cultural values

The word Tarkine is adapted from the name of one of three bands of a tribe of Aboriginal people once living in north-west Tasmania. Evidence of Aboriginal occupation in the region includes innumerable middens, hut depressions, artefact scatters, ceremonial stone arrangements, petroglyphs, and spongolite (a particular rock used to make stone tools). The Parks and Wildlife Service (2000) note that arguably one of the largest and most spectacular examples "of a pebble 'pathway' within Tasmania" is also present.

At least 244 archaeological sites have been identified in the area although surveys have been less than comprehensive and estimations of up to 1000 sites have been made (Richards and Sutherland-Richards 1992).

Assessing the value of individual sites in isolation fails to recognise the outstanding universal value of known archaeological sites in the Tarkine Wilderness. Although further research of these sites is in need, the known assemblage has been identified by the Australian Heritage Commission as "one of the world's great archaeological regions" (1990, cited in Richards and Sutherland-Richards 1992).

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