France and Belgium, 

 " containing the bones, fractured and unf ractured, of animals 

 wliich have served for human food, mixed with which are the lost 

 and waste tools, utensils and weapons, and even the cooking- 

 hearths of the early cave-dwellers. "f 



Eliminatingthe utensils, a more truthful picture of the contents 

 of our aboriginal Rock-shelters could not be drawn. There is, 

 liowever, no evidence whatever of cave or cave-shelter tenancy by 

 man alternating with that of either a living or extinct lower 

 mammalian fauna, similar to that found in other quarters of the 

 globe. 



* Ancient Stone Implements, &c., Gt. Brit., 1872, p. 428. 

 t Ihid, p. 430. 



