Antiquity of 2fan in Victoria. 127 



grooved, sliowing that it was mounted iu a handle. It was found 

 in gravel at Ballarat when digging a garden trench, at the depth 

 of twenty-two inches from the surface. There is nothing in this 

 case to prove any great antiquity for the maker of tliis axe. 



The old surfaces on the coastal dunes offer perhaps, the best 

 chance of definite evidence as to the antiquity of man in Victoria. 

 These dunes have been accumulating since early Pleistocene, or 

 perhaps even Pliocene, times ; the aborigines frequented these 

 dunes, as they provided excellent camping grounds, and the 

 shores yielded an abundant supply of shell fish and other food. 

 The old camps on the dunes, when exposed by the wind, 

 afford the richest collecting grounds of Victorian aboriginal 

 remains. Stone flakes, ovens and kitchen middens are abun- 

 dant and conspicuous. But the lower dune surfaces, some of 

 which, judging from general geographical considerations, aie pro- 

 bably only 300 or 400 years old, are quite bare of human 

 remains. We find aboriginal kitchen middens extending for 

 miles along the cliffs ; but they are all superficial. The older 

 dune surfaces would no doubt show similar kitchen middens had 

 the natives lived on them. But they show no trace of man. 



There are records of human specimens having been found in 

 the sand dunes; as by Wilkinson in 1864 near Cape Otway, and 

 Mr. Robert Etheridge, junr., wlio subsequently ol)tained a bone 

 spike at the same locality. Messrs. David and Etheridge record 

 both discoveries, and remark that the " remains of this nature, 

 lying as they did beneath sand dunes at least 200 feet higli, 

 must have been of great antiquity."^ This evidence is weighty ; 

 but it must be remembered that the record of Wilkinson's dis- 

 covery appears to rest on hearsay evidence, and Etheridge's 

 original description of his discovery is less emphatic. He remarks 

 that his specimen was found in " a mixture of beach material, 

 pebbles, humus, and broken shells, resting on the carbonaceous 

 sandstone forming the high cliffs of the Cape, and apparently 

 intermediate between it and the outlying dunes."'^ Considering 



1 David and Etheridge: "Report on the Discovery of Human Remains in the Sand 

 and Pumice bed at Lony Bay, near Botany." Records Geol. Survey, N.S.W., 1889, vol. i., 

 pt. I., p. 15. 



2 Etheridge, R., junr. : "Observations on Sand-dunes of the Coast of Victoria." Proc. 

 Roy. Soc. Viet., vol. xii., 1876, p. 4. 



