Twelve thousand years ago sea level was rising as the most recent period of global glaciation eased. The land mass now known as Tasmania was cut off and the Aboriginal people living here were isolated. They shared many traits with Australian mainland Aboriginal people but also developed physically and culturally into a distinctive population.
The Tasmanians were hunters and gatherers. They made tools and containers from wood, bone, stone, seaweed, bark, grass and sinew. They managed their environment carefully, moving around their country to harvest seasonal food resources and using fire to maintain grasslands which supported an abundance of wallabies and kangaroos.