THE TASMANIAN NATURALIST. 
s]> ciiiH.'n lias been badly damaged, it 
could not be broken. There is hardly 
any speeimen which lias come under my 
notice that more clearly proves the two 
facts—(a) Careful production by grind¬ 
ing the two fiat surfaces with the two 
rough central depressions; (b) subse¬ 
quent attempt of destruction by means 
of blows. In other specimens it is, 
however, impossible to ossum.- that they 
were smashed and broken by blows. The 
specimens, notably Fig. 2, shows no traces 
that they have been subject d to sueh 
rough treatment. The fine lures are 
clean and even, and this suggests only 
one way of destruction, mini ly, by tire. 
The specimens were heated til'st, and 
afterwards water was poured over them, 
and this must naturally result in a par¬ 
tial or total destruction. This view is 
borne out by a further observation. Some 
of the dialias pebbles exhibit peculiarly 
curved faces of fraction, such as would 
result when flakiv. Iby means of heating 
and sudden cooling are splintered otl, 
but which could nut lie produced if the 
flakes had been broken oil' by blows._ We 
know now tint; these laboriously manu¬ 
facture stones were purposely destroy¬ 
ed. either by means of blows or by heat¬ 
ing and sudden cooling, and this fact at 
oi.ee limits our range of speculation. It 
V a well-known fact that lower races 
often produce laboriously worked 
articles and destroy them afterwards if 
such articles are connected with their 
primitive notion of religion. It is there¬ 
fore v rv probable that the specimens 
here described were in some sort of a 
way connected with the religious or 
superstitious ideas of the Tasmanian 
aborigines. What their ideas were, 
whether they were omens, good 
or bad, or in some way con¬ 
nected with the worship of the souls of 
their deceased relations. I am unable to 
say, but it is unquestionable that this 
tli ory easily accounts for otherwise 
irreconcilable facts, viz., a tedious pro¬ 
duction and subsequent intentional de¬ 
struction. I may now mention another 
most interesting fact. Among the 
; vcliaeolithie inipliuieuts of Europe, in 
particular France and England, similar 
sp.ciiiieUS, though pretty rare, have been 
found. The French called them "mor- 
tiers" (mortar), anil B (ins been assumed 
that they served for grinding the red 
ochre primitive mm was in the habit of 
using. It s' 6111 S very doubtful that so 
much labour should be bestowed on the 
production of articles for which any 
fairly smooth olnh o; stone would have 
served just as well, if not better. Sir 
John Evans figures in his fundamental 
work on tihe stone iraiph incuts of Great 
Britain, page 23S. numerous specimens 
of this type, and tie assumes them to be 
hammer-stones, though he has apparent¬ 
ly sonic doubts as to tli ’ correctness of 
bis view. Uowever that may be, and 
1 think 1 have sufficiently proved that 
these specimens cannot be hammer- 
stones. tile remarkable fact remains that 
specimens of the. type here described are 
iliaraeterhstic of the arehaeolithic indus¬ 
try, and have be n found ill Europe, as 
well a- in Tasmania. It" my theory as 
to their use by the Tasmanian aborigines 
be correct, and so far there seems to 
be very little doubt, this would shed a 
peculiar light on the customs of arehaeo- 
litliie man in Europe. If the imple¬ 
ments used are the same, if the religious 
notions are tli same, is it too impro¬ 
bable an assumption that the Tasma¬ 
nian aborigines were the last remains- 
of a race whkti during arehaeolithic 
times—that is to say, previous to the 
advent of the great ice lloes — inhabited 
Europe* The above was already writ¬ 
ten and ready to go to press when 1 
happened to look up Bonwiok’s “Daily 
Life and Origin of tn 'Tasmanians,” 
where oil page 103, I found the following 
important remarks:—“When the Quaker 
missionaries. Messrs. Backhouse and 
Walker, were visiting the remnant of 
the tribes carried to Flinders Island, Bass 
Strait, they saw a poor old lubra busy 
in placing together “sundry “flat 
stones” marked variously with black 
and red lines. These, she ex¬ 
plained to the strangers, were her 
country people absent from her. One, 
•i linger stone than the rest, represented 
a fat black woman far away. . . it 
is just possible that the Tasmanian was 
in that way communing with the 
»pirit* of her friends lost in the black 
war. Unwilling to refer to them as 
dead, she s|Hike of tli am as 'plenty long 
way.’ ... 1 Lave not heard of any 
flat round stones like some found in Ire¬ 
land. Denmark, and Caithness, having 
a slight depression in the centre on both 
sides, a- of a thumb-mark, unless those- 
noticed by these two friends on Flinders 
Island were so." The observations of 
Messrs. Backhouse and Walker, who may 
most probably have overlooked the rough 
depressions in the centre, prove conclu¬ 
sively that the theory above advanced 
is correct. In fact, the remark con¬ 
cerning the larger stone representing a 
‘•fat black woman” proves that these 
stones were connected with “absent” 
(dead) individuals, indicating a very 
crude form of worship of the souls of 
deceased relatives. This view also ac¬ 
counts for their frequent occurrence, 
though it still leaves tile fact why these 
stones were intentionally destroyed un¬ 
explained. 
