Abstract
A PAPER by Mr. Hans Hallier on former land-bridges, and plant and human migrations between Australia and America, appears in Mededeelingen van's Rijks Herbarium, Leyden, for 1912, No. 13. At the outset the author refers to earlier conclusions, based on botanical evidence, that Indonesia, Australia, and Polynesia at one time formed a great Australian peninsula, most of which subsequently sank, either wholly or in part, leaving the mountains of Tasmania, New Zealand, New Caledonia, the Louisiades, New Guinea, the Moluccas, Celebes, the Philippines, Formosa, &c., to serve as centres of plant-dispersal between China and Polynesia, these being separated by deep sea from the mountains of eastern Australia. In earlier times the peninsula was connected by land with America, the northern boundary of this bridge extending from southern Japan through the Sandwich and Revilla-Gigedo Islands to Lower California, while the southern limit seems to have passed by way of the Society and Paumotu Islands from Tasmania through the Auckland, Campbell, Antipodes, and Chatham groups, and thence through Easter Island, Sala-y-Gomez, and Juan Fernandez to the south of Chile. To summarise the evidence of community of origin of the flora of this area, and of the relationships of language-roots, is here impossible, but reference may be made to certain American designs, considered by Wiener to represent lamas, but, according to the author, intended for kangaroos. After stating that, from linguistic evidence, southern Asia should be regarded as the dispersal-centre for the life of Indonesia and Polynesia, and referring to the community of type between ancient Egyptian, American, and south Asiatic art, the author expresses the opinion that Egyptian and American culture travelled, from a south Asiatic source bv two routes, one to Africa, and the other by way of Indonesia and Polynesia to America.
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Migrations between Australia and America . Nature 90, 660 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/090660b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/090660b0