THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 23 
species now confined to the Tasmanian region, became extinct on 
the Australian mainland only 70 years ago; and bones of two 
others, Thylacinus cyanocephalus and Sarcophilus ursinus, are 
found in Holocene deposits on the mainland (Mahony, 1912, Hale 
and Tindale, 1928). Among the placentals, two rats are confined 
to Tasmania, the others being also found in Australia. For the 
above details of birds and mammals I am indebted to George Mack 
and C. W. Brazenor respectively. The fact that the fauna of 
islands in Bass Strait is essentially Tasmanian indicates that these 
islands continued to be connected by land with Tasmania long 
after the Tasmanian region and the Australian mainland were 
separated by sea.® : 
GEOLOGICAL EvipENCE OF HuMAN ANTIQUITY IN AUSTRALIA 
Fossil or sub-fossil human bones have been found in a few 
Australian localities. Those from Talgai, Aitape, and Keilor are 
very probably of Pleistocene age: geological evidence of the age 
of the Keilor skulls and bones seems irrefutable. There are insuf- 
ficient data on which to base even a guess at the age of the Tartanga 
bones, except that they are much younger than the Pleistocene 
anticline through which the Murray in this locality has cut its 
canyon, but considerably older than those found in the adjacent 
Devon Downs rock shelter. Evidence concerning the identification 
and age of the alleged human tooth from the Wellington Caves 
bone-breccia is unsatisfactory. The Devon Downs bones and the 
mineralized skulls found at Cohuna and elsewhere in the Murray 
valley are geologically recent though probably ancient in the 
historical sense. 
Many claims for antiquity of man in Australia have been based 
on artefacts found, or alleged to have been found, in consolidated 
dunes, beneath lavas or tuffs of the Newer Volcanic period, in 
beds containing bones of extinct marsupials, associated with raised 
shorelines, or buried beneath alluvium. The Newer Volcanic 
eruptions probably began in Pliocene or early Pleistocene times 
and continued after the Pleistocene period came to an end, and 
we know nothing about the order in which various extinct mar- 
8. For further details of Australian Post-Tertiary geology see W. Anderson (1890 a), 
Andrews (1902), Aurousseau and Budge (1921), Bryan (1925), Cameron (1901), Campbell 
(1910), Chapman (1928), Chapman and Gabriel (1918), Chapman and Mawson (1925), 
David (1907, 1932), David and Etheridge (1890 b), Dennant (1887), Etheridge (1876, 1890), 
Etheridge and others (1896), Grant and Thiele (1902), Gregory (1861), Hall (1909), Hard- 
man (1883, 1884, 1885), Harper (1916), Hart (1893), Hills (1940 a, b), Howchin (1887, 1912, 
1918, 1923), Hunter (1909), Jack and Etheridge (1892), Jackson (1902), Johnston (1888), 
ate and Coulson (1936), Keble and Macpherson (1943), Kitson (1900, 1902), Lucas (1887), 
arshall and others (1925), Murray (1887), Pritchard (1910), Richards and Hedley (1925), 
Singleton (1941), Saint-Smith (1912), Selwyn (1854), Somerville (1920), von Sommer 
(1849), Siissmilch (1922), Whitehouse (1940), Woods (1862), Woodward (1894), and 
Woolnough (1912). 
