As the article shows, they were cut off from Australia for 10,000 years.
The archeological record shows that they lost the ability to make bone tools
3000 years ago.  Without bone needles they couldn't sew clothing and it is
cold there.  Why couldn't fire suffer the same fate?  The point is that
human cultures are always screwing up and we only get back on track by
copying our neighbours or by having our more successful neighbours invade
us.  How could the Tasmanians make such a huge mistake?  How could the
Easter Islanders cut down their last trees and leave themselves
"shipwrecked" with no boats?  How can our culture encourage everyone to eat
lots starchy food, and to cut back on meat, despite the obvious evidence
that it is killing them?  Ken
----- Original Message -----
From: "sean mcbride" <>  Interesting article Ken but in terms of the
Tasmanians I'm still dubious.
> Even today when Aborigines have been exposed to the western world for 2
> centuries and are using matches and lighters you can still usually find
> someone who can light a fire the old way.  Even assuming that the
Tasmanians
> relied on keeping a fire going continually to minimise the necessity of
> lighting it through a traditional method someone would have retained the
> knowledge and usually firemaking has a whole dreamtime story behind it
with
> the individual pieces of firemaking apparatus having symbolism.  I'm not
> convinced that they abandon these things so readily.  I think we would
have
> to look at the ethnographic sources that say the Tasmanians didn't have
fire
> to find out what was really happening.
>
> Cheers
>
> sean