Mem. Nat. Mus. Vict., 14, Pt. 2, 1946. 
THE CONTEMPORANEITY OF THE 
RIVER TERRACES OF THE MARIE YRNONO RIVER, 
VICTORIA, 
WITH THOSE OF 
THE UPPER PLEISTOCENE IN EUROPE. 
By R. A. KeNe, F.G.S., Palaeontologist , and J. Hope Macpherson, 
ConcJiologist, National Museum of Victoria. 
Plate XV. 
(Received for publication 18th January, 1945) 
The examination of the terraces of the Maribyrnong River 
valley was undertaken to prove the antiquity of what has come 
to be known as the Keilor skull. There is now reason for believing 
that the skeleton may have been a burial, and the age of the 
terrace in which it was found is not necessarily its age. Neverthe- 
less, although the skull is suspect, the investigation was in the 
much neglected field of Victorian Pleistocene geology, and is an 
attempt to correlate the Maribyrnong River terraces with those 
of the Ice Age of Europe. Doubtless, the correlation will facilitate 
an understanding of the ecology of the Recent and Pleistocene 
fauna and flora concerning which little is known in Australia. 
Early in October, 1940, the Keilor skull was found with frag- 
ments of limb bones in Hughes’s sand pit near the junction of 
Dry Creek and the Maribyrnong River, a mile north of the Keilor 
township. In the following December the approximate site was 
inspected by Messrs. Mahony, Brazenor, and Keble, of the 
National Museum, the circimistances of the discoveiy being later 
partly detailed by Mahony (1943), together with papers on the 
anatomy of the skull by Wunderly (1943), and on the palate and 
upper dental arch by Adam (1943). Hughes’s sand pit is 
excavated in a river terrace (PI. XV, Fig. 1) referred to by us as 
the Keilor Terrace. The skull and bones were stated to have come 
from one level 18 feet below its surface, and within a few feet 
horizontally. At the site where it was discovered, the surface of 
the Keilor Terrace adjoining the pit had been lowered 9 feet by 
excavation of sand for industrial purposes ; the wall of the pit is 
9 feet high. 
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