Giants From the Dreamtime the Yowie In Myth And Reality

Homo erectus New England District 1999

Homo erectus Site

What appears to be even more recent evidence of the Yowie's [ie Homo erectus] continuing survival, was found by me in January, 1999 in dense forest terrain, high up in the mountain country behind Hanging Rock, which rises up on the eastern side of Nundle, south-east of Tamworth.

This eerie forest country has long been regarded as "Yowie territory" by the locals around Hanging Rock and Nundle, for it has since pioneering days been regarded as THE major region for 'hairy man' sightings in the New England district.

It was while on a visit to the Nundle State Forest area, east of Hanging Rock, together with my wife Heather, on January 21st, that I stumbled upon an open area atop a deep gully overlooking a vast wilderness that stretched to the eastern horizon. Scattered about the area I found a number of what were undoubtedly only weeks old, crudely flaked stone tools; scrapers, choppers and other implements.

Within a few days I had found another site containing crude choppers and scrapers, once again situated in a very remote, out of the way area of dense bushland; tools that appeared to be only a few months old.

I have seen primitive implements of identical appearance over the past few years at other locations, scattered about the former shoreline of a long-vanished giant lake system that covers a vast area to the west of Tamworth, and which had been part of an extensive series of inter-connecting lakes extending north-west to Moree and southward down towards Mudgee during the last ice-age.

Yet the crude implements found around this former lake pre-dated any Aboriginal examples and are identical to those manufactured by Home erectus in Java and China. The massive lake systems in question dried up within the last 15,000 years, although deposits near Attunga, to the north of Tamworth, where the first Homo erectus tools were identified by me in 1991, date back around 400,000 years.

Covering many hundreds of square kilometres, these great water supplies would have attracted primitive Homo erectus people and later humans, who fed upon the abundant fish, giant marsupial and other fauna that roamed the shores.

I theorise, based upon the available evidence, that wandering groups of Homo erectus people, having entered Australia over a vast period of time, penetrated the Central West/New England region, to congregate around the shores of these vast lakes, and gradually evolve into the first modern humans, who in turn eventually spread northwards beyond Australia.

That this region was the very epicentre of modern human evolution is a proposition which only future archaeological discoveries can vindicate. Yet wherever that 'epicentre' was, there can be little doubt that it was somewhere on this continent.

Colo River-Putty 1999

Little hairy Man

Mr Neil Hoskins, who is an experience bushman and ex-soldier, was spending Christmas 1999 on the Colo River, up in a wilderness area at Cattle Camp No 1, outside the small town of Putty. It was daytime, when as he was working with cattle, he spotted about 30 metres away, a "one metre tall human-looking figure standing, observing him on the edge of scrub. The little male was naked and black-skinned. Neil observed that he had "a long pointy nose and black hair".

Neil realised that this strange little creature was a still-wild pygmy, but before he could get another look the pygmy-size creature turned away and quickly vanished into the foliage. The Dharug Aborigines of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney called the pygmy-size people [other than the yowies] with whom they shared these wilds the Boothoo geermi - Boothoo 'little', geer 'hair', mi 'man' - or "Little hairy man".

The Boothoo geermi were said to be particularly prolific in the vast wildernesses making up the Jamieson/Cedar/Megalong/Burragorang/Jenolan and Kanangra ranges to the south and south-west of Katoomba, where they shared the land with those other "hairy men" with which this book is largely concerned.

Howqua-Lake Eildon Region 1999

Larger than man-sized Footprints

During March 1990 Mr Wayne O'Brian and two friends were camped in the Howqua area east of Lake Eildon. While exploring around the edge of thick scrub through long grass, the men saw blowflies buzzing around something in the grass nearby.

Upon investigation they found the carcase of a calf that had been chewed up, and about which were bones and clumps of hair. Shortly after, in a nearby gully they found a pile of excreta. At the bottom of a patch of scrub they smelt a very strong pungent odour. Nearby, in a muddy area the men discovered a number of larger-than-man sized footprints.

Later, in July 1999 Mr Peter Whiteside and two other friends were hunting in a thickly timbered area near Lake Eildon when, on the bank of a creek, they found marks where some heavy object, like the rump of some huge man-like creature, had been sitting. Hairs of a greyish colour were found embedded into the muddy depression. Nearby campers came upon several huge man-ape like footprints in a mud patch.

Wee Waa 1999

Large Footprints

During 1999 rumours circulated around the Wee Waa district that a large hairy man-ape creature of 2.4m or so in height and very muscular in appearance, was roaming the scrublands thereabouts, and that he was responsible for a number of dead sheep found at one bushland location, their limbs wrenched from their sockets. Large footprints were left by the hairy manbeast about the scene of this mass 'kill'. Bushmen with guns and dogs scoured the region but failed to find any further traces of the mystery hominid, as he apparently moved on elsewhere.