I!Y I'KOFESSOR SIU T. \V. K. DAVID. K.15.1:.. ETC. J25 



height. The sea would in this case have completely retreated 

 from Ba.ss Strait and Torres Strait, and would hav-: laid 

 bare the bulk of the J2:reat Sahul shoal, or bank, and so 

 have admitted of aboi'iginal Tasmanians migratinj^ more or 

 less dry-shod over the greater portions of the long road from 

 their possible early home in the Malay Peninsula or Nether- 

 lands East Indies to Tasmania. The coming of aboriginal 

 man into Tasmania may date back, on the above supposi- 

 tion, to a time of the order of 100.000, or more, years ago. 



ii. Distribution and Number, 

 a. Of Stone Implements. 



The stone implements of the aborigines, chiefly of the 

 nature of scrapers for fashioning spears and throwing sticks 

 and notching trees for climbing, are very widely distributed 

 not only around the coast of Tasmania, but inland, par- 

 ticularly in the neighbourhood of the great lakes, such as 

 the Great Lake, Lake St. Clair, etc. Some idea of the 

 numbers may be formed from the fact that the writer last 

 February, as the result of a quarter of an hour's search, 

 picked up about 100 aboriginal chert flakes, almost all of 

 which had been used as scrapers, near tht present outlet 

 of the Lake Leike Reservoir. These "tronattas" are 



strikingly like those found on the horizon of the remains of 

 Piitdown man in Sussex. 



b. Based on the Extent and Thickness of the Kitchen- 

 Middens Akng the Coast. 



Some of the largest of these shell-mounds are to be 

 found at Swanport, on the east coast of Tasmania. Accord- 

 ing to Mr. Clive Lord, one of these shell-mounds is no less 

 than 10 feet deep in its highest part, and covers an ai-ea of 

 several acres. The late Dr. Fritz Noetling attempted to esti- 

 mate the approximate date of the coming of the first abori- 

 gines into Tasmania by the amount of material now to be 

 found in the .shell-mounds considered in relation to the aver- 

 age aboriginal population of Tasmania in the past. d'- 



The aboriginal population of Tasmania is estimated at 

 2,000 in 1803. This population, he estimates, would consume 

 shells of oyiters, mutton fish (Haliotis) , Turbo, etc., at the 

 rate of about 120 cubic feet a year each. That would be 



(I) Proc. Roy. Snc. Tasmunia for 1910, pages 231-264. Plates I anJ 

 il. The Antiquity of Man in Tasmania. 



