It seemed to me as I read the concluding pages of this intriguing book, that it was worth reading for the last chapters alone, where the author Dr Rebe Taylor offers an explanation for the vexed state of enquiry into Indigenous issues in Tasmania. It’s obviously not an easy thing to decide whether and what aspects should be studied, and by whom, and for what purpose, and who needs permission and who gives that permission. More than I knew – though I knew about the unedifying History Wars – the politics of Indigenous identity are especially fraught in our island state. It was a surprise to read that the archaeologist Rhys Jones was not welcome in Tasmania although he was a key figure in dating the arrival of Indigenous Australians, first with radiocarbon dating and later with luminescence techniques. It’s all very complicated, and rather than try to summarise it, I think it’s best left to readers of this fine book to learn about it for themselves.

The main focus of the book, however, is about a different man entirely. Into the Heart of Tasmania is the story of a man called Ernest Westlake, an eccentric English naturalist, anthropologist and amateur geologist who went to Tasmania looking for rocks to prove a theory and unwittingly collected valuable information which proved something else altogether.

To see the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/04/11/into-the-heart-of-tasmania-by-rebe-taylor/ ( )

Book received from NetGalley.

This was a different read. When it started out it read like it was going to be an anthropological or sociological study of the Aborigines of Tasmania. What it actually ended up being was a story of a man who in 1908 came to Tasmania searching for artifacts to study and became an accidental anthropologist, while removing part of the countries ancient heritage. I don't know much about the indigenous people of the Pacific Rim so I enjoyed the book and how the early information on them was cataloged. ( )