28 May 2021
Smithton High School students Kelsey Williams, Hunter Woolley and Ashton Monson along with youth mentor Selina Colgrave, Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation’s Luke Grey, Lesley and Ros Dick and Cheryl Marshall joined Claire and Dean from Aboriginal Heritage Tasmania on the trip of a lifetime recently, taking a helicopter flight into remote, untouched areas of the west coast to view aboriginal landmarks not accessible by foot.
Leaving Smithton airport at 8am the group boarded two helicopters taking the coastal track to Strahan, first stop Mainwaring River where they visited rock markings, hut depressions and sighted shell, stone artefacts and bone, possibly one of the ‘village’ sites referred to by Robinson [Plomley 1966].
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The Royal Society of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery have formally apologised to Tasmania s Aboriginal community over the mistreatment and theft of cultural artefacts.
Monday s apology was part of the return of 14,000-year-old petroglyphs to their original site at Preminghana, in the state s north-west.
The petroglyph slabs were taken from Preminghana in the 1960s, and given to TMAG in Hobart and the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Galley in Launceston.
The pieces that were taken to Hobart were displayed at the TMAG from 1967 until 2005. They have since been kept in storage.
The petroglyphs were removed in 1962 from Preminghana, and will be returned to the site in early March 2021.