Tasmanian Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Sites
The word Tarkine is adapted from the name of one of three bands of Aboriginal people (Tarkineer) that made up a tribe that once lived in north-west Tasmania. Evidence of Aboriginal occupation in the region includes innumerable middens, hut depressions, artefact scatters, ceremonial stone arrangements, petroglyph's, and spongolite (a particular rock used to make stone tools). At least 244 archaeological sites have been identified in the area, and although surveys have been less than comprehensive, estimations of up to 1000 sites have been made (Richards and Sutherland-Richards 1992).

The Australian Heritage Commission has assessed the Tarkine as "one of the world's great archaeological regions" (1990, cited in Richards and Sutherland-Richards 1992).