‘Deep History’ is a code word for history that includes pre-history and is particularly used in relation to the histories of indigenous peoples; it’s often referred to as ‘deep time’ – and fair enough because the antiquity of human occupation of this continent is genuinely mind-boggling.

In the First Tasmanians Shayne Breen is keen to disabuse his readers of anything that smacks of ‘evolutionism’ – the idea that certain human societies could be referred to as ‘primitive’ or even simple. He denounces both Rhys Jones and Norman Plomley – usually considered pretty sympathetic on Indigenous history – for this sin.

Now make no mistake, the idea that any human society is ‘primitive’ is deeply flawed and deserves to be denounced but no serious and respected historian or archaeologist has promoted that view since the late 1970s – Breen is really taking issue here with scholars who have seen Tasmanian Indigenous society as adversely affected by several thousand years of complete isolation and who point to the more limited stone tool kit; the absence of the woomera and boomerang, the refusal to catch and eat fish as examples of technological stagnation.

Breen sees pre-contact Tasmanian society as dynamic and adaptive and this is where the deep time aspect helps – he can show quite compellingly, by reference to the archaeological evidence, how settlement patterns changed and adapted as the Tasmanian climate changed over the approximately 40 000 years of occupation. Skilfully using the surviving accounts of first contact and, as ever with Tasmanian history, the inexhaustible journal of George Augustus Robinson, he draws a vivid picture of a society as complex and adapted to its environment as any other. He also deals with the aftermath of contact and the survival of Tasmanian Indigenous society albeit in a much transformed form on the islands of Bass Strait.

There is a considerable historiography on the Black Wars of the 1830s but far less recent work about the traditional society that was destroyed in those wars. I’d recommend First Tasmanians: A Deep History for anyone with an interest in First Nations history.

Reviewed by Grant Hansen

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shayne Breen is an interdisciplinary historian who has worked closely with Tasmanian Aboriginal people for 35 years. During the 1990s he helped lead the introduction of Aboriginal Studies at the University of Tasmania.

In 2001 he received a University of Tasmania Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award. More recently he worked with Aboriginal Education Services in the Tasmanian Education Department, helping to revise the Aboriginal Studies curriculum in Tasmania’s schools.

His research interests include deep history, colonial genocide, Australia’s history wars and Tasmanian Aboriginal history. This is his third book.

Read more about his work here.