12 THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUSTRALIA 
interglacial periods it rose and the two were separated by water. 
There has probably been no land-bridge since mid-Pleistocene 
times ; the reasons for this opinion are given in a later page. Under 
present conditions, the chain of islands between Wilson’s Promon- 
tory and ‘Tasmania provides an easy route for migration by boat, 
with no stretch of open water exceeding 30 miles and land in sight 
across every gap. Tasmanian canoes were very primitive, but the 
natives used them for visiting 'asman, Maatsuyka and other 
islands separated from Tasmania by stormy seas. 
THE DINGO 
At one time it was considered that the dingo is a distinct species 
of dog peculiar to Australia (Etheridge, 1916), but Wood Jones 
,(1921) demonstrated that it is merely a variety of the domesticated 
dog, Canis familiaris, with no claim to separate specific rank, and 
this opinion is endorsed by other zoological systematists. He says 
that the restricted genus Canis differs in dentition from the wild 
dogs of south-eastern Asia, the most probable immigrants in a 
‘“‘walk overland”’ colonization. He holds that the supposition that 
the dingo is indigenous, that its phylogenetic story was unfolded 
within the confines of Australia, is untenable, and when we come 
to inquire into the possibility of the dingo arriving in Australia 
unassisted by, and unassociated with, man, we are forced to own 
that the difficulties of the problem have not always been appre- 
ciated by those who have advocated this solution, for no land- 
bridge that could have admitted either the dingo or man, separately 
or in company, could have failed to be the high road of entry of 
a host of other placental mammals. ‘“‘The progenitor of Talgai 
man came with his wife, he came with his dog, and with his dog’s 
wife, and he must have done the journey in a seaworthy boat 
capable of traversing this unquiet portion of the ocean with his 
considerable cargo. Besides this living freight, and the food and 
water necessary for the adventure, he carried other things—he 
carried a knowledge of the boomerang, of the basis of the totem 
system, and various other cultural features, all bearing a strange 
suggestion of very distinctly western origin.”’ 
No trace of the dingo, living or fossil, has been found in Tas- 
mania nor in the islands of Bass Strait, so it apparently did not 
reach south-east Australia until the land-bridge between Tasmania 
and the mainland had disappeared, and it did not accompany the 
Tasmanians as their domesticated dog. 
Few human relics have been found associated with Di protodon, 
Thylacoleo and other extinct marsupials, but fossil bones of the 
dingo occur with them in several places. 
