60 AUSTRALIAN QUATERNARY CLIMATES AND MIGRATION 



bone-eater, with enormous shearing teeth. With the ossifragous capability of 

 Thylacoleo we are not at this day unfamiliar, and experience makes it quite 

 safe to say that the bone was not cut by the molars of that animal. 



Powerful as its jaws undoubtedly were, they have left no evidence that they 

 were able to cut through dense bone to any considerable depth, certainly not to a 

 depth of 3mm., as in the case before us. They chopped the surface (generally 

 on opposite sides) but slightly, to a depth of a millimetre or so at the most, and 

 by the impact of the blow or by continued effort crushed the bone in twain. The 

 form of the incision is in itself sufficient proof that it was not the work of 

 Thylacoleo. Its outer or upper edge, crossing the rib obliquely, is irregularly 

 undulating, its surface inclined, from without inward to au open angle, shows 

 under a certain incidence of light, three shallow, unequal undulations, or rather 

 subconchoidal depressions which could have been sculptured by an instrument 

 having a strong bevel above its cutting edge. The surface "of wear of the 

 molars of Thylacoleo, which so frequently leaves its impression on the substance 

 of long bones subjected to their action, is level, except that occasionally it is 

 more or Jess distinctly bevelled off' at its posterior end ; the cut effected by it 

 across the shaft of a bone is therefore a straight-edged and flat-surfaced notch. 

 Of producing one with an edge which is even slightly scalloped and with a 

 broad oblique surface of conchoidal facets, it is altogether incapable. "We have, 

 therefore, to fall back on an unknown user of an instrument adequate to the 

 purpose, and this could not well have been any other than man. If now we are 

 prepared to accept the view that this bone was wrought by human hands, and 

 for the nonce assume the genuineness of the fossil, we shall have little difficulty 

 in understanding how and why it received its shape. We may infer that the 

 upper nick was first made; afterwards, and probably with the same instrument 

 — a small, sharp stone tomahawk — the lower nick ; the bone then broken between 

 them, and the lower end ground with a bevel to obtain an edge which should be 

 curved, moderately sharp, and rather rugose. 



The Biminyong Bone is in the collection of the National 

 Museum, Melbourne, and was available to Spencer and Walcott, 

 who were members of the staff of that institution. They (1914 

 circa) sum up their conclusion in the following remarks : 



The more carefully and the longer we have examined the specimen especially 

 in the light of bones, the cuts and marks on which we feel convinced have 

 been made by a predatory animal, the more certain we feel that the only remain- 

 ing alternative — human agency — must be invoked to account for the origin of 

 some of the characters exhibited on the specimen. 



This conclusion was arrived at after they had made an exhaus- 

 tive study of all kinds of cuts on marsupial bones. In a contribu- 

 tion (Spencer and Walcott, 1911) giving the results of their 

 research, they deal mainly with bone fragments obtained at 

 Pejark Marsh by A. J. Merry with the millstone found by him, 

 and other hone fragments obtained there by themselves ; they also 

 discuss fragments from Buchan and Lake Colongulae in Victoria, 

 some from South Australia, and others from New South Wales. 

 In regard to the Pejark Marsh fragments they say: 



AVe were at first, more especially perhaps as the aboriginal implement was 

 of the nature of an anvil or pounding-stone, disposed to attribute to a human 



