THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 31 
R. Hughes, sand contractor. Except for two small pieces of bone 
near the foramen magnum and a hole in the side made by the pick 
of the workman who unearthed it, one skull is complete, but its 
lower jaw is missing. It is large and it combines Australoid with 
Tasmanoid characteristics in about equal proportions. Anatomical 
descriptions of the specimen as a whole by Dr. J. Wunderly and 
of the palate and dental arch by Dr. William Adam will be found 
elsewhere in this volume of Memoirs, together with notes based on 
geological investigations by R. A. Keble and Miss Hope Macpher- 
son, which indicate that it dates back to the Riss-Wirm Inter- 
FIG. 4. 
Quartzite Flake, Keilor. 
glacial phase of Pleistocene times. The second skull and most of 
the other bones have not yet been received by the Museum. 
Mr. Hughes has supplied the following note on the circumstances 
of the discovery: 
“Early in October (about Oct. 10th), 1940, a fossil human skull was found 
by James White, who was employed by me, in a pit which I opened for moulding 
sand near the junction of Dry Creek and the Maribyrnong River about one mile 
north of Keilor. I was present at the time together with Thomas Murphy. White 
was working on the face of the pit when his pick went through the skull and broke 
it into three pieces. It was about 15 ft. below the surface of the ground and 18 in. 
above the floor of the pit. One fossilized limb bone and several other fragments 
of bone were found alongside the skull. The sand above the bones showed no signs 
of having been disturbed by a burial and the skull could not have fallen from 
above since it was embedded in undisturbed sand. We washed off the sand with 
which it was coated. I took the skull and pieces of broken bone to the National 
Museum on November 4th, 1940, and left them there. Some weeks later Mr. 
Mahony, Mr. Keble and Mr. Brazenor of the National Museum visited the sand 
pit with me and I pointed out to them the spot where the skull was found. Up 
c 
