AUSTRALIAN QUATERNARY CLIMATES AND MIGRATION 69 



which had moved southwards over 300 miles. It then drained 

 mainly seasonal coastal rain. 



The distribution of the climatic belts when the tropical rain- 

 forest reached Australia is shown in Fig. 13. 



VI. Probable Landing Places. 



In the light of the palseogeography, the much discussed problem 

 of the time of the arrival of the Proto-Indics or Australoids in 

 Australia acquires a different setting to that presented by some 

 anthropologists. It cannot be answered without taking into 

 account the changing coastline and climate of the latest Quater- 

 nary periods, and the realization that some kind of sea-transport 

 was necessary to cross deep channels. 



Elliot Smith (1930) gives the ethnic relationship of the Aus- 

 tralian : 



The aboriginal Australian belongs to a race that is sometimes called Pre- 

 Dravidian, a term intended to emphasize 1 lie fact that certain jungle tribes of 

 Southern India, the Kadir of the Anaimalai Hills, the Paniyan of Malabar, 

 the Wymad and Nilgiris. the Irula and the Karninha of the Nilgiris, scattered 

 among the Dravidian peoples, conform to the same physical type, and 

 obviously belong to the same race. Before Ave attempt to discuss the antiquity 

 of the population of Australia it is clearly important to remember this most 

 westerly relic of the same people. The Yedda of Ceylon, the Sakai of the 

 Malay Peninsula and East Sumatra, the Toala of Celebes, and possibly some 

 other people of Borneo, provide evidence in corroboration of the fact of the 

 migration of the Australian race. 



The northern limit of the Australian Region being the northern 

 extremity of New Guinea before Torres Strait was formed, the 

 time of the arrival of the Proto-Indic in those parts must be re- 

 garded as his first appearance in any part of Australia. No 

 attempt is made here to fix the time of this; it belongs to the 

 distant past and the early migrations of man. The time of the 

 first appearance of the Australoids in Australia in its present 

 form is the immediate purpose. Having landed in what is now 

 New Guinea, the routes taken by the migrants are conjectural, 

 but they were presumably through the western half of that island ; 

 they could have moved partly by sea or along the highlands, or 

 across the now submerged coastal plain. The only part of the 

 coastal plain extant outside Australian waters is, seemingly, Aru 

 Islands, now occupied by a Melanesian people of mixed strain. 

 Keesing (1946) comments suggestively: 



Persons [of the Papuan type] . . . appear to show a considerable strain 

 of the same racial materials as the nearby Australian Aborigine— the so-called 

 Australoid features — combined with the dark Negroid elements uppermost in 

 the region. It might be expected on the ground of geography, they are found 



