Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2023L01287:reg:2023:p11
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2023L01287
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2023 (pt 11/17)
Character Range: 28848–31660

ancient' Aboriginal skull recovered from a penguin rookery on the top of the island. In 1922 an early historian mentions that 'numbers of Aboriginal stone implements are to be found on the island,' and anecdotal evidence by former lighthouse keepers and their families confirm the existence of artefacts.
  While only a short distance from the coast, Tasman Island and its plateau appear to be inaccessible. Visitors to the island today must go either by helicopter or effect a difficult landing by boat or canoe under calm conditions. Tasmanian Aborigines, using their unique bark canoes, would most likely have approached the island from Crescent Bay, a distance of 11 kilometres. Prior to European occupation the only natural practical route from sea level to the plateau surface of the island would have been by way of a steep ramp on the north western side, known by lighthouse families as the 'zig-zag' track.
  Although there has been no Aboriginal heritage assessment undertaken, the island is the site of the first record of Aboriginal seal hunting in southeast Tasmania. In 1982 a number of stone tools were found with the skeletal remains of a seal on the plateau of the island, in the vicinity of the 'zig-zag' track. (Stephen Harris, 'A Seal Hunter's Site on Tasman Island', Australian Archaeology 1984:19)
  There is no doubt that for hundreds, and possibly thousands of years, Tasmanian Aborigines travelled to Tasman Island. As with visitors today, the likelihood of bad weather blowing and making a return to the mainland impractical was an omnipresent hazard.
Aboriginal Heritage Tasmania advised that although no Aboriginal heritage sites registered in the Aboriginal Heritage Register (AHR) are recorded within the lease footprint of the lighthouse, there are two Aboriginal heritage sites recorded elsewhere on Tasman Island.
Early European history
Tasmania was first sighted by European explorers in 1642 when Dutchman Abel Tasman sailed past the Tasmanian mainland and named it Anthoonji van Diemenslandt, after the Governor of the Dutch East Indies. A large part of the south-east coast of Tasmania was charted on this expedition, and 'Tasmans Eÿl', known today as Tasman Island, was recorded by cartographer Joan Blaeu and reproduced in a map by Melchisedech Thevenot in 1663[10].
Tasman Island was also included in the 1837 map of Tasmania by John Dower[11]. Surveyor, James Erksine Calder remarked that is was a wild and desolate looking spot, and 'if accessible at all, only at one point.'[12] Due to its extreme height and formation, very few, if any, European settlers travelled to Tasman Island prior to the discussions of a lighthouse in the 1880s.
  3.5 Planning a lighthouse
Why Tasman Island?

A meeting of the Consolidated Marine Board in August 1885 discussed the possibility