24 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 
supials died out or when they became extinct; unless there is 
corroborative evidence, mere association with volcanic rocks or 
with strata containing bones of extinct marsupials does not prove 
that artefacts are of Pleistocene age, but geological evidence 
strongly suggests that the Myrniong artefacts belong to this 
period. Some shell middens are associated with inland shorelines 
about 10 ft. or 20 ft. above present sea level, which are probably 
about 4,000 years old; if this estimate is correct, and the middens 
were formed not long before sea level fell, these middens are 
ancient in the historical, but not in the geological sense, and the 
men who made them lived at about the time that Abraham went 
into the land of Canaan; it is possible, however, that these shore- 
lines are more than 4,000 years old. In some localities deposition 
of alluvium is still in progress, in others it has long ceased; 
evidence for antiquity of bones and artefacts covered by alluvium 
therefore depends on local conditions. 
The Wellington Tooth Fragment 
Since some confusion exists concerning this specimen, its full 
history is given below. 
The first to observe bone-breccias in the Wellington caves 
appears to have been George Rankin, of Bathurst, New South 
Wales, in 1830; later in that year Major Thomas Mitchell visited 
the caves and collected fossil bones, which he sent to Sir Richard 
Owen. Mitchell (1838) published an account of the caves with 
plans and a list of fossil marsupials collected there and determined 
by Owen. 
Krefft (1867, p. 91) wrote: ‘‘Homo, Melanian variety. Bones 
of the extremities found in a cave at Wellington Valley, being— 
left and right femur, left and right tibia, left and right humerus, 
portion of fibula’; he makes no suggestion that the bones were 
ancient or fossilized. On p. 112 he says that in one of the Welling- 
ton caves ‘‘human remains were obtained, but though very old 
they are not fossil.’’ 
The history of the exploration of the caves between 1867 and 
1882 is set out in a New South Wales Parliamentary Paper 
(Anonymous, 1882). At the suggestion of Sir Richard Owen, the 
New South Wales Parliament in 1867 voted funds for the explora- 
tion of the caves by the Curator of the Australian Museum, at 
that time Gerard Krefft. In October, 1869, Krefft reported that 
he had sunk two shafts in the bone-breccia and had obtained many 
fossil bones, including those of Thylacoleo, Diprotodon, Noto- 
therium, and Canis dingo; he also gave a ‘‘List of photographs 
of Australian fossils for transmission to Professor Owen, F.R.S.,”’ 
