124 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



ments of the Victorian aborigines is probably unequalled. He 

 tells me that the Buninyong bone is unlike any Victorian stone 

 or bone implement that he has seen, and that he thinks it must 

 have been cut by a sharper implement than any which the 

 aborigines had. He is emphatic that the work upon their bone 

 implements was quite different in character. 



The fact that the head of the same rib was found in the same 

 group of bones tells against the bone having been fashioned as 

 an implement. It is possible that an aboriginee may have started 

 to make a bone scraper and not have finished it, and have 

 knocked off the head of the rib at the place where he left it. 

 But it is more probable that the bone would have been cut 

 before being carried into the swamp, and the broken pieces 

 would not have been found lying beside it, unless it had been 

 fractured after burial. 



The main evidence against this bone having been cut by abori- 

 gines is that the woikmanship is not of the type they used. No 

 known Victorian aboriginal bone has been found with such a 

 cut. The jagged edge projecting beside the smooth cut surface 

 would have rendered it useless as a scraper ; but even if the 

 specimen had been cut as such, it is improbable that the head of 

 the rib should have been found beside it. Hence the general 

 evidence forces me to conclude that we cannot accept the high 

 antiquity of man in Victoria on the evidence of this bone alone. 



It is also significant that nothing else that could be regarded as a 

 trace of man was found in the same bed. There were no worked 

 stone flakes, and in no other Victorian locality, where the remains 

 of giant marsupials occur, is there evidence of the contemporary 

 existence of man. It may be claimed that the existence of one 

 definite specimen is sufficient to settle the question. But bones 

 can be cut V)y carnivorous mammals, such as the Thylacoleo carni- 

 fex and the dingo, which both lived in Victoria at the same time 

 as the giant marsupials. I fully agree, however, with Mr. de Vis 

 that this cut was not made by the teeth of any animal, as it 

 appears to be due to a sharp cutting tool. I am not prepai'ed to 

 offer any positive opinion as to how this bone was cut, any more 

 than I am prepared to explain how the Calaveras skull was 

 buried in California, or what particular mistake led to the 

 genuine belief, in the eighteenth century, that a whaler, Captain 

 Johnson, had got within two degrees of the North Pole. 



