THE STONE AGE SAVAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18297, 13 January 1923, Page 10

THE STONE AGE SAVAGE.

r v.■.:,..;- v|-'. ; :v : '/i[.\.:..%ii,ii,iii. in 'i mgi. ' '"'.... .:::;:... if AUSTRALIAN NEXT-OF-KIN. NEAREST TO PRIMITIVE MAN ' THEORIES AS TO ORIGIN. ■, Ist T£I.BG»AMI.--PEES9 ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON. Friday. i' At the Town Hall to-night, Sir Baldwin Spencer, lecturing under the auspices of the Australasian Association for the Advancement: of Science, on the " Life of the Stone Age Savage," said Australia; was now the only part; of the world in which it was possible to study a really- ' backward-: race that had not passed beyond the state of the genuine early stone age savage. Still more backward people were the Tasmanians. '

: An i adequate account of their customs, organisation, and beliefs would have formed a document of incalculable value I to students of the early history of man- | kind, but our i near ancestors harried ! them, and hurried. them to their doom with scarcely, a. thought of the grievous wrong they were doing, not only to these simolo, helpless people, but to posterity. It must, however, be remembered, that both the Tasmahian and Australian aboriginals, though backward, were far from being primitive, and that probably a greater gap separated them from the redly primitve man than from the most highly developed race of the old stone age races of the world. We had now little record of them save for a few remnants ?of their skeletons that had been preserved, their stone implements, and, in some cases, their works of ; art. What was the exact relationship between these races and the Australians it was difficult to say. If the Australians had become extinct before we came into contact with : them, all we would have had to judge of their culture would have been perhaps a few skulls revealing a wonderful variation in size and form, and some < rock paintings not comparable in execution with those executed by other rude peoples of prehistoric Europe. There had been many theories formed as to the origin of the Australians, but none was- quite convincing. The most important point to be remembered was that for long ages Australia had been cut off from Eurasian and all other land masses by barriers which served to prevent the entrance of any higher forms of mammalian life. It was quite possible that the ohvsical separation of the island continent," together with the unfavourable climatic conditions which Professor Grifith Taylor had shown to have existed in Northern Australia at the time of tho great migration oS the early human races, were taking place ;; across the more favoured land routes to the north, may have served to preserve in Australia the remnant and descendants of a. very early human race, just as it certainly isolated and preserved those of other forms of life now extinct elsewhere. " This would mean," said Sir Baldwin Spencer, "that the early aboriginals reached Australia with a knowledge: of how to make and use certain primitive implements, and at a cultural level which we may suppose to have been akin to that of some stone age people, such as the crc-magrions. In the' course of the long ages which have since elapsed, they have •developed along certain lines, elaborating complicated rituals, customs, and beliefs but, at ; the same time, remaining stone age savages as we know them now." It was, he said, greatly to be regretted that the opportunity had not been taken earlier: to learn as much as possible concerning the Australian aborigines, but it stood to the credit of the Labour that they were the first to recognise the State's obligation to these people, and look steps to ; establish a special depart-, ment to care for them and watch over their 'interests.