LIKELY ORIGIN OF THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL
Deductions theoretical—Pre-historic men of Australia—Tennant’s
Creek calvarium—Talgai skull—Other finds—Alterations in world’s
ancient geography—Former land-bridges—Probable home of man in
region now occupied by Indian Ocean—Early migrations—Three
principal strains—Negroid—Mongoloid—Australoid—Tremendous
upheavals at close of Triassic Period—Australia isolated—Early
inhabitants unmolested—Primitive Australian anthropologically
related to cultured Caucasian—Survival of the Stone Age in
Australia—Living fossils—Short resumé—The mixing of European
with aboriginal blood—What is a half-caste?
Having satisfied ourselves in regard to some of the principal somatic
characteristics of the Australian aboriginal, we shall proceed to discuss
briefly his likely origin. In the present absence of more material facts
relating to his ancestry, and of a more thorough comparative knowledge of
races in general, we are lamentably handicapped in this direction, and
many of our conclusions are necessarily theoretical.
So far as possible, we shall take into consideration his present
relationships to other living races and peoples, as well as his
affinities with the ancient hunting peoples, who inhabited various parts
of the world in bygone eras, and are now only known in a fossilized
condition.
This introduces the geological element of time—hundreds of thousands,
yea, millions perhaps, of years have passed since man left records of his
being; definite traces have been found, embedded in the same deposits as
contain the mammoth, on the one hand, and the Diprotodon, on the other.
The evidences of pre-historic and fossil men in the Old World are too
numerous and well-known to need elucidation here; we shall confine our
attention to Australian records.
Some years ago a specimen was submitted to me for identification which
had been found in Pleistocene (or Pliocene?) gravels S.S.E. of the
Tennant’s Creek district. It was so completely petrified and “stony”
looking that the organic origin was doubted, but a thin section viewed
under the microscope revealed the true structure of bone. After cleaning
the fragment thoroughly, I recognized it as portion of a human skull,
viz. the posterior half of the left parietal. The anterior fracture is
vertical and at about the centre of the parietal eminence; the thin
squamous edge is also broken away. The lambdoidal border is still quite
characteristic and shows the complex nature of the parieto-occipital
suture. Both the external and internal surfaces are rough and pitted
through exposure, age, and mineral precipitations, but the temporal
ridge is still discernible and can be traced posteriorly right up to the
parieto-occipital suture. There is no indication of a parietal foramen.
The bone is thick about the posterior inferior angle, but the groove of
the lateral sinus has broken away. The specimen, when struck, has a clear
metallic ring, like that of earthenware or porcelain. When treated with
acid, the surfaces as well as the “bone-substance” effervesced briskly,
proving that a thorough intermolecular substitution of organic matter by
mineral was in progress. This calvarium, fragmentary though it is, is of
considerable importance from a prehistory point of view, since it gives
us another definite link in the somewhat meagre chain of evidence which
has been established in connection with the geological antiquity of man
in Australia.
The most important find of an extinct Australian type was made at Talgai,
in south-eastern Queensland, as far back as 1884, in the shape of a
fairly well preserved skull; but it was not until a few years ago that
a description of it was published by Dr. S. A. Smith. Although no other
bones were discovered in association with the skull, numerous remains
of extinct creatures like the Diprotodon, the Nototherium, and horny
reptiles have been unearthed not many miles remote from the site of the
interesting discovery. Dr. Smith sums up his observations as follows:
“This fossil human skull of a not yet adult Proto-Australian presents the
general picture of a cranium similar in all respects to the cranium of
the Australian of to-day, combined with a facial skeleton of undoubtedly
Australian type, in the palate and teeth of which there are to be found,
in conjunction with the most primitive characters found in modern skulls,
certain characters more ape-like than have been observed in any living or
extinct race, except that of Eoanthropus.”
Other less convincing discoveries have been recorded in the shape of
human and dingo bones from the Wellington Caves, human remains and
artefacts from beneath the basalts of Victoria, and the fossil footprints
of an aboriginal in the upper Tertiary beds of Warrnambool.
It would seem, therefore, that sufficient facts have been forthcoming to
prove that man was in existence at any rate in late Tertiary times; and
since he was then perfectly developed, it would not seem unreasonable to
assign to him a very much greater antiquity.
During these long ages, tectonic forces, and the ever active denuding
agents of the atmosphere, in all their phases, have wrought considerable
transfigurations in the surface of the globe. Some portions of the
earth’s crust have been swallowed by the ocean, whilst others have been
wrenched from the depths by upheaving processes. Thus the geography
of our present world would be a _terra incognita_ to the earliest
progenitors of the human kind, who lived in the dim dawn of man’s
ascending tendencies, while, on the other hand, we would require a new
army of intrepid explorers to pave the way for civilization if we were
suddenly placed back into the world as it stood in the beginning of
primeval days.
Old land connections then existed between entities which now are parted
by abysmal depths. Such evidence of once-existing continental links is
afforded by what has been termed a “biological consanguinity” between
organic creations on both sides of gaps now occupied by ocean water.
There is no novelty about all this. Our best scientists have long
recognized that such connections have existed beyond all doubt.
They become evident when one enquires into the present geographical
distribution of botanical and zoological species, and when one correlates
geological strata in different parts of the world, on the basis of
palæontological evidence contained in them.
The same principles apply when we consider the probable original home of
man, and the subsequent migrations and racial evolutions of the pristine
hordes, which followed.
That once a chain of land linked together the shores of Australia,
South Africa, and India seems certain. The continental masses, which
in past eras supplied this link, zoologists have christened _Lemuria_,
while geologists refer to the lost land as _Gondwana_. It is somewhere
within the area once occupied by this submerged continent, perhaps not
far remote from Australia, that we must look for the cradle of the
species _Homo_. Although most of the evidence has been irretrievably
lost to scientific investigation, much might yet be expected from any of
the contiguous continents or islands in this region, upon which occur
Tertiary or later sedimentary formations. The discovery of the oldest
fossil, which appears to be human—the _Pithecanthropus erectus_—in Java,
was by no means accidental. Professor Dubois, before leaving for that
island to undertake a fossil-hunting expedition there, declared that in
all probability he would discover the remains of a primitive creature
related to man.
From some point, then, upon this ancient, vanished continent, perhaps
no great distance north of our present Australia, we believe migrations
of the earliest representatives of the human species took place. The
directions in which these migrations took place would be governed
according to the lie of the land as it was then determined by the
impassable waters of the ocean. In all probability, the families
or groups wandered in various directions, at first keeping more or
less in contact and on friendly terms with each other, but as time,
and eventually ages, wore on, these migratory groups, by selective
culture, environment, climate, and, maybe, sundry other causes, became
differentiated into peculiarly distinct strains, all of which we are
nowadays able to reduce to three fundamental races.
One of these migrations was along a western course, which led the
wandering groups into the region now represented by the continent of
Africa. This established the Negroid element.
Another strain moved northwards and spread itself, like the rays of a
rocket, across the land now known as Asia. Some of these “rays” reached
what is now Lapland, while others found their way, via the region of
modern Esquimaux Land, across to what we now call North America. This
march evolved the Mongoloids.
Yet another body of primitive hunters, who interest us most, worked
their way north-westwards, on a course between the former two, and took
possession of any portions of the dry land of the globe, the present
relics of which are India, south-western Asia, and Europe.
Then came the catastrophe! The exact period is not determined. It must
have happened since the advent of the “human” type, but there the
evidence fails. Upheavals or subsidences of land usually take an age
to make themselves noticeable. It is scientifically established that
the close of the Triassic period was characterized throughout the world
by great tectonic changes. Beds of rock were faulted to lofty heights
on one side, and to dizzy depths on the other. The height of the Blue
Mountains plateau of New South Wales is evidence of such upheaval, whilst
the broken coastline, with its “drowned” rivers and myriads of islands
along the north-west of Australia, together with the coastal fringe of
coral reefs along the north, are all evidences of comparatively recent
subsidence _en bloc_.
By these processes Australia was gradually isolated from its former
land-connections, but, being near to the original home of man, it is only
natural to suppose that the land was peopled.
From that time on Australia remained, whether as an island continent or
a group of associated islands does not concern us here, isolated from
the rest of the world. The original inhabitants whiled away their time
in comparative ease. They had nothing to fear. Their former companions
who had, through their nomadic migrations, been so far removed from
them, would, no doubt, have now posed as formidable rivals, if the
barriers had not come between. Until the recent arrival of the European
explorers and settlers, and the periodic visitations to the north coast
by Malay bêche-de-mer fishers, this great Southern Land had remained the
undisputed property of the comparatively sparse progeny of the first
primitive possessors.
There were no ferocious animals to molest these early prehistoric
Australians. Apart from a few dangerous, but usually non-aggressive,
reptiles, the large animals were almost without exception of the ancient
marsupial order, and, although perfectly harmless, offered excellent
opportunity for the chase.
Thus it happened that the primitive hordes could roam at large in a
congenial climate, and under peculiar conditions, which were everywhere
much the same; and, in their subsequent wanderings, they met only with
people of their own descent and inclinations. In consequence, they were
spared many of the bloody brawls and conflicts, which the competitive
waves of culture continually showered upon the other hordes that were
struggling northwards under decidedly more adverse conditions of climate.
The great struggle for existence did not make itself felt so keenly to
the ancient Australians because they were strictly insulated, and thus
kept outside the sphere of exotic influence and interference; their
only troubles amounted to an individual club-duel, or occasionally an
inter-tribal warfare, which evoked more irate words than actual blood
drawn by their sharply-pointed spears.
So the Australian has remained just what he was ages ago. And on that
account the evolution of his pristine contemporaries, who were seized
by the flood wave of culture, becomes the more comprehensible, when we
measure the differences, but recognize the affinities, existing between
the extremes. A line drawn across the map of the world indicating, so
far as it is at this stage possible, the areas whose populations show,
or before their extinction showed, the strongest affinities with him
will represent roughly the direction of migration and incidentally of
evolution of the Australoid strain.
This line of anthropological relationship connects the Australian
(including the Proto-Australian) with the Veddahs and Dravidians of
India, and with the fossil men of Europe, from whom the Caucasian element
has sprung. In other words, the Australian aboriginal stands somewhere
near the bottom rung of the great evolutional ladder we have ascended—he
the bud, we the glorified flower of human culture.
In the living Australian then, we see the prototype of man as he appeared
in Europe in the Stone Age. Australia has upon other occasions proved
to be extraordinary in a scientific sense. The kangaroo is known only
in the petrified condition in the Tertiary deposits in other parts of
the world. The _Zamia_, which is still found living in Australia, is
a conspicuous plant of the coal-measures in every other country. The
ornamental mollusc, known as _Trigonia_, had been regarded as extinct
until it was re-discovered in Australia. Most of the great river systems
of central Australia have had their day; they have flourished in the
past; yet, occasionally, after a prolific downpour, their dry courses
swell temporarily to majestic streams. And, lastly, we see in the
aboriginal yet another palæontological overlap—a living fossil man—the
image of ourselves, as we appeared many ages before we learned to record
the history of our progress, and of the world in general.
When one wades more deeply into the subject, only skimmed above,
the following points suggest themselves to one: Our line of racial
development was very early dissociated from the Mongoloid and Negroid
lines; and geographically it ran between the latter two. There are
considerable racial differences between the other races and the
Australoids, the most highly specialized and cultured division of which
is now represented by the modern Caucasian. The last-named deductions
are entirely supported by the shallowness of the pigmentation in the
aboriginal’s skin, and by the fair hair of children found among certain
tribes of central Australia. In fact, the colour question, so far as
the Australian aboriginal is concerned, is a relative conception, the
difference in the amounts of pigment in his skin and in the “white” man’s
being in all probability due to climatic influences extending over long
periods of time. It is doubtful whether the primitive Australoid or the
Proto-Australian possessed a skin so dark as that of the present-day
Australian. We may now understand why it is that the quarter-blooded
progeny derived from the union of a half-blooded aboriginal woman with
a European father is always lighter in colour than its mother, and the
octoroon lighter still. Unions further on the European side produce
children practically white; and no case is on record where the colour in
a later generation reverted to the darker again. The latter, we know,
happens only too often when there is a taint of Negroid blood running in
a family, even though the mixing of race took place generations back.
Apart from its great scientific significance, this matter is of
considerable social and national interest to citizens of Australia,
and we might well ask ourselves: “Are we justified in referring to the
half-blooded aboriginal, with European parentage on one side, as a
half-caste, or in even stigmatizing him as a bastard?”