2-0 COiMiPAiRiI'S'0'N OF 'J HE TASMAiNttAJN TRjONiATTA. 



ness, but it is impossible to assume that those that existed 

 during the glacial period did not cover their bodies, unless 

 we believe that the body was still covered with a thick fur. 



Archaeolithic man had not made those simple inven- 

 tions that were to raise him from the state of savageness 

 to a higher level. All these inventions, the use of stone 

 as weapons, the hafting of weapons and tools, must have 

 been made early in the palaeolithic age, and it is very 

 probable that the first invention made was the providing 

 of the weapon of age — the wooden spear — with a stone 

 head instead of sharpening its point. The natives of the 

 Admiralty Islands have typical archaeolithic stone-heads 

 glued to their lances; the Queensland Aborigines use still 

 the unsymmetrical archaeolithe as a spear-head or a 

 dagger, either with or without a handle, though a ten- 

 dency to give the archaeolithe an intentional shape is 

 apparent. In Western Australia the Aborigines use 

 beautifully-finished spear-heads of palaeolithic type, but 

 other weapons are unknown to them. 



On the whole it appears that the substitution of the 

 wooden point of the spear by a stone head was the first 

 great invention that man made after he had for countless 

 generations used a sharply-pointed piece of wood as 

 spear. 



It is therefore obvious that if such was the state of 

 civilisation of archaeolithic man in Europe, nothing but 

 the indestructible stone implements used by him was left 

 behind. In fact,' there is very little chance of discovering 

 its bones, except in such cases when a lucky accident, 

 such as a slip of rock or earth, prevented the corpse to be 

 disposed of in the usual way. Otherwise the dead bodies 

 were burnt, and the few fragments that remained of the 

 larger bones soon crumbled to dust. 



Considering that archaeolithic man burnt his dead, I 

 have my gravest doubts whether the corpse of Homo 

 Aurignacenis was really buried. The accounts of the dis- 

 covery of the skeleton make another theory quite per- 

 missible. It may be possible that the skeleton belonged 

 to a man, perhaps a kind of chief, who was lying sick in 

 the cave; in order to make him more comfortable, a sort 

 of hollow was scratched out in the ground, in which he 

 rested in a half-sitting position. While his friends were 

 away a portion of the roof fell in, and killed him. The 



