Malimup: A Tasmanian Aboriginal Hoabinhian site in the southwest of Western Australia?

Abstract

The Hoabinhian technocomplex of Southeast Asia is characterised by distinctive pebble edge tools which are also found in Australia, but only in the southeast, including Tasmania. Charlie Dortch in the early 1970s reported a unique site with Hoabinhian tools in southwest Australia at Malimup, Western Australia (WA), dated to the recent past. An analysis of the pebble edge tools from Malimup showed they were similar to those from eastern Australia, which in turn were similar to the Southeast Asian ones. While it is possible that local Aboriginal people may have made these tools, it seems unlikely, given that no other such site has been found anywhere in WA. In considering the possibility that the site represents the presence of Aboriginal people from elsewhere in Australia during the early historical period, the most likely candidates are suggested to be Aboriginal women from Tasmania. Such women are documented as having lived with European sealers along the south coast of WA, and the site at Malimup is in a location suitable for a sealing camp, and near where sealers are reputed to have been active. It is further speculated that these tools may have been used for processing ochre, an activity of traditional significance to Tasmanian Aboriginal women, perhaps helping them come to terms with an unfamiliar environment. Such a suggestion may help shed light on the role of pebble tools elsewhere in Australia and indeed Southeast Asia.