Aborigines have inhabited this area for thousands of years. The nomadic tribes have not left many traces, but a typical token of their former presence are shell middens in the vicinity of the coast. There has been a long and hot debate if the Tasmanian Aborigines have been completely exterminated by the white settlers, the last one being Truganini, who died in 1876, or if they have survived. The answer seems to be that their culture and languages have disappeared for ever, but by intermarriage (sometimes forceful) with the white settlers, their descendants have survived, and today an estimated 15'000 people have some Tasmanian Aboriginal roots.