530 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 
advocates of unity would be in no better case, for it is certain that the 
migrants turned the south-eastern corner of New Guinea and passed west- 
wards. Culture-movements which passed in this direction as far as the Fly 
River of New Guinea are not likely to have escaped Australia. 
It is a most important point that these migrants must have been seafarers 
and would have reached Australia by sea. Seafarers so enterprising that they 
reached Easter Island and Madagascar are not likely to have been content 
to invade Australia at one point; they would have coasted far in search 
of favourable settling-places. One reason why so many students have been 
blind to the possibility of external influence in Australia is that they have 
pictured the process as the sweeping of an invading host across the continent. 
The history of Australian culture and its present nature become far easier 
to understand if there has been a gradual infiltration of seafaring peoples, 
starting from many points on the coast; if immigrants, few in number, first 
formed small settlements on the coast and passed on their culture to the 
interior of the continent by gradual secondary movements.” 
One difficulty which confronts this view is the apparently primitive charac- 
ter of the seafaring vessels of Australia. The view I put forward can only 
stand if there has taken place in this region that degeneration and even loss 
of so useful an object as the canoe of which we have definite evidence in 
Melanesia and Polynesia. 
The complexity of Australian culture will only be established when the 
facts of Melanesian, Papuan, and Australian culture have been fitted into a 
common scheme, and I may consider here one feature of culture to illustrate 
the kind of process by which this object may be attained. The analysis of 
Melanesian culture has shown‘ that certain main varieties of the modes of 
treating the bodies of the dead can be ascribed to immigrant peoples. This 
ascription rests partly on the distribution of these modes of disposal; partly 
on the association of these modes with other elements of culture; partly on 
. the use of different modes by chiefs and commoners. The chief modes of 
disposal of the dead which occur in Melanesia are also found in Australia. 
In order to prove that the two sets of customs have had a common origin, it 
will be necessary to show that the Australian modes of treating the dead 
are associated with those elements of culture with which they occur in 
Melanesia. 
The object of this introduction is to state a problem and to put forward 
certain facts and principles which must be taken into account in attempting 
its solution. The history of Australian culture can only be learnt by a study 
of the distribution of its elements of culture in which far more attention 
is paid to the details of social structure and religious practice than has hitherto 
been given by advocates of Australian complexity. 
SYDNEY. 
FRIDAY, AUGUST 21. 
After the President had delivered his Address (see p. 515) the following 
Papers were read :— 
1. The Roman Advance into South Italy. By Tuomas Asuey, D.Litt. 
One of the greatest factors in the Roman conquest of Italy and of the Roman 
world was the excellence of the system of military roads which she constructed. 
The earliest beginnings of this system may be traced in the immediate neighbour- 
hood of Rome itself, from which roads radiated in all directions. As the Roman 
power increased the military highways were pushed forward, each important 
*See Lssays and Studies presented to William Ridgeway, Cambridge, 1913, 
p. 479. 
’ Pestshrift t. Edvard Westermarck, Helsingfors, 1912, p. 109. 
* History of Melanesian Society. 
