226 "• ^' JOHNSTON MKMOllIAL 1-KrTt'RE. 



240,000 cubic feet a year, for the average rate of {irowth of 

 the shell-mounds for a population of 2,000 aborigines. It 

 5,000 years the shell-mounds would have a capacity of no 

 less than 1,200,000,000 of cubic feet. This would cover a 

 tract of land about half a mile in width and ten miles in 

 length, with kitchen midden to a depth of about 9 feet. 

 Dr. Noetling concludes from this that, as this amount is 

 probably in excess of the aggregate of all the shell material 

 in all the kitchen middens of Tasmania, the first arrival of 

 the Tasmanian aborigines may not have dated back more 

 than 5,000 years from the present. That this is an under- 

 estimate would appear from the following: — 



Firstly. The aboi-igines did not subsist on shell-fish 

 alone, but partly on animal and plant food. 



Secondly. For some considerable period of time after 

 the coming of the first few individuals into Tasmania the 

 population may have been considerably under 2,000. 



Thirdly. The existing kitchen middens have been much 

 reduced through various weathering processes, which have 

 partly dissolved the shells, partly removed them by the 

 mechanical agency of wind, water-floods, waves, etc. 



Fourthly. A very important consideration is that as 

 ft is highly probable that the first coming into Tasmania of 

 the aborigines took place during a low sea level, coinciding 

 with one of the later Pleistocene glacial phases, the kitchen 

 middens of that age, when sea level was some hundred to 

 two hundred feet lower than it is now, have long since been 

 completely submerged. If the home of the Tasmanian 

 aboriginal was originally somewhere near the Malay Penin- 

 sula, some thousands of miles in length of shoreline, with 

 intermittent shell-mounds, have been submerged along this 

 assumed early road of migration. The estimate, therefore, 

 of the date of the first arrival of the Tasmanian aborigines 

 may have to be increased by many tim</s the 5,000 years 

 suggested by Dr. Noetling. 



iii. Cultural Evidence. 



a. Paheolithic stage of culture of the Tasmanian 

 aborigines. 



The Tasmanian aborigines had no shield nor womerah 

 nor boomerang, and had no knowledge of putting a cutting 

 edge on their stone implements by grinding them down on 



