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The Status of the Tasmanians Among the Stone-Age Peoples. Presidential Address for the Year 1924

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2013

Henry Balfour
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Extract

An apology of some sort is so usual a preamble to an address, that I might be tempted to court originality by departing from the normal and foregoing the confessional. Circumstances, however, are compelling in my case and I have no opening for escape. In the first place a combination of factors prevented my delivering a presidential address to the Society during my term of office, and for this I owe sincere apologies. I have to ask you in your kindness to accept this as a belated and actually “post-mortem” address from your late president, delivered, as it is, under the aegis of my successor in office, to whom I desire to offer a cordial welcome and sincere congratulations. At the same time I wish to thank the Society most heartily for the high compliment which was paid to me when I was invited to assume the presidency last year. It is difficult to say how very highly I appreciate this kindness and courtesy.

In the second place, my choice of a subject needs at least some explanation and, if possible, justification. I cannot avoid the confession that the topic which I have selected has no direct bearing upon East Anglia in particular, nor, indeed upon Great Britain in general. Having confessed this with all due apologies, I must try to justify my temerity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , 1925 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1925

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References

page 2 note * My views were unconsciously misrepresented by ProfessorSollas, W. in his book “Ancient Hunters” (1911, p. 91)Google Scholar. He attributes to me the opinion that the Tasmanian implements are comparable with the pre-palæolithic (plateau) series, rather than with the palæolithic types. This opinion was only expressed in regard to certain rough implements selected specially for comparison with Harrisonian “eoliths.” I had, none the less, recognized from the first an essentially palæolithic facies as a predominant feature of the technique of the implements of Tasmania in general.

page 3 note * The views expressed by Dr. F. Noetling in a paper read before the Royal Society of Tasmania. 13 June, 1910, are difficult to follow and too involved to give one any clear idea as to his position. He appears to assign the Tasmanian lithic technique to the “archæolithic” (i.e., pre-Chellean) phase.

page 3 note † “Ancient Hunters,” 1924, pp. 130, 131Google Scholar.

page 4 note * The characteristic technique of the Chelles-Acheulian period is practically unrepresented in the Tasmanian series, and attempts to manufacture “core-implements” by flaking over the whole surface of the block, are comparatively scarce. Where this has been attempted the resultant shapes are very indefinite and exhibit little skill and control over the material. It is nevertheless interesting to see that there is evidence of even a crude departure from the restrictions of a purely “flake-implement” industry.

page 11 note * Berry, R. J. A. and Robertson, A. W. D., Proc. Roy. Soc., Edinburgh, XXXI., 1910, p. 68Google Scholar.