Cave Shelters and the Aborigines of Tasmania

Roth, Henry Ling

doi:10.1038/060545c0

Cited by 4 publications

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“…Thus, for Tasmanian groups to have maintained one or two languages over thousands of years would have required long-standing cohesive social connections over a population numbering several thousands. But what the ethnographic literature clearly describes is a collection of mobile hearth groups of ca 50 people with strong local affiliations (in 'bands') and a much looser set of regional affiliations ('tribes') with seasonal contact and reciprocal exchange rights [1,3,4,43]. Jones infers clan exogamy but tribal endogamy, which would also reinforce localist [44] rather than island-wide stances and would lead to boundary enforcement between tribes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The indigenous people of Tasmania were severely affected by European settlement in the nineteenth century [1]. Although it is known from ethnographic sources and early reports [2] that Indigenous Tasmanians comprised 48 bands in nine tribes [3,4] (figure 1), the number of languages and their internal phylogenetic relationships have remained a mystery.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous attempts [1,6,9] to discover the linguistic history of Tasmania are rife with equivocations and are internally irreconcilable, despite being based on identical source material. Roth [1] was convinced that there was a single language, despite quoting considerable ethnographic evidence to the contrary. Walker [20] follows Robinson in arguing for four languages, but does not provide any evidence for this conclusion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The riddle of Tasmanian languages

Bowern

2012

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Recent work which combines methods from linguistics and evolutionary biology has been fruitful in discovering the history of major language families because of similarities in evolutionary processes. Such work opens up new possibilities for language research on previously unsolvable problems, especially in areas where information from other sources may be lacking. I use phylogenetic methods to investigate Tasmanian languages. Existing materials are so fragmentary that scholars have been unable to discover how many languages are represented in the sources. Using a clustering algorithm which identifies admixture, source materials representing more than one language are identified. Using the NeighborNet algorithm, 12 languages are identified in five clusters. Bayesian phylogenetic methods reveal that the families are not demonstrably related; an important result, given the importance of Tasmanian Aborigines for information about how societies have responded to population collapse in prehistory. This work provides insight into the societies of prehistoric Tasmania and illustrates a new utility of phylogenetics in reconstructing linguistic history.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The riddle of Tasmanian languages

Bowern

2012

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…Thus, spears, digging sticks and throwing sticks are of the utmost simplicity to make (arguably within the cognitive abilities of early hominins in terms of conceptualization, foresight, planning and anticipated future results), and they provided access to major quantities of resources. In fact, in terms of food procurement technology, spears, digging sticks and throwing sticks were the only tools that Tasmanian Aboriginals made or used aside from stone butchering tools, although they also made simple clothes, fire sticks and rafts [15]. Given the extreme simplicity of these woodworking tools and the wooden products together with the major food procurement benefits that they would have provided, it is difficult for me to imagine that they would not have been made and used at least from Oldowan times onward, especially given the previously noted archaeological indications of hunting and butchering small-to-medium-sized mammals [7][8][9][10][11][12]18] and the use of digging tools [16].…”

Section: (A) Spearsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insights into early lithic technologies from ethnography

Hayden¹

2015

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Oldowan lithic assemblages are often portrayed as a product of the need to obtain sharp flakes for cutting into animal carcases. However, ethnographic and experimental research indicates that the optimal way to produce flakes for such butchering purposes is via bipolar reduction of small cryptocrystalline pebbles rather than from larger crystalline cores resembling choppers. Ethnographic observations of stone tool-using hunter-gatherers in environments comparable with early hominins indicate that most stone tools (particularly chopper forms and flake tools) were used for making simple shaft tools including spears, digging sticks and throwing sticks. These tools bear strong resemblances to Oldowan stone tools. Bipolar reduction for butchering probably preceded chopper-like core reduction and provides a key link between primate nut-cracking technologies and the emergence of more sophisticated lithic technologies leading to the Oldowan.

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“…This little girl, better known as Dolly, was described later by Evans (1822) as '… a fine child, remarkably handsome, of a copper colour, with rosy cheeks, large black eyes, their whites tinged with blue, long well-formed eyelashes, the teeth uncommonly white, the limbs admirably formed'. Widely regarded as the first living child born to a white man and an Aboriginal woman in Van Diemen's Land (Mollison and Everitt 1978;Ling Roth, 1899), Dolly's place of birth is uncertain. Some suggest she was born on Cape Barren Island (Felton 1984) and others suggest Port Dalrymple (Bonwick 1969).…”

Section: Woretemoeteryenner's Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personalising the History Wars

Walter

Daniels²

2008

IJCIS

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Abstract:Warriors in the history wars' do battle over the accuracy and portrayal of Aboriginal history in Tasmania, but for the descendants of the traditional people this contested field is also the site of our families' stories. This paper juxtaposes, via the woven narrative of Woretemoeteryenner, a personal perspective against the history wars sterile dissection of official records. Woretemoeteryenner's story serves as a personalising frame for Tasmanian colonial history. Born before the beginning of European colonisation, by the end of her life fewer than 50 traditional Tasmanians remained. Her story also shines a light on the lived experiences of that small group of Aboriginal women who form the link between the traditional people and present Tasmanian Aboriginal communities. Most critically, Woretemoeteryenner's life is a personal story of a life lived through these now disputed and debated times. Personalising the History Wars: Woretemoeteryenner's StoryKeith Windschuttle chose Tasmania from 1803 to 1847 to begin his challenge to 'the credibility of the received interpretation' (2002, 3) of Aboriginal history. All queried events occurred over 160 years ago; a past era where none of those directly involved are alive or even within living memory. This is especially so in the case of the traditional peoples of Tasmania, whom Windschuttle labels criminals; their attacks on the usurpers of their traditional lands deemed robbery and murder rather than a war against dispossession (2002,(98)(99). Their descendants, our family among them, he dismisses as greedy opportunists taking advantage of misguided collective guilt to lay private claim to valuable public lands. Our respectful burial or cremation of our reclaimed stolen ancestors' remains he derides as 'vandalism' (2002, 417-423) and our Aboriginality, he declares 'invented', largely to claim more generous welfare benefits (2002,(432)(433)(434)(435)(436).While disparaging of both the past and present Aboriginal population, Windschuttle's argument is not actually about our people. What is under his intense scrutiny is how the historical record and archival materials of the time are read and analysed by contemporary historical scholars. Unpacking the intricacies of footnotes and insisting on the pre-eminence of the official record in relation to Aboriginal dispossession and deaths, he alleges that much of the previously accepted story of Aboriginal/European interactions in colonial Tasmania is, in fact, 'fabricated'.But this 'history' that is being so microscopically examined and re-examined, and subjected to claim and counter claim, is also part of our families' stories. While Windschuttle engages in lengthy analysis of the historical records, we wonder about the people themselves. We think about the anger Mannalargenna must have felt as he realised the true intentions of the sealers and the colonists, and the worthlessness of their promises. We imagine his despair when he realised that his sick and disheartened peoples were fatally outnumbered.

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Cave Shelters and the Aborigines of Tasmania

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

The riddle of Tasmanian languages

The riddle of Tasmanian languages

Insights into early lithic technologies from ethnography

Personalising the History Wars

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