A naturalist in Tasmania / by Geoffrey Smith.

  • Smith, Geoffrey, 1881-1916.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A naturalist in Tasmania / by Geoffrey Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    any definite evidence, that the Tasmanians origin- ally spread all over Australia, and were ousted by the invasion from Indo-Malaysia of the present Australian natives, who, however, did not reach Tasmania owing to the existence of Bass’s Straits. In support of this theory certain common customs are advanced, such as the corroboree and the habit of knocking out some of the incisor teeth, which may have been derived by the invading Australians from the Tasmanian aboriginals. The state of culture of the Tasmanians was extremely low ; so low that, as Professor Tylor says, they must be regarded as survivals of Palaeo- lithic man. The only implements which they used, besides wooden spears and waddies or clubs made of the native Tea-tree {Melaleuca), were roughly chipped stone scrapers, true Palaeoliths, without any attempt at grinding or polishing the edges. These weapons, which were apparently chiefly used for sharpening the spears and scraping shell-fish or flesh, and in the rough surgical opera- tions which they performed, were not made of real flint, which does not occur in the island, but of the hard cherty stone formed from the mud- stones, where they have come into contact with, ' and been altered by, the igneous greenstone or diabase. Dr. Noetling^ has also recently described some peculiar rounded stones with depressions made in them by which they might be held, which he re- 1 The Tasrnanian Naturalist, vol. i, No. 3, 1907.
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