STONE AGE BASIS FOR ORIENTAL STUDY. 703 



the Soniersetsliire Natural Flistoiy Society at Taunton, which led me 

 to make inquiry at the International Exhibition ot ISGli ot Dr. Milli- 

 gau and other repre.sentatives of Tasmania. Their answer 1 printed 

 in I860, Avith a comi)arison with the implements of the Paleolithic age. 

 '^ The Tasmanians sometimes used for cutting or notching wood a very 

 rude instrument. Eye witnesses describe how they would pick up a 

 suitable hat stone, knock off chips trom one side, partly or all round the 

 edge, and use it without more ado; and there is a specimen correspond- 

 ing exactly to this description in the Taunton ^luseum. An implement 

 found in the drift near Clermont would seem to be much like this,'' 

 [Early History of Mankind^ p. 195). This, if not the earliest published 

 notice of these Tasnumian implements was one of the earliest; but it 

 will be observed that it did not yet amount to stating that these rude 

 savages used no stone implements except such rudely chi})ped cues, for 

 it was not yet proved that they did so. This proot was required to 

 bring the Tasmanians into the position where 1 wish to i>lace tliem 

 before you now, that of modern savage representatives of the remotely 

 ancient Paleolithic ages. The requisite evidence has since been sup- 

 plied by the archaeologists and geologists of the Royal Society of Tas- 

 mania. 



It was not a (piestion merely of studying the make of imi)lements 

 buried in the ground, as the time was not yet past for descriptions by 

 Englishmen who had actually seen how the natives made and used 

 these roughest of human implements. They might be mere fragments 

 l»icked up or detached by a blow from the rock, but the more artificial 

 tools were much improved upon by skillfully, with another stone, strik- 

 ing off chips along the margin, so as to give a good cutting edge; but 

 tins edge-chipping was only done on one side. The natives were never 

 known to grind an edge, nor to fix the chipped stones in any kind of 

 handle. Of this, the accounts of observers who saw the art carried on, 

 and who, one would think, must have been aware if the natives could 

 do anything better, may be taken as good testimony. At any rate it 

 is proof positive tliat such specimens as are here exhibited are char- 

 acteristic of the general standard of the Tasmaiiian implement-maker's 

 art. It is seen by comparison with ordinary Paleolithic implements 

 from the drift-gravels and bone-caves that the modern savage was dis- 

 tinctly lower than the ancient. The pick of the Europeans of the 

 Mammoth period, edged and pointed by alternate chipping on both 

 sides, is far superior to anything seen or described in Tasmania. The 

 typical '-hatchet" or "tomahawk," as it is sometimes called, of Tas- 

 mania, is at most the equivalent of the one-side edged " scraper" of 

 Paleolithic Europe. 



Thus it appears that in this far off corner of the Oriental world Paleo- 

 lithic man. not even of the highest, had survived within living memory. 

 The question must of course be raised as to whether the low stage of 

 Tasmanian implements may be due to degeneration; but it is difflcult, 



