180 R. ETHERIDGE, T. W. E. DAVID, AND J. W. GRIMSHAW. 
the general level of the ocean may have risen five feet with regard 
to the level of the land since the death of the Dugong. The 
carcase was probably for the most part carried off by the Aborigines 
piece-meal, and as there would have been enough flesh on the 
bones to admit of their cutting and coming again, the feasting 
would probably have been prolonged for more than one day. 
Hence it is all the more probable that the carcase of the Dugong 
would have been taken to near high water mark, where it would 
have been comparatively safe from any but human carnivores, 
than have been left to the tender mercies and maws of the sharks, 
as it would have been had it been allowed to remain at low tide 
level. The skeleton, after being stripped of its flesh, was covered 
over with mud by the wash of the tide, and sediment brought 
‘down by, perhaps, the ancestor of the modern Shea’s Creek, and 
the spot having been temporarily reclaimed by the silting, it 
was possible for swampy vegetation to overspread the spot, and this 
actually happened. Then followed a slight subsidence of the land 
or rise of the ocean during which the mud and shells were brought 
in which form bed (c) above the peaty horizon (d). This move- 
- ment continued until the peaty horizon (d) was gradually carried 
five fect below the level of mean high water. During this time the 
sand forming bed (5) was accumulating, the peaty horizons in it 
perhaps marking pauses in the relative movement of ocean and 
land surfaces. If these inferences are correct, we are led to the 
somewhat startling conclusion that Neolithic man may have 
inhabited Botany Bay when the ocean level was about five feet 
lower than at present. 
If the four stone tomahawks found at Shea’s Creek were in situ 
as there seems every reason to suppose, and if they had not worked 
down in the silt, (and it is all but impossible that they could have 
worked down through the peaty layer (d) into the position in 
which they are said to have been found), they would show that 
man, sufficiently civilised to manufacture such implements, in- 
habited this region at perhaps even a more remote period, one of 
‘the tomahawks having been found close to the horizon of the 
