BY FRITZ NOETLING, M.A., Ph.D.. ETC. 



235 



must be that they reached Tasmania at a time when there 

 was a land communication between it and Australia." 

 And further: — "From the conclusions to which I have 

 now been led, it follows that the Tasmanians were the 

 autochthonous inhabitants of Australia, and that their 

 preservation in Tasmania was due to isolation by the for- 

 mation of Bass Strait (I.e. pag. 741). 



Howitt is therefore of the opinion, and this is perhaps 

 one of the most interesting conclusions, that the Tas- 

 manian Aborigines inhabited the Australian continent be- 

 fore the inmiigration of those races that now dwell there. 

 If this be so, and I for one fully support this theory, 

 we must assume that there existed in Australia at least 

 two, if not three, stone ages. The first and oldest repre- 

 sents the archaeolithic stage of the Tasmanians, which 

 was superseded by the palaeolithic-neolithic (i) stage of 

 the Australians. It follows that when stone implements 

 are collected in Australia the greatest care must be taken, 

 in order to ascertain to which stage they belong. 

 Howitt's theory assumes that the Tasmanians inhabited 

 the Australian continent, and if that be so they must have 

 left the same remains behind as they did in Tasmania. 

 Shell heaps in which only archaeolithic implements 

 occur, camping grounds on sandy soil where the same 

 implements are found, should always be suspected to re- 

 present relics of the autochthonous and not of the 

 voungcr race (2). Howitt's geological conclusions are, 



(i) I cannot enter here in the discussion of the question 

 whether there is a true palaeolithic stage in Australia, such as 

 we know to exist in Europe, or whether the Australian civilisa- 

 tion has to be considered as a neolithic stage, with a strong 

 admixture of palaeozoic types. 



(2) It is difficult to understand how, in direct contradic- 

 tion to this well-supported theory, Herr Klaatsch could arrive 

 at the conclusion that it was impossible to distinguish in Aus- 

 tralia the different stages recognised in Europe, and that types 

 of implements which in Europe occur in different chronological 

 stages occur in Australia simultaneously. Nobody doubts that 

 implements of the archaeolithic type were still used in neolithic 

 or even later periods, but it is quite certain that there exist in 

 Australia in at least two periods which represent chronological 

 stages, and which are characterised by implements of a different 

 type. Herr Klaatsch's view is one of those numerous superficial 

 and hasty judgments by which this author has obtained an un- 

 enviable notoriety. Perhaps Howitt's paper was unknown to 

 him. 



