ABORIGINAL REMAINS

Evening Star, Issue 20118, 7 March 1929, Page 14

ABORIGINAL REMAINS

CAMPING GROUNDS AND WORKSHOPS In the early part of the year 1900 the late Mr Thomas Whitelegge, then senior zoologist at the Australian Museum (to quote the words of the late curator, Mr R. Etheridge, jun.), found “ what we have never before imagined to exist,” several workshops of the Australian aborigines along the_ coast near Sydney. Considerable collections appear to have been made at the time from the workshops at Bondi, Marouba, Cronulla, Bellambi, and other areas, and the results have been published in the records of the Australian Museum for the year 1907, From that time to the present no systematic and thorough investigations of the aboriginal workshops appear to have been carried out; and of the > work which has been done by individuals very little has been placed on record, except for fugitive references in works on the aborigines of a more general character (states C. C. Towle, in the Sydney ‘Morning Herald’). Last year, however, an issue of the records of the Australian Museum contained two important contributions to the subject. A paper by Miss L. D. Hall deals with the flakework on the middens at Morna Point; and one by Mr W. W. Thorpe, ethnologist, deals with a massive type of flaked “ chopper ” recently found by him at One Mile Beach, Anna Bay, also with some remarkable discoveries by the late Mr I). F, Cooksey in the Newcastle district. It is surprising that a subject of this kind which is so interesting in itself, and which has led to such important results in some other parts of the world, should have suffered from so much neglect locally. In Europe the “ stations ” occupied by the men of the Stone Age have been carefully studied by experts whoso researches have revealed the existence in prehistoric times of several races of different types and cultures. In Australia we have no reason to heliove that man has been here for so long a time as ho has been in Europe, and we have - no evidence of several races of men with different cultures succeeding each other as they did in the Old World. But because of this the camping grounds of the Australian aboriginal should not he neglected. They still present many problems for investigation, and it is possible that some of them may eventually yield evidence of the greatest importance concerning the early history of the human race in Australia. The term “ camping ground ” includes workshops, kitchen middens, cave shelters, and so on; and the recent discovery on- the coastal workshops and middens of a new type of flakewood implement, with several varieties, indicates the casual nature of the work done until recently even along the well-settled coast of New South Wales. _ What, then, are the questions which the investigation of the camping grounds may enable us to state more precisely, if not definitely to decide? First, a discovery of the greatest importance would be the finding, in situ, of the skeleton remains of an earlier, type, either akin to the Tasmanian or to the Talgai race, which an authority has stated “ does not belong to the modern type of Australian, and probably dates back very many thousands oi years from'the present.” Second, a result of equal importance would be the finding of camping grounds showing evidences of very great age, on which the highest types of implements are either similar to the stone culture of the Tasmanians or are of different or lower cultural development than the types generally recognised as belonging to the present race. An authority has stated that “ Australia must have been peopled in the beginning by a most primitive stone-using people,” and he further states that he believes that the stone culture as we know it has been developed locally. If such_ discoveries could be made, especially if both were mad a at the same time and place, it may then be possible to assert with a high degree of certainty how long man has been in Australia, and what has been the nature of his development during the intervening centuries. If the belief in the antiquity -of man in Australia has any basis of fact why, up to the present, have the investigations of the camping grounds been so unproductive of a mass of supporting evidence? It is sometimes, even frequently, asserted that Australia presents peculiar difficulties to the investigator, and that small results may he expected. But for two reasons this view is open to objection; first, if man has been in Australia for “thousands of years,” there can be little doubt that he will have left traces of his early occupation, which have not yet been identified; and, second, the work done on the camping grounds lias so far been neither exhaustive nor extensive enough to yield results. But we are not altogether without evidence which is suggestive of the great age of some of the camping grounds. In the records of the Australian Museum for the year 1907 Etheridge and Whitelegge have stated There is ample evidence that many of the sand dunes (on the coast near Sydney) wore at one time much higher than they are now, and also that in some parts they had been covered with vegetation, interspersed with native camping grounds, upon which vast quantities of shells were deposited; in course ol time the vegetation was covered by sand drifts, other shell heaps formed at the summit, and the whole again buried. The period of time required for these various changes must have been very great, and it has required a still greater lapse of time to produce the present conditions.” But these areas have not yet produced any positive evidence of antiquity. A few years ago the late Mr D. F. Cooksey discovered a workshop at Tirrikiba, near Newcastle, which is undoubtedly of much greater age than the middens along the present bank of the Hunter River. At Tirrikiba tho aborigines carried on the making of their implements at a time when the river flowed ■ near by. To-day the river is about a mile distant. At Glen Rock Lagoon, near Merewether, there_ is evidence that the aborigines occupied two sites, one being earlier than thb other. But the available evidence does not allow us at present to_ give an estimate of the difference in time. Probably the best evidence other than the Talgai skull, of the comparative antiquity of man in Australia was obtained some years ago from Shea’s Creek; but as the implements found were not from a camping ground, they do, not directly concern this discussion. The discovery, however, should encourage investigators to search camping grounds for complementary evidence of similar age. Even if the camping grounds already known have not yet produced any definite evidence of the antiquity of man iri Australia, the amount pi exploration and investigation which is still to be done should produce exSectation of future success. In Surope, on some of the camping grounds, deposits are found layer upon layer. If, in Australia, we eventually jneet ynth similar; ‘ itratified deposits

on the camping grounds we may then - he able to state how long man has been in Australia, and whether h« brought ‘his stone culture with ini fully developed or whether it was partly developed here in response hil neodsii