34 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 
However, since mineralization of bones predisposes some people 
to attribute geological antiquity to them, Australian examples 
with no claim to such antiquity are mentioned below. 
In the surface deposits of the vast alluvial plain through which 
the Murray, its anabranches and tributaries wander, mineralized 
human skulls and other bones have been found at or close to the 
surface at Renmark, Swan Hill, Cohuna, Moulamein, Nyang, 
Balranald, Euston, and Nacurrie. Alluvium has here accumulated 
to a depth of at least 150 ft. during Post-Tertiary times, and all 
surface deposits are Holocene. 
Except in the case of the Cohuna skull, no claim has been 
made that these skulls differ from those of modern Australian 
aborigines. Wood Jones, who examined some of them, is of the 
opinion that there are no morphological features by which they 
ean be differentiated from those of modern aborigines (Wood 
Jones, 1934; Mahony and others, 1936). F. J. Fenner (1938) 
described two of them (a child of 4 or 5 years old and an adult), 
both pathologic, together with three similarly pathologic skulls 
of recent aborigines, and he found that in features other than 
pathologie the adult skull is typical of the adult male Australian. 
The Cohuna skull, however, has had some fame to which, as 
shown below, it is not entitled. It was found during the excava- 
tion of an irrigation channel near Cohuna, Victoria, in November, 
1925, at a depth of two feet in red loam. No other human bones 
were discovered at this place, but normal aboriginal skeletons 
were unearthed close by at about the same depth. George Terry 
of Cohuna brought the skull under notice. A geological report on 
the site made by the writer of this paper in March, 1926, recorded 
that there is no evidence of geological antiquity; the report was 
published some years later (Mahony and others, 1936). Dr. W. R. 
Browne has informed me that he agrees with this opinion after 
examining the site in 1940 in company with Professors Priestly, 
Burkitt and Shellshear. The skull was acquired by Sir Colin 
Mackenzie, Director of the Australian Institute of Anatomy, who 
did not describe it but sent some data, with measurements and a 
tracing along the middle line of the skull, to Sir Arthur Keith. 
Keith (1931) published an account based on this information, 
and expressed the opinion that it is the most primitive known 
type of human skull. The error arose from the fact that Mackenzie 
mistook for bone the adhering mineral incrustation, which is up 
to a quarter of an inch thick in places; for this information I am 
indebted to Professor A. N. Burkitt. Professor J. L. Shellshear 
has kindly allowed me to say that, after Sir Colin Mackenzie’s 
death, he removed the incrustation, and that from his observations 
