THE OVEN-MOUNDS OF THE ABORIGINES IN VICTORIA. 59 
conclusion that the materials under review do not compel us” 
helplessly to admit some great antiquity, such as 3,000 or 4,000 
years, much less fabulous ages of hundreds of thousands of years, 
to the time when palxolithic or neolithic man first began to build 
more rapid. ut, again, if the unity of the Australian race, and 
various considerations on the strength of which a great antiquity 
is claimed for that race, are to be taken as resting on substantial 
