I INTRODUCTION 29 



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- 



^ The Tasmanian Naturalist, vol. i, No. 3, 1907. 



