Nevertheless, though of the same human species as ourselves, the Australoids[11] and Tasmanians[12] belonged to the lowliest living types of mankind, both physically and mentally. We know from various researches and evidence of cave deposits, bone and shell heaps, that these races had inhabited Australia and Tasmania for a very long period, that they did not originate in the southern continent, but evidently came from Asia; and that their nearest relations at the present day are the savage forest tribes of India and Ceylon, and in the past--most wonderful to relate--the ancient races of Britain and the continent of Europe. In his skull features and his very simple handicraft the Tasmanian resembled closely the people who lived in Kent and north-eastern France one to two hundred thousand years ago, in the warm intervals of the Great Ice Age. When races of superior intellect and bodily strength were developed in Europe and northern Asia, the ancestors of the Tasmanians and the Australoids were driven forth into the forests of Africa and southern Asia. From out of the Tasmanian type was specialized the Negro of Africa and southern Asia. But the unspecialized Tasmanian meantime was either extinguished by stronger races or was pushed on, ever farther and farther eastwards and southwards, until first Australia, and lastly what was once the southernmost peninsula of Australia--Tasmania--was his last refuge. The Australoids followed in the Tasmanian's footsteps, and became the native race of the Australian continent, prevented or discouraged from crossing over into Tasmania by the sea passage--Bass's Straits--which had been formed between Tasmania and the mainland. Other Australoids and Tasmanians no doubt populated New Guinea and the great Melanesian islands (as they had done all Malaysia). Here, however, they were followed up by the Negro, and in course of time Papuasia (as New Guinea and its surrounding islands is called) became almost as much a domain of the Negro as Africa. Primitive Negroes (mixed in blood with Australoids, and forming thus the Melanesian type) travelled as far eastwards and south as Fiji, the New Hebrides, and New Caledonia. They may even have reached New Zealand before the Polynesian Maoris came, and in a half-breed with the Polynesian they extended their ocean range as far as the Hawaii archipelago. They populated the Philippine Islands,[13] and all the other islands of the Malay Archipelago, even as far out at sea as Micronesia, except--curiously enough--Borneo, and perhaps Java. [11] It is more convenient to give this name to the dark-skinned Australian aborigines, inasmuch as the term "Australian" now means a white man of European ancestry. [12] The Tasmanians have been extinct since 1876 or 1877.