Over many thousands of years, Indigenous people have left signs of their occupation in Tasmania. The reminders of where they lived, ate, hunted or collected food, and their art and their sacred sites are all part of Tasmania’s heritage.
At 30 June 2003, there were 77 Indigenous places in Tasmania listed on the Register of the National Estate. The three main types of places protected were occupation sites (27), shell middens (17) and site complexes (13); these accounted for 74.0% of all Tasmanian Indigenous places on the Register, including those on the Interim List.
INDIGENOUS PLACES ON THE REGISTER OF THE NATIONAL ESTATE - 2002-03(a)(b)
|
| Tasmania | Australia |
| | |
Place type(c) | no. | no. |
|
Fish and eel traps | - | 19 |
Burials, cemeteries and graves | 3 | 32 |
Places of significance to Aboriginal people | 2 | 133 |
Art sites | 5 | 213 |
Ceremonial sites | - | 19 |
Grinding grooves | - | 19 |
Hunting hides and traps | - | 3 |
Historic and contact sites | 1 | 49 |
Modified trees | - | 64 |
Occupation sites | 27 | 101 |
Organic resource area | 1 | 1 |
Stone arrangements | 3 | 54 |
Site complexes | 13 | 108 |
Shell midden | 17 | 70 |
Wells | - | 12 |
Quarries | 5 | 35 |
Total | 77 | 932 |
- nil
(a) Includes registered places and places on the Interim List.
(b) At present there are no Torres Strait Islander places on the Register of the National Estate.
(c) Most of these places encompass a number of Aboriginal sites. There are many thousands of individual sites covering a wide range of site types on the Register.
Source: Australian Heritage Commission, Annual Report 2002-2003. |