GY.

Interesting view. But a too forgiving view. I take a more sinister view, which leads to the question of who drives the divisive agenda of Aboriginal reconciliation, and who actually benefits from the division?

Obviously it is not the rank and file Aboriginal person that gains, but individuals and organisations encamped in and around the honey pot!

Just expect more not less of a division. At least while taxpayer billions pour into the bottomless pit of pity.

just look at how our totally dishonest academics and national broadcaster uses the term genocide. The only true genocide to take place in Australia has been in mother's wombs. Dumbed down crowds like getup use the Indigeneos people to divide the nation. Thank God their is an occasional sane voice like Jacinta Price.

Excellent, erudite, well researched, credible, cogent, articulate article Graham!

It's long past time the professional victims on both sides of this divisive debate moved on and accepted, once the pages of history are accurately recorded, they can never ever be erased!

Moreover, we can only own our own behavior, not that of long dead explorers/tourists/former enemies!

We live in a fracturing world ruled by devide and rule, diabolically disengenuous annus sphincters!

And at a time in our history when the most important issues that absolutely must be front and centre, are the things that unite us and common humanity!

Or take a leaf from the book of Islam and go to an eternal vicious war over a, [awash with the blood of innocents,] blood stained history and diabolic disingenuous divergent takes of it!

That neither prospers nor advances any of the protagonists!

This is one spear that must be proffered, broken! And with that done, move on!

There is only one constant in the entire universe and that one constant is constant change!
Alan B.

Beautifully presented Graham.
Would love to see this posted far and wide.
Thank you.
Narelle47

We've all heard the statements of people suggesting -
"get over it - its hundreds of years ago, move on.
It's divisive."

Then we so revere the notion of "Lest We Forget"
when remembering our role in a foreign war (WWI)
also hundreds of years ago.

It puzzles me why we simply can't tell a history that
has never been adequately told in the first place.
Why are we as a nation so reluctant to face up to our past.
It appears that inconvenient truths that risk tainting
the white "pioneer/settler" narrative are not to be
commemorated, but forgotten.

The historical record documenting our colonial past is
mostly limited to written records that largely exclude
Indigenous voices. Yet as educators point out the
magnitude, persistence and near universality of Aboriginal
oral narratives are surely telling.

Monuments and sites are powerful tools in remembering.
They are physical markers on the landscape of events
that happened. They need to be accurate and correct.
Words therefore are important. For many Indigenous
communities - the physical markers are important just
as Gallipoli - important places of rememberance that
should never be forgotten.

Hopefully one day Indigenous people will be able to
visit these sites and see that their history is also
included. They will be able to reflect on our collective
history - and see that they have not been left out.
That we are inclusive - and that they have not been
excluded. That we are no longer threatened by our
collective past.

"So both groups of settlers – Aboriginal and European – brought technology and human violence to the continent."
Interesting. British naval forces and Aboriginal countries were equally violent.( D Trump 2017). Cook discovered gold like bushrangers shooting up a gold-fields coach or bottle shop ram-raiders. Aboriginals deserved what they got from the winners.

Well written and explained Graham.

Unfortunately , it doesn't fit in with 'Black Armband" history that comes from our educational system and is then repeated by their ABC , Fairfax and fellow travellers .

Great piece, Graham. I'll add a link to my post tomorrow.

Yes let's get all the history out there, replete with the (supported by archival pictorials) cannibalism tribal wars and genocide.

Yes there was a clash of cultures and attempted extermination of often very warlike and incredibly easy to offend folk, who presented a very real threat! And were all but annihilated because of that?

Yet in the midst of this endlessly gone over, dissected and embellished history, are some good news stories where people learned to live in harmony and goodwill.

Today cannot be about settling old scores or black armband history or future generations paying compensation, to the descendants of slaves!

I mean, Australia started its modern phase as a penal colony, people transported here in chains and forced to make the best go of their circumstances as they could, as disendorsed exiles in a strange terrifying foreign land!

Others came as indentured servants (slaves) and because they had no other choice!

Yes that has had a profound effect on the original inhabitants, who often came as second or third wave aboriginal settlement! Brought mass genocide and color code killing with them, forced marriage and child brides. And with fire sticks and hunting dogs forced those here first, and able to survive the (ethnic cleansing) onslaught, to flee all the way to Tasmania!

By all means let's get all the history told warts and all as a means of creating racial harmony! If that's all it takes?

Let's erect some statues of resistance fighter warriors, particularly those who served as diggers in WW1, WW11, And Vietnam! And conclude with a solemn smoking/broken spear ceremony that could be annualized on January 26th on Bennelong point!

And let's not forget, that many of our Aboriginal brothers and sister have more white ancestors than black! Then ask the sh!te stirrers to go back to where they came from!

We just don't need their (hidden agenda) divisive input/manipulation!
Alan B.

Refreshing and overdue, this article deserves wider distribution.

Both the Colonial and Black Armband versions of history lead to sterile dead ends, especially when so many of us were born overseas.

Britannia no longer rules the world.

Advance Australia, where?

It's out of fashion these days, but I'm a bit of a United Nations fellow, at least in concept.

Great article, Graham

For more information, see this article by Steven LeBlanc, Professor of Archaeology at Harvard and the author of "Constant Battles" and "Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest".

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2009/07/01/war-and-human-nature/

It is a safe bet that everyone on Earth, including the so-called First Peoples, is living on stolen land, with the exception of a few extremely remote islands. In "Constant Battles", LeBlanc shows, just from the distribution of language families among the California Indians, that there were at least 4 major waves of invasion into California before the arrival of any Europeans. And, of course, there is no evidence that the oldest group really were directly descended from the first humans to set foot in California.

Prof. LeBlanc is not an outlier, as there are plenty of other archaeologists saying the same sorts of things. Steve Pinker discusses quite a few of them in "The Better Angels of Our Nature".

'It puzzles me why we simply can't tell a history that
has never been adequately told in the first place.
Why are we as a nation so reluctant to face up to our past'

you mean some of the barbaric practices of the native people before the British arrived? Oh I did not think so Foxy. Some are to revolting to repeat.

Perhaps 'founded' should be used instead of discovered.The nation of Australia was founded on an unnamed continent. We can name the person who was initially responsible for British occupation of this continent. Can the aboriginal industry name the aboriginal person they think 'discovered' the continent?

Britain was liberated by Emperor Claudius in 43 AD and the joyous tribes threw daisies at his statue made of British skulls and lime juice.

".. attempted extermination of often very warlike and incredibly easy to offend folk, who presented a very real threat! "

Japanese aircraft landed at Hughes and Strauss airfields Darwin 1942 and received Australian servants of the emperor who apologised on bended knee for the war and getting offended and making threats and stuff and here's some gold , bunyips and Captain Cook's sword and we're terribly sorry .

I had a phone call from an ABC journalist on Wednesday who was following the progress of an Aboriginal sea claim on a stretch of beach in my area.
She was unaware of the effects of the last mini ice age on sea levels.

Which coast line would be appropriate for a land claim I asked, (since Aboriginals are believed to have inhabited the continent for sixty thousand years), the current coastline which is ten thousand years old, or the original coastline which is now submerged in fifty feet of water, and lies one and a half kilometres out to sea?

Confusion.

Maybe this is the stuff Aboriginals should be researching and leave alone the distraction of dismantling monuments appropriate to white settlement.

.

Dear Graham,

.

You wrote :

« Certainly Cook didn't expect to find uninhabited lands … just that he was the first from the European world »
.

Not so, Graham. According to his journal, Cook thought he was headed towards Van Diemen’s Land on leaving New Zealand. He knew that the Dutchman, Abel Tasman, had discovered both Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and New Zealand, sailing from west to east in 1642.

Cook probably also knew that another Dutchman, Willem Janszoon, was the first European to discover Australia in 1606. He set foot on land at the mouth of the Pennefather River near Weipa on the Cape York Peninsular and called the country “Nieu Zeland”, but the name was later abandoned and given to New Zealand.

Abel Tasman called Australia “New Holland” during his exploration of the north coast in 1644. The Englishman, William Dampier, referred to it as New Holland during his two voyages to Australia in 1688 and 1699.

Even Cook, himself, wrote in his journal before heading north from Botany Bay in 1770 :

« From what I have said of the Natives of New Holland, they may appear to some to be the most wretched People upon Earth but in realty they are far more happier than we Europeans being wholly unacquainted not only with the Superfluous but the necessary Conveniences so much sought after in Europe, they are happy in not knowing the use of them. They live in a Tranquility which is not disturbed by the inequality of Condition. The Earth & Sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for Life »:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/empire/g1/cs4/g1cs4s3.htm

Cook’s reference to “New Holland” clearly indicates that he knew he was not “the first from the European world” to “discover” Australia.

Neither the Dutch nor Dampier "took possession" of the country.

Cook was the first European to "claim possession" of Australia despite the legitimate sovereign rights of “the Natives of New Holland” which he obviously chose to ignore, knowing full well that this was what the Admiralty and King George III expected of him.

.

Thanks, Graham, for an even handed article.
It sets a good tone, but there are many aspects to be sorted out.
Allegations of genocide, and stolen children need to be examined, as does the “first people” assertion.
The first people were not aboriginal, but Chinese. Their skeletons were found at Lake Mungo, and excavated by the anthropologist, Alan Thorne..
“Thorne's discovery was based on DNA analysis of Mungo Man, the name given to a skeleton discovered near Lake Mungo in the eastern Australian state of New South Wales in 1974.
This revealed the species was about 60 000 years old and was, he claimed, descended from a Chinese race of homo sapiens which had arrived in Australia 10 000 years previously.
The race, called Graciles by the Australian researcher, had a specific gene that no longer exists in modern people, he discovered.
But according to Wu, the Graciles, whose existence had not been conclusively proved previously, could be descended from an African ancestor who migrated to southern China before reaching Australia 70 000 years ago.
http://www.news24.com/xArchive/Archive/Mungo-Man-raises-new-questions-20010115"
Banjo, what are the "sovereign rights" you assert. The aboriginals ha not claimed or taken possession of the land. They had no civilization or political organisation. They were nomads who wandered the continent in tribes.

19 February 1942 was the largest single victory ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia. On that day, 242 Japanese aircraft in the First Fleet discovered the town. A jade statue of Admiral Yamamoto stands in Darwin and is revered on Japan Day as the discovery of better railway building- skills for native Australians. With convict flogging and tribal scars a distant memory the people bow to zaibatsu, samurai and geishas with fluent Nihongo . "You're lucky we are not Spanish" the machine-gun police shout at the lucky students chanting kamikaze educational poems . In their dreams , the elder Australians believed in the Vietnam war and getting back Bondi beach but it was shipped to China by JOGMEC with 2,825,000 stock options at the exercise price of $0.79 per share.

Perhaps the real history, will remain forever clouded thanks to reviews and revision of oral history, replete with regular updating and amending? To suit a current professional victim narrative?

We give extreme credence to stolen generation claims, but gloss over absolutely abysmal treatment of fatherless light skinned folk by their tribal cousins. MAKING LIGHT SKINNED KIDS PAY FOR THE SINS OF DEADBEAT ABSENT FATHERS! Or tribal wars, color coded infanticide, child brides, forced marriage and polygamy.

Yes let's get the real history down in black and white so as it becomes just a little more difficult to edit for (black armband) political convenience?

And let's get the radicalizing strangers with their hidden agendas gone and back where they came from!

They're not interested in recognition or reconciliation just stirring, fomenting unrest and worse! Without recognition and reconcilliation, it'll become, history repeating itself, a dastardly crime to be born white!?
Alan B.

Capt Cook discovered his forced marriage to colour coded gin and tonic and Lt Banks the absent father stole his kids. He wasn't the first European to have cabin boys over a barrel.

Oh Diver Dan, you are so cruel.

You surely don't expect any of the ABC lovies to have learnt anything in their short lives.

They ingest all their knowledge by FEEL, not learning. They can feel what is right, or where the coastline was 12000 years ago, just like they know it is hotter today, they feel the global warming they waffle on about.

It would destroy their Friday night dinner parties, if any of them actually has even a vague idea of what they were talking about.

Facts, my god, you can't be serious.

Well hasbeen, I have a cynical view of land claims. Sea claims to me appear to be an added and new twist which matches my conspiratorial scheming mind. How easy is it to fob off vast tracts of public land for foreign investment when it is controlled by a handful of government appointed Elders.

And likewise, how simple for Governments to become the God of the Cargo Cult by offering tokens to Aboriginal communities, as they assist their corrupt Chinese mates to take Control of Aboriginal land and offer it to Chinese land developers.

Sea claims will make these tracts of land even more attractive by including what was once public beaches.

Very well done Graham. As a nation, we need to acknowledge that white Australians used violence to move Indigenous Australians out of the way. However, the tone of much of the conversation reeks of moral superiority and implied collective guilt for events which occurred several generations ago.

We are all descended from a bunch of men who ran over a hill, somewhere in the world, bludgeoned another bunch of men to death, raped, looted and pillaged. There is no reason to believe that Australian's history differs from the known history of almost every other part of the world. In addition, we are all descended from people who have had something taken from them.

Use of the phrase "invasion" is fine. Saying "we invaded" is not. Neither is use of the phrase "first Australians", as noted by Divergence and Leo. Acknowledging the violence committed by some groups, but not that of some not that done by others looks racist to me.

Discovering the real history of our peoples ...

That is something that should be taught in our schools.
As the following link explains and is well worth a read.
I will quote directly from it:

http://theconversation.com/why-our-kids-should-learn-aboriginal-history-24196

We're told that the history many of us carry into our adult lives
is that which we are taught at school.If the stereotypes around
Australia's human past PRIOR to the British settlement in 1788
can be deconstructed and the archaeological history of
Australia placed into its global context, then we will move
towards a greater respect for the significant achievements of
the First Australians.

History should be deeper and responsible education needs to
encourage broader appreciation for the diversity of history
and culture. The rewards will be far deeper for future
generations of Australians.

Of course Western Civilisation is an important part of our history.
But Australia's history is more than this and the grand story of
the First Australians is an important starting point for a truly
Australian narrative.

The most insidious myth perpetuated about Aboriginal society
is the idea it was "primitive," "stone-age," "nomadic," or
"unevolved." The archaeology of our continent directly refutes
this type of thinking, but until recently the monuments and
achievements of ancient Australia remain largely invisible
to the mainstream public.

This type of thinking feeds racist stereotypes and
discriminatory attitudes which continue to marginalise and
disassociate Aboriginal Australians from the National Identity.

This needs to be corrected.

Graham,
Great article, it gives a commonsense view.

It seems Stan Grants comments have achieved one good thing at least. Far more people are now more aware of the role various persons such as Cook, Tasman, Dampier and others played in the discovery and mapping the coast of 'the great south land'. Many, like myself, have been busy googling Australian history. In my case revising what I had been taught years ago in primary school. I found out about Mungo man which was discovered after my schooling.

Some later born may have missed out on much Australian history, so it will be new to them. The more that are aware of our history can only be a good thing.

One interesting thing is that two tiny islands, Saint Paul and Amsterdam, in the mid Indian ocean were discovered in 1522 which is far earlier than records show that 'New Holland' was found by Europeans. How they missed bumping into 'New Holland' is a mystery.

"The first European to reach Malacca and Southeast Asia arrived in Malacca Malaysia in 1509." However Malay troops didn't conquer Europe and Aboriginals tried but had a shortage of armoured cavalry.

".. mitochondrial DNA extracted from Mungo Man's 40,000-year-old fossilised remains by a team lead by Australian National University's Dr Greg Adcock." His bones are identified as Aboriginal type.

"Indigenous rock shelter in Top End pushes Australia's human history back to 65,000 years". Local people heard rumours of a fisherman who walked to the coast which used to be 23.7 kms further out but have forgotten his name and what he used for bait.

@Foxy

Anyone who uses the phrase "first Australians" needs to learn some more history themselves. Without researching, can you tell me who the negritos or murrayans were?

Dear benk,

I do know that the people who
settled Australia did come from the various ethnic
groups of South East Asia. Therefore I would simply
assume that the people you mention are descended
from ancient Australoid settlers.

I'm glad that I've aroused an interest in you regarding
the archaeological history of this country. I
imagine that it is a truly remarkable story. Especially
how they managed to survive over the ensuing millenia,
and the huge changes that these societies witnessed,
including the mass extinction of the mega fauna, and
the intense desertification of Australia during the last
Great Ice Age. They changed and adapted and rose to these
significant challenges.

Then what history is to be told about Negritos and Murrayans?

They had to adapt to changes they wrought!

This land was once covered coast to coast in verdant forest. That forest acted as a recharge mechanism to water the entire continent. But endless burning, killed megafauna and first wave settlers alike!

Vast deforestation by burning changed the local climate! Women were stolen along with their kids, which ensured they'd cooperate with the demands of the second wave invaders, who needed their local knowledge! Even so they were treated little better than animals!

Reassembled Mungo man archaeology, seems to tell a story of total racial genocide? Yes let's get all the history told including the oral history of the surviving cultures. Even when they seem completely contradictory!

And if that exposes the black armband revision and BS, so be it!

Whatever history is settled as being accurate! Let's ensure it includes the participants and actors rather than those arriving here as forced migrants!

All over the world, archaeological discoveries are giving lie to myth and legend, that bears no relation to the storytelling and historical embellishment!

Yes let's get the warts and all history told, minus the supposition and invention! And make sure it's written so not so easily revised or altered to suit the preferred narrative!
Alan B.

.

Dear Leo Lane,

.

You wrote :

« Banjo, what are the "sovereign rights" you assert. The aboriginals had not claimed or taken possession of the land. They had no civilization or political organisation. They were nomads who wandered the continent in tribes »
.

The OED definition of “sovereign” as an attributive is: “(of a nation or its affairs) acting or done independently and without outside interference”.

The sovereign rights of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia are not - and have never been - determined or influenced, in any way, by their degree of civilisation, their political organisation, or by their sedentary, migratory or nomadic mode of existence. That was simply an argument invented by the colonizers.

The British Crown and government lost their colonies in America in 1783 due to the American War of Independence and needed to find an alternative destination for their convicts. The choice was either South Africa or Australia. They chose Australia as part of their global strategy – close to the trade routes to South-East Asia and China. The UK was engaged in a geo-political power struggle at the time with other major European maritime nations such as Spain, Portugal, France and The Netherlands.

At no stage during their lengthy deliberations did the British authorities take any account of the fact that the country they were considering colonising was inhabited by indigenous peoples. They took for granted that the doctrine of terra nullius (land belonging
to no one) applied.

International Law had been elaborated by the European powers to accommodate their own imperial ambitions. Their law became the International Law which, naturally, raises the question of its validity, not only with respect to non-European countries and indigenous peoples, but even with respect to their own rights and obligations on the international scene.

As you may be aware, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted in 2007. At the time of the vote, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US voted against the Declaration. All four later decided to support it :

http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf

.

Proclamation—Captive Nations Week, 2017
July 14, 2017
By the President of the United States of America

During Captive Nations Week, we stand in solidarity with those living under repressive regimes, and we commit to promoting our American ideals, grounded in respect for natural rights and protected by the rule of law, throughout the world..
The injustices and abuses authoritarian regimes inflict on their own people affect us all,.

The Congress, , 1959 (73 Stat. 212), has authorized the President to issue a proclamation designating the third week of July of each year as "Captive Nations Week."

DONALD J. TRUMP,. I call upon all Americans to reaffirm our commitment to those around the world striving for liberty, justice, and the rule of law.
---
Ukraine is corrupt , violent and lawless but Russian settlement is not a right.

Hi Nick, as Allan and Graham said, we need to know about Australian history, the good the bad and the ugly. However, Indigenous people cannot insist that we acknowledge violence by British settlers, without acknowledging that the troopers were often assisted by other Indigenous groups, or pretending that their ancestors didn't do the same thing. The first Aborigines may well have invaded and various Indigenous groups have been at war at various times.

Acknowledging one group's violence, but not that of others, seems racist to me.

I agree which is why PM Chifley apologised to Japan for putting bullet holes in their Darwin bombers. He was briefly jailed while his kangaroos were confiscated and joined Tokyo Rugby League and Karate club.

Graham,

I think it matters little re whom 'discovered' anything.

Today we should focus on the more important and long past due issue of indigenous welfare dependency and cultural individualism.

We, as a whole national community need to ensure indigenous people are encapsulated into mainstream Australia.

By this I mean, if indigenous people really want recognition, then the should embrace mainstream Australia, no more separate indigenous welfare, close those communities where economic opportunities are non existent, or have little opportunity for education, employment and prosperity. For those unwilling to leave, reduce or remove welfare which perpetuates isolation, domestic violence, education imbalance and lack of economic self reliance.

We cannot continue this us and them philosophy, it has not, nor will it work into the future, good money after bad.

Acceptance by all there have been wrong's perpetrated by both sides, but additionally an acceptance by all that it is time to move on.

Harping on about discovery, blame and all those other things negates the opportunities which abound when positive and progressive attitudes are embraced.

I may be white, only three generation Australian, but I refuse to shoulder any blame for historical ills which I never enabled, excused, endorsed nor suffered, move on people, we cannot afford this financial, social and guilt/shame ridden legacy any longer

Australians claiming descent from aborigines really should get over themselves. They should also be thinking about how things would be now if colonisers less enlightened than the British had 'discovered' their Stone Age ancestors.

What happened in the past should be as of little interest to descendants of aborigines as it is to me, a white, third generation Australian of mixed heritage, who doesn't give a stuff about anything except being AUSTRALIAN. Any ill-treatment was inflicted on people who have been dead and buried for a very long time. They suffered, not the pack of whingers and rent-seekers taking advantage of the Western freedoms and advantages they have now – in including the dole that too many of them are spending their lives on. After 200 plus years, there should be no distinction between Australians at all.

Hear, hear and well said Geoff!
Alan B.

Things should calm down in a few years:

Edward II was born in North Wales on 1284, less than a year after Edward I had conquered New South Wales.,
Sport and English National Identity in: A ‘disunited Kingdom’
https://books.google.com.au/books?isbn=1317310578
Tom Gibbons, ‎Dominic Malcolm - 2017 -
... at Welsh home internationals but the booing became embarrassing.
-
Some Irish tribes talk about guys named Oliver Cromwell and Potato Famine.

Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland announced a second independence referendum between late 2018 and early 2019. The Liberal Party wants to seriously look at secession of "Western Australia becoming an independent state within the Commonwealth" .

Facts matter. I typed up the nine thousand letters of the South Australian Protector (1839-1913) and it took me some time to realise that he had no staff: he was it, the 'Aborigines Department'. His main role was to supply rations to depots all over the colony/State, run by local police, pastoral lessees and missionaries for free. One lessee did that for more than thirty years. By 1900, there were more than seventy depots all over the colony.

From the outset in South Australia (and perhaps elsewhere) the rights of Aboriginal people - as 'British subjects' - to use their lands as they always had done were recognised. This was written into the law in the 1850 Pastoral Act. It's still the law. The Protector provided people with fishing gear, boats and guns to assist them in living off the land if they wished.

So no pushing people off their lands then ?

Years ago, I typed up the 600-page Journal of a well-known missionary (1859-1879). He set up the mission where my wife was born. It never had a fence around it. Usually he was the only bloke there, until he got a school-teacher, then a farm supervisor. Aboriginal people came and went at will.

So no herding of people onto missions then ?

All on my web-site: www.firstsources.info

sorry Loudmouth facts don't matter to the left because they don't suite their very twisted narrative.

Aboriginal people as British subjects ? Well, at least in SA, yeah: on at least a couple of occasions, when Aboriginal men were arrested for murders, including one murder of an entire family, if an interpreter could not be found - i.e. if they could not know what was really going on and therefore could not defend themselves - they were let go.

The last person hanged in SA died in 1964. The last Aboriginal man hanged (no women were hanged) was in 1862, barely 25 years after settlement.

Stolen Generation: How many have been shown to be thus in any court anywhere in Australia ? One. Bruce Trevorrow, a cousin of a cousin of my wife's. By the way, dare I suggest that he might have suffered from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, long before it was ever diagnosed in Australia. I knew his mother slightly, other relations better, his brothers for example, from about 1972.

Were children taken into care ? Yes, of course. Why ? Neglect, abuser, near-death. Yes, dear, they happened. I puzzled over a strange statistic: that the 1950s, the decade when Aboriginal men were making good money from the backlog of infrastructure projects all over the country, was the decade - at least down this way - of the worst child mortality since 1860, the worst decade for children being taken temporarily away from school. Why, I wondered ? Michael Caine provided a clue: his father worked all his life, a working-class man, and left 1/10. i.e. nineteen cents. Working-class people tended - I know from experience - not so much to blow their money as to be accustomed not to have anything left by the next pay-day: if they expected to, they would indeed blow it, usually on grog. Wages during the fifties and sixties could have been enough to even keep one's spouse in grog. Could this have possibly led to child neglect ?

[TBC]

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

The historical records documenting frontier
conflict is a powerful and unequivocal record
of our colonial past, it is however mostly
limited to written records that largely exclude
Indigenous voices. Yet the magnitude, persistence
and near universality of Aboriginal oral narratives
of frontier violence are surely telling.

I don't want to argue about this with you. We've covered
this ground in the past. Therefore I shall suggest a
new approach and repeat what has been stated in this
discussion and that is that -

It would be good if the stereotypes around Australia's
human past PRIOR to the British settlement in 1788
could be deconstructed and the archaeological history
of Australia placed into its global context, then we
possibly will move towards a greater respect for the
significant achievements of the First Australians.
History as stated previously, should be deeper and
further reaching and responsible education needs to
encourage broader appreciation for the diversity of
history and culture.

The rewards will be far deeper for future generations of
Australians. Of course Western Civilisation is an important
part of our history but Australia's history is more than
this and the grand story of the First Australians is an
important starting point for a truly Australian narrative.

The archaeological history of the First Australians is a
truly remarkable story. At a time when Europe was still
the domain of Neanderthals, the earliest Aboriginal
societies were establishing complex religions, burying
their dead with elaborate rituals, engaging in long-distance
trade, making jewellery and producing works of art. Over
the ensuing millennia these societies witnessed huge
changes, including the mass extinction of the mega fauna,
and the intense desertification of Australia during the
last Great Ice Age. They changed and adapted and rose
to these significant changes.

The most insidious myth perpetuated about Aboriginal
Society is the idea it was "primitive" "stone-age"
"nomadic" or unevolved." The archaeology of our continent
directly refutes this type of thinking, but until
recently the monuments and achievements of ancient
Australia remain largely invisible to the mainstream
public.

Taken in part - from the following link:

http://theconversation.com/why-our-kids-should-learn-aboriginal-history-24196

[con tinued]

And of course, for single women with children, there was no financial child support until about 1971. Not quite true: in SA, the Children's Relief and Public Welfare Board provided single mothers with a weekly amount to KEEP their children. In checking out her records, my wife found a list of about fifty Aboriginal kids from about 1950 whose mothers were getting this sort of assistance.

Adoptions: my bet is that extremely few adoptions of Aboriginal kids were ever carried out; fostering yes, but not adoptions. I recall Jimmy Little getting angry with a radio interviewer for innocently perpetuating this myth. Yes, I know of adoptions, I've read of others, but nothing like the numbers of kids taken into care for short periods, six months, a year, etc. (In the record, one kid died of starvation in 1955, and many died of gastro, a typical 'neglect disease'). Why ? Because, perhaps both parents were on the grog ?
Because their mothers had died. Because their fathers had died. Because they had nobody to really look after them. Then back with other relatives when they could, grandparents, aunties. And backwards and forwards. I'm sure that still goes on.

Any other issues ? Okay: here's one: around 45,000 Indigenous people have graduated from universities across Australia, mainly in mainstream awards at degree- and PG-level, overwhelmingly urban people. Enrolments and graduations improve around 8 % p.a. One hundred thousand graduates is possible by 2030: i.e. one in every two urban women, one in four urban men.

All on my web-site: www.firstsources.info

Hi Foxy,

I doubt my own oral memory, let alone anybody else's :)

As for your conclusion:

"The most insidious myth perpetuated about Aboriginal Society is the idea it was "primitive" "stone-age" "nomadic" or unevolved." The archaeology of our continent directly refutes this type of thinking, but until recently the monuments and achievements of ancient Australia remain largely invisible to the mainstream public.... "

I have to suggest that Indigenous people here were as intelligent and as ingenious as anybody else in the world, but yes, had a very primitive technology, no contact to speak of with the outside world for tens of thousands of years, and that - if 'stone-age' has any meaning at all - were living stone'age lives. If anything, archaeology confirms that. Nothing that unusual about all that - the Scots were still using stone weapons barely three hundred years ago; Maori used stone weapons; most of the entire world did barely a thousand years ago.

So where are these monuments that 'remain largely invisible' ? Let's be honest about all this. Let's make sense from the evidence, not just from some stance, or from some 'oral memory'.

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Read the link that I gave you - it may
help.

Foxy, "Aboriginal oral narratives"

I really cannot understand why you and ors imagine you can bluff it through with such claims. There is plenty of research to prove that your belief, faith, in memory and oral history is without basis, complete bunk.

In a previous thread, one relating to a mythical journey by some children, I mentioned the known unreliability of memory. People imagine that memory works like a tape recorder. It is anything but that, reconstructing events each time memory is accessed. I provided a link to an authoritative site.

For others with an open mind and who have regard for scientific evidence,

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_loftus_the_fiction_of_memory

leoj,

Actually there is plenty on the web regarding the
importance of Aboriginal oral narratives to historians
all you have to do is search.

The number and spread of narratives that match up
give credibility - especially when they span several
living generations and when the stories are so well
maintained.

The importance placed on oral traditions should be
re-evaluated.

http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p70821/pdf/introduction11.pdf

Foxy,

Do you say that psychologist Elizabeth Loftus is wrong? There are many more and the science of the brain is supported by magnetic imaging and other technology.

False memories are the same as real memories to the storytellers.

That doesn't mean the stories have any factual basis at all. Of course they don't.

//So no pushing people off their lands then ?//

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_War

Foxy,

"The most insidious myth perpetuated about Aboriginal society
is the idea it was "primitive," "stone-age," "nomadic," or
"unevolved."

Where's the myth?

They were primitive, very primitive, as anyone who knew genuine Australian Aboriginals in their tribal state could attest.
In my teens, I spent some months living with tribal people in the Northern Territory; a time of my life that I cherish.
They were lovely people and very skilled at survival in the bush, but believe me they were primitive, stone age (some still had stone axes although the better off had much worn down steel tomahawks), they were nomadic, in that they had no permanent abode and followed the seasons and the movement of game.
They were unevolved simple people and they stank, as I did after a while!! (they told me that I smelled better after the first month).

Dear Is Mise,

The point that is being made is that if the stereotypes
around Australia's human past PRIOR to the British
settlement in 1788 can be deconstructed and the
ARCHAEOLOGICAL history of Australia placed into its global
context, then we will move towards a greater respect for
the significant achievements of the First Australians.
Those were different times to what you experienced and they
should be viewed in their global context. The archaeology
of our continent and the achievements of ancient Australia
remain largely unknown to the mainstream public.

http://theconversation.com/why-our-kids-should-learn-aboriginal-history-24196

Foxy,

My experience was with some of the last of the primitive tribals, there is nothing to suggest that their forebears were any less primitive.

You might also consider doing a bit of proof reading before you hit the button,

"Then we so revere the notion of "Lest We Forget"
when remembering our role in a foreign war (WWI)
also hundreds of years ago."

WW I ended less than a hundred years ago!

Nicknamenick you are a racist crunt.

Foxy,

"The point that is being made is that if the stereotypes
around Australia's human past PRIOR to the British
settlement in 1788 can be deconstructed and the
ARCHAEOLOGICAL history of Australia placed into its global
context, then we will move towards a greater respect for
the significant achievements of the First Australians"

What achievements?

Inventing Aborigines (article)
Bob Reece

http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p71991/pdf/book.pdf?referer=1077

Aboriginal achievements:

60 000+ years of human occupation of an isolated continent
Complex forms of art that have survived in excess of 10 000 years
Eel farming that involved carving channels through volcanic rock in order to manipulate lake levels
Fish farming in various forms
Invented an aerodynamically complex returning boomerang
Complex land management practices using fire
Animal management practices
Intricate knowledge of astronomy
Could navigate the land without needing compass or maps
Agricultural practices of harvesting and storing resources
Could navigate sea routes without compass or maps
Used medicines from natural resources
Survived violent invasion and over a century of frontier warfare

This is not an exhaustive list of achievements but highlighting some of them.

Hi Leoj,

On Reece's article, it's amazing that he wrote it thirty years ago. Brilliant. He was school captain at Wagga High School in 1955 when I was in First Year, along with my class-mate and friend Bill Gammage. I'm passing that article around.

Hi Toni,

Re Tasmania: it's possible. I'm not in Tasmania, so I can't check out the archives there, or transcribe documents, that's up to someone else with years to spare. But why do people have to massively exaggerate numbers ? Over the 35-or-so years up until Robinson brought the people, and their assigned servants, to Flinders Island, if we trim the numbers to account for front-bar rumours and the usual inflation rate, I would be surprised if 200-300 were killed on both sides put together, maybe 5-8 per year.

Dearest Foxy,

I'm not sure why you keep citing the most banal and infantile sources, such as The Conversation. As for archaeology, when I was in Primary
School in 1954, I was fascinated with palaeontology; I read all the books in the Penrith Public Library, I used to copy out the ancient skulls of Pithecanthropus, Australopithecus, the Taung Man, etc. If I had another life .....

Yes, you're partly right: sometimes, oral stories can fill out broader accounts. But seriously, would you believe every story that you were ever told, just on the say-so of the teller ? Even stories that relate to very distant events, say ten years ago ? Surely you're not that naive, I can't believe that.

People get details wrong, even fundamental details. We all do. I would respectfully suggest that not one of us has a perfect memory, not even from one day to the next, let alone decades.

Find evidence, piece it together, make sense of it. If a story backs it up, so much the better. But never, never a story alone.

Love,

Joe

Nicknamenick you are a racist crunt.
Posted by minotaur
Absolutely. Completely. Total. What did I do?

Joe, Aboriginal people were forced off their lands all over Australia. Your continual reference to South Australia is meaningless in the overall context of the results of invasion.

The experiences in Tasmania have been well researched and documented by many historians. Two of the more recent ones are by Nick Brodie and Nick Clements. There was a declared war in Tasmania against the Aborigines and roving parties committed massacres against whole groups while they slept.

As a result of the invasion and subsequent war in Tasmania the Aboriginal population went from approx. 7000 to around 200 in around 30 years. Your guestimates are rubbish and have no validity.

"Survived violent invasion and over a century of frontier warfare"

Dispossession-resistance model, 'choosing to interpret every example of Aboriginal attack on Europeans and their property as ‘resistance’ or ‘warfare’'.

Presentism.

Misunderstanding the 600 aboriginal tribes as one 'nation' with homogeneity.

"As Reynolds himself says, ‘the evidence . . . suggests that Aborigines attacked and killed Europeans for a variety of reasons’. Precisely, and it is wrong to subsume all these reasons under the rubric of ‘resistance’ and create the impression that it was all of a piece.

It can be seen that ‘resistance’ has served a useful purpose in overthrowing the notion that the Aborigines simply ‘faded away’. Henry Reynolds, Noel Loos and others have performed an important service in quantifying the conflict (particularly in Queensland) and revealing Aborigines as far from passive victims of European onslaught. In so doing, however, they have created the impression that ‘resistance’ of some kind was the typical Aboriginal response to the European presence from one end of the continent to the other.

In their enthusiasm to document the bloodiness of the process of colonisation, Reynolds and others have not been so interested in documenting and highlighting that other major characteristic of Aboriginal-European interaction: accommodation. Perhaps this in itself is a reflection of the character of Aboriginal political action during the decade when Reynolds was preparing The other side of the frontier: a period which was typified by sometimes violent physical confrontations between Aborigines and police and by the belligerent rhetoric of the Black Power movement in Australia. Reynolds himself was quite explicit about the political purpose of his book, emphasising that it ‘was not conceived, researched, or written in a mood of detached scholarship’.

from Inventing Aborigines (article)
Bob Reece
http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p71991/pdf/book.pdf?referer=1077

nicknamenick states: "Aboriginals deserved what they got from the winners." And thus earns the title well.

Hi Minotaur,

I'm in South Australia, I have only the SA records to go on, and second-hand accounts in articles and books about the rest, with some first-hand anecdotal accounts as well.

So, in relation to driving people off their lands, there was one letter to the SA Protector reporting that a new pastoral lessee, John Lewis, was planning to drive people off his lease. The Protector promptly wrote to him, pointing out that he would be in breach of his lease conditions if he did. End of.

Yes, it probably happened elsewhere. The ration system tended to pull people out of remote corners of their country to congregate around the depots, from the earliest days. Perhaps that was one of its ulterior motives. But pastoral lessees needed labour, so were happy to set up ration depots, for free, in order to attract the young and able-bodied who couldn't get rations, but still had the right (and still do) to hunt, gather and fish.

In order 'to keep people in their districts', the SA Protector issued 15-ft boats, probably a hundred at any one time, particularly for people who couldn't work. Of course, fishing gear as well. Such people got their boats free, able-bodied people had to pay half the cost. Repairs were carried out on the same basis. Guns were also issued on the same principle, with repairs ditto.

To be honest, when I was typing up the nine thousand letters of the SA Protector (1839-1913), I kept asking myself if I would have done anything different: the answer was 'No'. They're on www.firstsources.info, so if you can find one letter which you disagree with, go for it.

And of course - since no Protectors were dismissed, one serving for thirty five years - they were carrying out the colonial government's policies. C. D. Rowley called South Australia "The Colony Which Was To Be Different", and so it seems. But I'm not so sure that after, say, 1850, NSW or Victoria policies were much different from SA's.

Joe

Hi again Minotaur,

Nicknicknick employs very deep satire and irony, I don't think he means to be racist.

One day, we will all have to grapple with the questions: "Was there really any alternative to the British declaring sovereignty over Australia ? Could Australia have been left alone forever ?"

What do you reckon ? The Brits beat the French by only a couple of weeks. Even the Americans were contemplating seizing parts of both New Zealand and Australia. In the 1850s, forts were built, even here in Adelaide, to defend the colonies from invasion by the Russian Imperial Navy. In time, the Dutch and Portuguese - and perhaps the Spanish - might have thought of invading an unclaimed Australia. Do you really think the Japanese would have left it alone after they defeated the Russian Navy in 1904 ? Would a resurgent China today knock back the opportunity to take over Australia ? India ? Indonesia ?

So let's be brutally honest: it had to happen. We can fart around and change words here and there, but the bottom line is that the British declared sovereignty over Australia. Nor can that be reversed. We can invent dreadful crimes perpetrated afterwards, but how does that change anything ?

We also have to ask: would Indigenous people be better off now if that hadn't happened ? Look around you: can you do without air-conditioning, a regular income, all manner of services, the chance to travel ? Would you rather not know about the world out there ? Well, with Trump and North Korea, yes, I can sympathise, but apart from those idiocies ?

So how can we change things for the better, for everybody who is now here, 24 million of us ? These questions will never go away.

Cheers,

Joe

yeah minotaur wot he said .

minotaur,

An impressive list of achievements that could apply to any number of peoples around the world at one time or another.

But let us take the boomerang first. Wikipedia has this to say:

"Though traditionally thought of as Australian, boomerangs have been found also in ancient Europe, Egypt, and North America. Hunting sticks discovered in Europe seem to have formed part of the Stone Age arsenal of weapons.[13] One boomerang that was discovered in Jaskinia Obłazowa in the Carpathian Mountains in Poland was made of mammoth's tusk and is believed, based on AMS dating of objects found with it, to be about 30,000 years old.[14][15] In the Netherlands, boomerangs have been found in Vlaardingen and Velsen from the first century BC. King Tutankhamun, the famous Pharaoh of ancient Egypt, who died over 3,300 years ago, owned a collection of boomerangs of both the straight flying (hunting) and returning variety"

Joe it really is great that you put all that effort in, so that we have some actual facts regarding Aboriginal treatment at least in SA. Facts sure trump emotive garbage.

Well done, & thanks.

Amen to that, Hasbeen!

Dear Minotaur,

Thank You for listing just some of the achievements.

The following links may be of interest:

http://www.australiancollaboration.com.au/pdf/FactSheets/Common-misconceptions-Indigenous-FactSheet.pdf

http://theconversation.com/aboriginal-people-how-to-misunderstand-their-science-23835

http://theconversation.com/finding-meteorite-impacts-in-aboriginal-oral-tradition-38052

http://theconversation.com/why-our-kids-should-learn-aboriginal-history-24196

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Here is a link from ANU:

http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p70821/pdf/introduction11.pdf

Foxy,

A pity that they didn't manage to think of the wheel.

Dear Is Mise,

You stated that it was a pity that Aboriginal people
did not manage to think of the wheel. Why should they?

I've taken this from the web. There's even more on the web
if instead of insulting - you are really interested in
the subject.

There are four basic reasons that are listed:

They did not have heavy items that required being
transported over long distances.

They did not have beasts of burden (unless you imagine that
they could have harnessed several kangaroos or a few
dozen wombats - cute, but unrealistic).
They did not enslave any large numbers of people to replace
the role of the beasts of burden. And finally, the terrain
in most parts of Australia was not easily suited to the use
of a wheel without developing massive roadways which would
have been a massive undertaking without any discernible
benefit.

Furthermore, the implication that the Aboriginal people
did not understand the concept that ROUND THINGS ROLL is
highly offensive. Even slater beetles and dung beetles
understand that round things roll. Traditional Aboriginal
people understood how to live in perfect harmony with their
environment, as well as the premise that led to human powered
wing flight. They understood the fundamental effects of
force on round things. I believe if they were shown a wheel
ten thousand years ago they would have said "what a nice child's
toy."

The real question is:

"Since everyone used spears, how come not many people came up
with the woomera?"

Hi Joe, when it came to Aboriginal people being forced off their land it wasn't a matter of 'probably' it was certain. While the experiences in SA are regarded as some of less violent and more accommodating in other places it was the opposite. It even continued to happen after WW1 when white returned soldiers were given land grants. As land soon became in short supply in NSW the government 'acquired' land that had been farms run for generations by Aborigines or took Aboriginal reserves and forced the people to move.

As to the question of what may have happened if the British hadn't decided to come...well it is rather moot isn't it. However, history does show that some things were quite different about the Australian situation. Firstly, it was taken under false pretences in that it was considered by the Brits to be an empty land. I doubt other nations would have been so bold. Then there is the issue of there never being any treaties made, which is quite different from other 'colonisations', including New Zealand

Hi Minotaur,

Why do people insist on this fiction that the British claimed that Australia was 'an empty land' ? Of course, they didn't. Cook reported never being out of the sight of smoke from fires all along the east coast. Every explorer wrote of encounters with Indigenous people. So whoever said the continent was empty ? Nobody. Move on.

If you mean by that, 'terra nullius', then again no, 'terra nullius' didn't mean there were no people, only no system of alienable land ownership. Was there ? This is quite a crucial issue: were the relationships that hunter-gatherers had with the land those of ownership or of use ? Of course, hunter-gatherers used the land and the British - at least here in SA - recognised that from the outset. But did they 'own' the land ? Certainly groups, i.e. clans, exercised rights to exclude non-clan members seeking to use the land without permission, so I think the answer may be 'yes'. But pick up any book on land law, check out the first, historical, chapters and see for yourself. There should be plenty in your uni library.

As for treaties, with whom back then ? Would Aboriginal groups have understood what was being proposed, since after all, it was unprecedented in their experience. Who with ? Clans, i.e. the land-using groups ? Elders ? Speaking for whom ? This raises the issue of whether or not Australia was a 'res nullius', i.e. a land without government or administration. After all, clans didn't need anything like government above the level of clan, or family. Can you talk about families having government ? I suppose so, but only over clan or family members. Were there any functions of government higher than this level ?

And what would be the point of a treaty, or a multitude of treaties, now, 230 years after the event ? To specify what ? Equal rights ? Or do Indigenous people want a bit more than 'equal rights' ? It would be nice if that could be spelled out honestly.

Cheers,

Joe

Foxy,

"The real question is:

"Since everyone used spears, how come not many people came up
with the woomera?"

Many ancient people did. see: "atlatl" on Wiki and elsewhere.

Most of inland Australia is suitable for the use of the wheel, being flat to undulating, wheel-barrows come to mind for people who walk.

There is some evidence that they existed in ancient Greece.

Hi Joe, condescending comment is not usually part of your replies and it doesn't suit you. However, it is my understanding that Cook was under instruction to not claim any land that was occupied being 'used' by indigenous people. So, what did he do, claim the land by putting the British flag on an unoccupied island to the north of Australia. Of course, in Cook's defence he was very much in appreciation of the Aboriginal people and described them favourably and living lives that were happier and more prosperous than Europeans. However, it would seem his attitude changed after being attacked.

I'll have to recheck but I do recall Watkin Tench, who was part of the First Fleet and whose writings are invaluable records of early colonisation (before it became a full blown invasion), expressed surprise to find so many indigenous people present. They had been led to believe that the land was basically 'unoccupied' and ready for the taking. And let's not forget that in the Mabo case the High Court stated that terra nullius was a lie.

As to treaties, well many early colonisers seemed to be able to reach agreements with indigenous peoples all over the world. However, when one group comes in with an attitude of extreme superiority and does not take the time to even begin to understand local peoples and their nations then you get invasion. Of course, part of the problem, and somewhat unique to Australia, was that many of those early colonisers were convicts who took the chance to oppress those they believed to be below them on the social scale of the time.

On a final note for now, I don't support any calls/moves for a treaty now. Aboriginal Australians are now far too diverse and mixed for any such thing to happen. It would simply be tokenism at its worst...and even more divisive than the current moves to have recognition for our 'First Peoples' in the Constitution (which will never happen as no one will ever agree as to what form it should/could take).

Is Mise, using Wikipedia is not a means of establishing credibility. However, as you raised the point of such technology, specifically boomerangs, being found elsewhere that means very little. And when it comes to those in Europe or other places they weren't as isolated as Aborigines in Australia were. Technology advances could be traded and communicated across a wide range of peoples.

I really don't see any relevance to your comments about the lack of a 'wheel' being invented by Aborigines either. They didn't need one, hence there not being one invented. As the old adage goes, 'necessity is the mother of invention' (ok, I probably butchered that but you get the gist of it).

Actually, you disappoint me Is Mise as I thought you may have been able to counter me by arguing that Aboriginal people didn't invent 'hafting' of tools (ok, I didn't mention it but a knowledgeable person would have noted the omission). I'll save you a google search though...'hafting' basically means putting a handle on stone tools to make them more useful. That technology didn't come to Australia until around 5-6000 years ago (when the dingo arrived too). That implies that some others had to have introduced it (and the dingo) from outside. Now there's a thread for you to follow!

nicknamenick, if I failed to appreciate your use of irony and/or satire I apologise and retract my accusation of you being a 'racist crunt'. My hackles were raised by other comments by the true racist (and bigoted) crunts prevalent on OLO (yes, you ttbn and your fellow like thinkers) and I reacted to your comment accordingly.

Dear Minotaur,

Well argued and Thank You.

It is greatly appreciated.

//A pity that they didn't manage to think of the wheel.//

Neither did the Aztecs (at least not for utilitarian purposes, although they did put them on toys) and they built the largest pyramid in the world, the Great Pyramid of Cholula.

Apparently wheels ain't everything.

"my accusation of you being a 'racist crunt'."
It's OK i'm not racist.

minotaur,

" That technology [hafted axes] didn't come to Australia until around 5-6000 years ago (when the dingo arrived too). That implies that some others had to have introduced it (and the dingo) from outside.

Therefore there was outside contact.
I suppose that they didn't invent a hafted axe because they didn't need one, only discovering the need when they saw how useful it was.

Probably for the same reason they didn't invent the bow and arrow, woven clothing, writing, drawing (beyond the very primitive). how to make boats etc., etc.

Face up to it, Australian Aborigines were very primitive but quick learners and adept at adapting new technology to the uses with which they were familiar; an example of this is the superb spear points fhaf they made from discarded broken bottles.

Hi Minotaur,

I'm not sure what you mean by 'condescending': I'm assuming that you are a university lecturer.

Regards,

Joe

I'm going to start this post as moderator, and warn anyone against using a term like "crunt" again. I'm going to leave it this time, but that is the last time I will leave it, or anything resembling it.

And I'm going to end the post as the author. That piece on Inventing Aborigines was very good LeoJ. Presentness is a problem in all these debates, with people lacking the imagination to put themselves in someone else's shoes in another time and another culture.

I don't see much point in arguing about why the Aborigines were so primitive. Settled agriculture for most of humanity is at most 12,000 years old. They, and a number of other peoples, got left behind. When you consider the length of time there have been hominids, they are not a long way behind in percentage terms.

And I don't see much point in arguing that they weren't primitive. And that their societies weren't brutal. They were, just as the societies where all of our ancestors lived in the stone age were brutal. The story in Australia is similar to all the rest of the world. Nowhere have primitive peoples like the Aborigines prospered after colonisation by a more advanced society. Same issues occur even in places like Japan and Taiwan, which we don't normally think of as having native populations.

Any curriculum about Aboriginal societies in schools should put them in the worldwide context. If it doesn't it won't be particularly useful.

.

Graham wrote :

« I don't see much point in arguing about why the Aborigines were so primitive … They, and a number of other peoples, got left behind … »
.

Not just the Aborigines ! As a matter of fact, I feel quite primitive, myself, compared to people like Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Jesus of Nazareth, Shivaji Bhonsle, Mahatma Gandhi, Gautama Buddha, Nelson Mandella, Martin Luther King Jr., Mozart, Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates, Bertrand Russell, Qin Shi Huang, Leo Tolstoy, Maurice Utrillo, Albert Namatjira and, I’m afraid to have to admit, millions of others, even far more modest than the few I’ve just mentioned – including many … Aborigines ! – and I don’t just mean the Aboriginal university graduates.

In their natural environment, the so-called primitive Aborigines are the “civilized” ones and I am the ignorant “primitive” !

In their particular field of competence, I have literally everything to learn.
.

Graham also wrote :

« Any curriculum about Aboriginal societies in schools should put them in the worldwide context. If it doesn't it won't be particularly useful »
.

Allow me to recommend the following reading for any who may be interested :

“Primitive Culture” (in two volumes), by Edward Burnett Tylor (1832- 1917), an English anthropologist, whom some consider the founder of cultural anthropology,

“Ancient Society” by Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881), an American anthropologist, also considered a pioneer of social anthropology.

.

Technology is not the same as local invention: TV was not invented by each country. The earliest known wheel in UK was found with glass from when their tin was sent to Germany for faience-glass beads derived from Egypt and Ur. An elder told me that no influence came in to Oz as Indigenous have been here for 40,000 years. This defence of turf is understandable but not real or logical.

Mulga-wood blades are bi-convex with a cutting tip of 60-90 degrees where a sword is about 25degrees. A skull with sword-cut found near Bourke must be a wooden injury to fit this virginal narrative. Cambridge and Aust. unis assert that Aboriginal wooden blades cuts like steel. If so we have a new industry for mulga metal , a carbon steel to make wooden chisels for surgery. Mulga car panels may save the car industry from invasion.

.

I should add that, much to my regret, I did not invent the wheel either - and yet, where I used to live on the Darling Downs, the earth was perfectly flat. You could turn 360 degrees without seeing the slightest bump on the horizon - just the huge dome of the pale blue sky on a clear, sunny day, towering above the flat plain as far as the eye could see.

I would have been perfectly incapable of inventing the boomerang and the Woomera too.

As a matter of fact, the one thing I have always aspired to ever since I was a young boy, was that, one day, I should succeed in having at least one truly original idea, that nobody else on earth had ever had before me. I guess it had something to do with leaving my mark to say that I had been here, as it were.

I am an old man now and I'm still trying, but I have never had one yet. Nor have I ever invented anything. I thought I did, twice in my lifetime, only to find out some time later, that somebody had invented them before me.

There is an expression for that. It's called "reinventing the wheel".

It's not much fun being primitive - unless, of course, you take the philosphical view of some of those Aboriginal peoples who consider that their traditional lifestyles are preferable to ours.

Mind you, in Plato's "The Republic", Socrates argues that individual desires must be postponed in the name of the higher ideal. Perhaps that is what our Aboriginal compatriots have in mind. Who knows ?

.

Dear Banjo Paterson,

Thank You for sharing your thoughts with us in
this discussion.

The topic of this discussion was given the title -
"Discovering the real history of our peoples."
I naturally made the assumption that Australia's
human past prior to the British settlement in 1788
could be deconstructed and the archaeological history
of Australia placed into its global context - then
we would move towards a greater respect for the
significant achievements of the First Australians.

I felt that history should be deeper and further
reaching. Responsible education needs to encourage
broader appreciation for the diversity of history and culture.
And the rewards would be far deeper for future generations
of Australians.

Of course Western Civilisation is an important part of
our history. But Australia's history is more than this
and the story of the First Australians is an important
starting point for a truly Australian narrative.

I frankly can't understand why certain sections of
Australian society are so determined to deny, led by
conservative media commentators and even some
historians, and politicians, who want to whip up an
indignant storm about how educators should choose to
educate their students.

Anyway, I'm done here.

http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/minister-wants-steer-school-curriculum-away-truth-about-aboriginal-history

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/03/14/why-our-kids-should-learn-aboriginal-history

Probably there was a large input from Indonesia 800 years ago . At that time it had Hindu-Buddhist cultures including communal democracy using words that appear Indo-European . At that time Islam was spreading across Java and some Aboriginal customs in SE Australia may be a time capsule from 13th century Indian Indonesia.

Foxy,

You keep saying the "First Australians",
pray tell us who were the first Australians and from whence did they come?

Narratives, huh?

The Jesuits were there first, "Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man".

nicknamenick...the Macassans from Indonesia were indeed coming to northern Australia but not quite 800 years ago. First visits may have been about 600 years ago but there's no doubt they started a sea slug industry in around the 1600s and it continued until the early 20th century.

Aboriginal people in the north not only adapted some Macassan (and Muslim) cultural practices but also adapted their own. One was the practice of putting a pseudo ships mast on a grave and the raising of it symbolized the farewell of the departed person (raised sails meant the Macassans were leaving).

Not only did Aboriginal people adapt various aspects they also married into Macassan families and many Aboriginal people still have familial ties to Macassans (and vice versa).

minotaur
Yes I agree and this is an earlier contact. Probably an Indonesian sword was used in NSW about 800 years ago by a supporter of deposed king Kertajaya of Kadiri Java. In Bundjalung country north NSW a boat arrived from Ngareenbil "overseas islands" ( J Isaacs 1980 ) and meaning "your beloved countryman" in Old Balinese language. The Clarence river leads to creeks near Tenterfield going west to the Darling .

Catalyst: Toorale Man murder mystery - ABC TV Science
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4211835.htm

Apr 7, 2015 - Bizarrely, the skull wounds on Toorale Man appear similar to those on gladiators
in Imperial Rome.
-
" I have received the following comment from the writer: " The aim of the experiments ( by mulga-wood on pig-skull ) were to determine whether traditional Aboriginal weapons could have caused trauma similar to that of the Toorale skull. Unfortunately our methods did not produce trauma,.."

Rachel Wang
School Administrator (Postgraduate Coursework Administrator)
School of Archaeology and Anthropology
ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences. "
-
The death of Kaakutja: A case of peri-mortem weapon ... - ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/.../308184804_The_death_of_Kaakutja_A_case_of_peri-m...
.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308184804_The_death_of_Kaakutja_A_case
_of_peri-mortem_weapon_trauma_in_an_Aboriginal_man_from_north-western_New_South_Wales_Australia

. Of the weapons tested, the frontal wound observed in Kaakutja most closely resembles that produced by an African 'Samburu' sword. "

//pray tell us who were the first Australians and from whence did they come?//

Is Mise, I recommend you enjoy some History with Hilbert. I'm a big fan of this guy's work; this history of Australia is somewhat brief and patchy but it covers the pre-colonisation period fairly well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DCNoJBJX-8

Dearest Foxy,

[Just in case you're not quite done]

I like many stories, but I love evidence. Stories can be fascinating, elaborating and filling out a narrative in order to strengthen what we already believe. Evidence can be dry, boring, but for all that, it clinches a story. Without it, a story is no more than that, indicating rather than definitively settling an issue. Evidence goes that vital step further.

Stories are what we tell children; evidence can be very disillusioning, but leads us on towards mature understanding.

Your choice :)

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

The historical record documenting Indigenous/Settler relations
is a powerful and unequivocal record of our colonial
past, it is however mostly limited to written records
that largely exclude Indigenous voices. Yet the
magnitude, persistence and near universality of
Aboriginal oral narratives are surely telling, especially
when they span several living generations and the stories
are so well maintained. The number and spread of these
narratives that match-up gives credibility. Of course it
doesn't mean that every Aboriginal story is based on
truth but I still strongly believe that the importance
placed on oral traditions should be re-evaluated.

http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p70821/pdf/introduction11.pdf

See you on another discussion.

Cheers.

Dear Foxy,

[I'm presuming that you're still with us :) ]

No, what you write is unsubstantiated rubbish, with respect. Anybody can make up a story and tell it to someone else who might like its message and pass it on, especially if written records are denigrated and people rely on word of mouth. Sorry, dear, I've had too many experiences of stories being either completely fabricated, or completely wrong in their key details. I'll say it again, and again if necessary, I'm not saying that anybody telling a story is a liar, merely that they may have got details wrong: they may have misheard, misunderstood or felt some need to 'elaborate' or fill out a story to make it fit the times.

From another direction, IF a story is accurate, if it is substantial or consequential, then why shouldn't one expect some corroborating evidence ? In a sense, every story has to front up before a court or a judge, i.e. the listener, who surely has to ask, if they have any sense and are above the age of, say, seven, what evidence might there be to back up this story ?

After all, actions have consequences, and very likely, there may be written records. So I'm sorry, what you write has just a grain of truth but is mostly rubbish. My experience of Aboriginal oral memory is that it is invariably out of kilter with documentation, the more so with the passing of time. After all, people are not tape recorders. Events and people get conflated and confused, numbers (including those of fictitious events) get inflated with each telling, often within days. Of course, if people rely on oral rather than written accounts, they are relying on word of mouth, and therefore from trusted communicators, usually relations or friends, a sort of closed circle of agree-ers.

Agaqin, if something has really happened, why shouldn't there be some sort of evidence ?

Love,

Joe

Forensic scientists are hard put to tell what sort of sword may have been used in a murder last week, let alone thousands of years ago.
Academic BS.

Dr Mise
Thanks for your second opinion. I refer you to another quack doctor:

"Was the skeleton a child? I don’t think even a (very sharp) hardwood blade could cut through an adult outer cortex of bone.That is likely especially if the chisel is not sharp."
Sue L
Orthopaedic & Spine Surgeon

Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor, Monash University

-

"Sue has a strong interest in teaching and training having been Chairman of the Victorian & Tasmanian Regional Training program for the Australian Orthopaedic Association from 2006-2007.

She is currently an examiner in Orthopaedic Surgery for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
-

"I understand you ask me for criticism of the submission or paper:
"The death of Kaakutja: A case of peri-mortem weapon trauma in an Aboriginal man from North-Western New South Wales Australia"
Archaeologists before writing anything about boomerang edge cutting, must contact someone who is familiar with cutting. "Cutting" can happen when the difference in quotient between compression strength (or hardness) of the cutting edge material and the material cut is big enough (let say more than 10). If the difference in the strengths is low or equal both sites the cutting edge and material cut will be DAMAGED (not cut). In my opinion you can only say about DAMAGES caused by the front edge of the wooden boomerang. You are right, comparing two identical blade cutting cases one with lower rake angle second with larger rake angle, they will differ between each other with force of action in following manner:
lower rake angle - larger force of action
higher rake angle - smaller force of action

If the arhaeologists do not know what was (is) initial round up (sharpness) of the front edge (in micrometers) of metal sword (saber) and the front edge of the boomerang they should not start any divagations described above.

Regards
Bolesaw Porankiewicz
-

BOLESAW PORANKIEWICZ, 2008-2011 University of Zielona Góra, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Research interest: wood cutting forces, cutting accuracy, wearing of wood cutting tools, construction and exploitation of wood cutting tools and woodworking machinery."

The first Australians, claim by the aboriginal movement is based on Mungo man, a skeleton excavated at Lake Mungo.
On the basis of this, the aboriginal movement claims they have been here 50,000 years, and were the first people here. skeleton is not aboriginal. It is Chinese.
“The recent Australian discovery of Mungo Man and his Chinese ancestors has reignited debate about humanity's origins without necessarily upsetting current theories, an eminent Chinese palaeontologist has said.
"It does not prove or disprove the Out of Africa theory," Professor Wu Xinzhi of the Institute of Palaeontology of Vertebrates in Beijing said.
This theory says all living people are descendants of homo sapiens who left Africa 100 000 to 150 000 years ago.
However Wu, who like most of his compatriots believes instead that homo sapiens evolved separately in different places around the globe, was pleased with the discoveries made by Australian anthropologist Alan Thorne from Mungo Man, saying it would stimulate further research.
Thorne's discovery was based on DNA analysis of Mungo Man, the name given to a skeleton discovered near Lake Mungo in the eastern Australian state of New South Wales in 1974.
This revealed the species was about 60 000 years old and was, he claimed, descended from a Chinese race of homo sapiens which had arrived in Australia 10 000 years previously.
The race, called Graciles by the Australian researcher, had a specific gene that no longer exists in modern people, he discovered.
But according to Wu, the Graciles, whose existence had not been conclusively proved previously, could be descended from an African ancestor who migrated to southern China before reaching Australia 70 000 years ago.
http://www.news24.com/xArchive/Archive/Mungo-Man-raises-new-questions-20010115
“Southeast Asia is a key region in the path of human dispersal from Africa round to Australia, as all hominins would have had to pass through this region en route to Australia. A change in the date of arrival in this region has huge implications for debates on when the first Australians reached our shores,” Dr. Westaway said.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?hl=en&tab=wm&nsr=1#inbox/15deac679f8ac114

Aborigines have no evidence to support a claim as “first peoples”,

3n,

It could have been the sharp edge of a stone axe.
Stone axes have edges ranging from razor sharp to blunt.

I have a very blunt stone axe, non-hafted variety, that saw so much use that there are finger impressions on one side of the gripping edge.
I have made stone axes that would cut green timber with ease and there is a green stone axe (late Neolithic period) at Sydney University's Nicholson Museum that was re-hafted in the 1960s and then used to cut down a tree, the Professor who oversaw the museum at the time was not amused.

Well done Leo Lane, you have just exposed the paucity of your knowledge by cutting and pasting sections from a long discredited theory about Mungo Man. Recent DNA results from Mungo Man prove that there is no Chinese link. You really should keep up with latest findings if you want to put yourself out there as some sort of 'authority' on the subject of First Australians. Here, I'll help you out:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2016-06-07/dna-confirms-aboriginal-people-as-the-first-australians/7481360

Hello Joe, with all due respect it is not Foxy who writes rubbish but you. For one thing, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...although I'm sure you are familiar with that.

Your over-reliance on recorded 'evidence' is a flaw in your argument as that evidence is often tainted and written by those with a vested interest in not giving the full story. It is a 'master narrative' written by white men who did not want the real truth to be told. And who really wants to document that they massacred innocent people? You also rely heavily on the SA experience, which as I've stated before was not as violent as parts of Australia...in particular Qld, NSW, Vic and Tasmania.

Tasmania presents an interesting case in some respects...on May 3rd 1804 there was the first violent clash between invaders/colonisers and it was reported that 3 Aboriginal people were killed and a number of others injured. In 1830 there was an inquiry into that sought to uncover the reason for the staunch, and violent, resistance of Aborigines during the Black War. As part of the inquiry one 'witness', Edward White, gave evidence about what happened on the the 3rd of May 1804 at Risdon Cove.

White stated he saw that a 'great many [Aboriginal people] were killed' and claimed he was a convict who arrived on the first ship that arrived at the cove in Sept. of 1803. His evidence was corroborated by James Kelly, a free settler and a 12 year old boy in 1804, and claimed that between 40 - 50 Aborigines were killed. Since then their testimonies, which are still on record and available online in the original transcripts, have been used as the basis for the claims a massacre occurred on that fateful day.

Those claims, and the evidence of White and Kelly, went unchallenged for over a century and used by historians and others of verifiable evidence of a massacre. That was despite Kelly not being at Risdon Cove but on the other side of the river when the alleged massacre occurred. Continued below.

White's evidence, however, was considered 'gospel'...after all, he was there...or was he?

Last year a researcher finally decided to find out more about White...and he found nothing. White wasn't who he claimed to be and certainly wasn't a convict at Risdon Cove. There is no record of him at all. The massacre claims were all based on a lie by a phantom who never existed. So much for written evidence!

Of course, I can see you saying 'Ah ha...it proves my point!' Think about it though Joe, it demonstrates the fallibility of what is considered credible written and documented evidence. Everything should be questioned and not taken as 'gospel' simply because it is written down.

You may be interested to know that I don't put any credence in the claims of a massacre of Aboriginal people at Risdon Cove as I'm an Aboriginal historian who prefers to believe in verifiable evidence. A stance that contributed to me being 'sacked' from my position as Aboriginal Studies lecturer at university as I didn't 'toe the line' in perpetuating myth as fact.

Having said that, I also believe that many Aboriginal oral histories have value...something many in the scientific fields are now valuing too. Particularly when it comes to corroborating changing climate and associated events. I can give you some great examples but space won't allow me that luxury.

The photos of Kaakutja , Toorale man, show a straight cut of 150mm from forehead ( 40mm wide) to upper molar tooth . Stone of that length is about 10mm thick at 10mm back from edge and 20mm thick at 20mm back . To slice the lower front jaw and back molar the cutting edge needs to be twisted into the bone surface making the rake angle from perpendicular described by Porankiewicz . This gives more than 60 degrees on the stone face against bone which is in effect a blunt instrument. This causes depressed comminuted fractures.

Yes a hammer breaks bone and a stone axe can chop a tree into chips but not slice out a smooth scoop of wood.


Malaysian J Pathol 2014; 36(1) : 33 – 39
www.mjpath.org.my/2014/v36n1/blunt-force-trauma-to-skull.pdf

Blunt force trauma to skull with various instrument were analyzed according to type of blunt object used;

Due to the limited elasticity of the skull, a severe impact would eventually deform the bone. If the elastic limit of the bone is exceeded, blunt force trauma may cause fractures at the site of impact and dislocations of bony structures. Studies have shown that skull fractures produced by blunt force trauma usually begins at the impact site and then radiate outwards. It was interesting to note that when a higher absolute pressure was delivered by any of the blunt objects (Warrington hammer, field hockey stick and open face helmet), a comminuted fracture was produced .
( hammer and hockey stick have 20mm width as stone axe ).

such as this:
Mark Fraser Injury: Skull Purportedly Shows Impact Of Puck
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/05/13/mark-fraser-injury-skull_n_3268980.html

http://deadspin.com/the-purported-ct-scan-of-mark-frasers-head-is-terrifyi-501886762

Bunnings
No results found for stone axe in Our Range

Mitre 10
SEARCH RESULTS FOR stone axe
There are no results for this query.

Zombies can drop iron swords, zombie pigmen can drop golden swords, and wither skeletons can drop stone swords. It will usually be badly damaged, and may be enchanted.
Wooden, stone, golden, and diamond swords are now available in the creative inventory.

Hi Minotaur,

Please try to get it right: the absence of any evidence MAY very well indicate that, in a particular case or situation, there is no evidence of it occurring found yet.

But if you wish to assert that something happened, it is up to you, the asserter, to demonstrate that it occurred: we can all sit back and wait if you like, but if we had half a brain, we would suspend any belief in your declaration that something had occurred - in the absence of any evidence.

Dearest Foxy,

Not every story is true: your kids must had great fun running rings around you. Try this too:

Judge to prisoner: How do you plead ?

Prisoner: Not guilty, your honour.

Judge: Oh, okay then, you can go.

OR:

Judge: Then how do you explain this hour-long CCTV of you committing such a vile offence, from beginning to end ?

Prisoner: That's my identical twin brother.

Judge: Oh, okay then, you can go.

Etc. Surely you get the drift ?

Love,

Joe

Skepticism, some common ground,

Dr Michael Shermer, Baloney detection Kit, 15minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJmRbSX8Rqo&feature=youtu.be

Gilovich
http://psy.haifa.ac.il/~ep/Lecture%20Files/Gilovich%20-%20Systematic%20Biases.pdf

Still at foot, Elizabeth Loftus,
http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_loftus_the_fiction_of_memory

The Queenslander Blade : Oz Mulga and Surgical Men's Shed announce the butcher's cleaver and Medical bone-chisel formed from west Queensland finest mulga-steel . Developed by archaeologists and University Ethics Officers this attractive dark Aboriginal wood is machined to .000003 micrometres if you want to split hairs. Forget your old steel wood-axe , the Axemen champions of Tasmania and Bourke rain-forests have up-graded to wooden axes for rust-free razor-action mulga sword-cuts. 2 spare axe-heads supplied free for blunt axes after first strike. Surgeons get 3 leather straps to sharpen chisels in the middle of surgical operations . Butchers tough luck . $ 128 a trailer load , a bit more in Tasmania. Guaranteed to cut trees faster than stone axes.

A test of mulga wood on pigskull by ANU failed to produce trauma. My test also failed but caused a shallow groove like that on the left side of Toorale skull next to the sword-cut. So a test on human skull is indicated by the science . Steel blades have a known effect . A stone axe could be tried on pig but what do you think will happen ?
Clue : coke can under foot .

Here is a human cadaver skull ready to go under mulga blade. Anyone with contacts to a uni or Qld think tank is invited to apply:
"Sounds interesting.
This is possible but we will need a protocol for the project – 1 page detailing aim and what will be done to the skull."
Best wishes
Nalini Pather
Associate Professor
School of Medical Sciences . UNSW Medicine .

Loudmouth Joe reveals his whitewash, denier stance. Having lunch with Kiefy Windschuttle soon are you Joe?

minotaur, "I also believe that many Aboriginal oral histories have value...something many in the scientific fields are now valuing too"

You should go ahead and do that. It is a discussion site. However, lets not lose the science that distinguishes the skeptic you say you are from the sloppy 'research' that always seems to find a place in the media and in government policy to placate noisy minorities.

Memories are being planted, wholesale, some might say. What about the 'Stolen Generation'? And 'that' long walk by girls that seems to be sold as fact in schools? Of course it had to be girls, a much more powerful image.(sic)

-While the commentariat led by the national broadcaster shun reporting and discussion of the inquiry that is presently going on in the UK into the awful cruelty that awaited 'child migrants' exported to Australia. Forced adoption too, another well proved cruelty presided over by the State, a nod in that direction by government and a quick dismissal, 'lets move on'.

There is every suggestion that the public are fed up with experts. There is gathering belief we live in a 'post-truth' society. Then again, the public and their political representatives are often ill-served by the seeming inability of good reliable, robust research to find its way into the public view as such. There seems to be so much slanted, sloppy research around and naturally enough, it is presented in such a way to be easily sensationalised as 'news'.

So maybe less bull on OLO which is one of the few opportunities for open communication and focus on empowering OLO readers at least to make informed decisions?

Since you find most aboriginal narrative (all sources are OK so long as indigenous?) is believable and you imply that academics are with you on that, you are going to have to confront the findings of psychologists on memory, just for starters,

Elizabeth Loftus,
http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_loftus_the_fiction_of_memory

Cook landed at Seaworld Gold Coast and the botanist was W@nks not Banks.

Hi Minotaur,

Yes, that would be great: we're from roughly the same part of Sydney (Bankstown: Canterbury) and the same age, so it would be good to catch up.

As for the gist of your comment, the culmination of your entire brilliance I presume, far from being a denier, let me try this bit of logic on you:

Trump declares that he has never had any relations with the Russians. That's his 'story'. Oh, okay then.

The Russians' story is that they never tried to influence the US elections. Oh, okay, if they say so.

Trump didn't organise to get a couple of Russian prostitutes to pee on him in his hotel room. Oh, okay, if that's his story, it must be true.

I'm fascinated with your hypothesis that all stories are true. Ipso facto, they don't need proof. We should take the say-so of the teller. Every story ever told by anybody is and was true. Falsehoods have been unknown in the world.

Sorry, I deny that hypothesis, UNLESS any particular story is backed up by some evidence. You may disagree, and believe every single story you ever hear, because, after all, you certainly seem like a pretty nice person who believes the good in everybody, even Trump. Sorry, but I'm more of a bastard: I won't believe without evidence. And the teller of the story is the one who has to provide it, not me. He/she who asserts must demonstrate.

Minotaur, I WANT to believe so much ! But this bastard gene or something prevents me. I want to sleep soundly, knowing that everything is just and content in the world, because someone said so. I don't like being friendless and alone, I want to be part of the mob. But this perverse request for proof keeps me awake, and cast out. Please think about coming over to my side and champion evidence over opinion :)

Cheers,

Joe

Yes, bullhead, we know that you are uneducated and uncouth, so no need to confirm it.
The question of the dna was never settled, up to the day of Thorne’s death
From your link:” "We could not, with better technology, repeat what the original study found and therefore the evidence that Aboriginal people were not the first Australians has no foundation."
That is weak and inconclusive, and would only be relied on by an uneducated black armband supporter. It deals only with the aspect of the DNA evidence.
Thorne, as an anthropologist, carried out excavations in China, and from his own experience identified Mungo man as a Chinese skeleton.
The aborigines were not the "first people".

Dear Leo Lane,

Perhaps this will help:

http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2016/06/aboriginal-australians-were-definitely-first-inhabitants

Either way, whoever were here first, and second, and third, ........ were the first peoples. OF COURSE, many different groups would have drifted down from Asia, at all different times, along coasts from Malaya to Papua, and pushed their way (or not) into what was Australia.

Perhaps what Thorne meant was that similar skeletal remains to Mungo Man (and presumably Woman as well) have been found in very, very ancient China - i.e. not Chinese, but similar to those found from very ancient times in China. Everybody has moved about, including the people who were in China before the Chinese swept down from the North just three or four thousand years ago.

When people spread out from Africa, some moved along the coasts of Asia, probably at the rate of about a mile a year, while others ventured off north towards central and then eastern Asia - these have been called Denisovans. We're talking about tens of thousands of years ago, so people had plenty of time to have a good look at central and eastern Asia, spreading out and down the east Asian coast, some groups eventually reaching Malaya and Papua, etc.

Let's get real: movement out of Africa and along coasts was not only so slow and gradual that it was not perceptible to the groups, generation after generation, doing it, but also nobody had some sort of map and decided, "Okay, we've come 5,000 miles from Africa now, maybe we should stay here, in what will become known as 'Pakistan'", while other groups said, "Nah, let's keep going around the Malay Peninsula in about five thousand years, turn slightly left and move over the next five thousand years, through those islands which will later be called 'Indonesia', keep going past Papua, turn right over the land bridge down what will become known as Cape York, and keep going, until we are distributed across a huge continent, later known as 'Australia'. Those Denisovans can join us again later. And of course, much later, those fellas from India."

Just trying to bring some sense into the discussion :)

Joe

Why would that help, Foxy.? It is the same material put by the uneducated bullhead, of which I have just disposed. It attempts to show that the dispute raised over the DNA disposes of Thorne’s finding, which it does not.
You have already admitted that you want to confirm some nonsense fabricated in your own mind, when there is no evidence to back it.
Why ask whether the nonsense at your link would help?
Try to find something sensible.

Hi Joe, you seem to have confused me with someone else as I live in Tasmania, which is not anywhere near you. And I think you are bit more aged than me too.

You also seem to have confused my comments and seem to think I believe every oral recount/story told when it comes to Aboriginal heritage and experiences of invasion/colonization. I don’t. As my example of the Tasmanian experiences clearly demonstrated I do not simply believe everything told…or even written by some historians as ‘fact’. I can nominate two historians in particular, Lyndall Ryan and Philip Tardiff, who have clearly fabricated stories and presented them as ‘fact’.

My reference to Aboriginal recounts of historical events was about how ‘Dreaming stories’ detail actual events such as the inundation of the Bassian Plain (now Bass Strait). Underneath the waters of Port Phillip Bay is a waterfall, that still flows when the conditions are right, and Aboriginal oral histories still tell of it. Scientific exploration proved the oral histories to be correct. Here’s a link for you to have a look at/listen to:

http://www.abc.net.au/site-archive/rural/telegraph/content/2011/s3121248.htm

Hopefully others will also have a listen in too.

Foxy, we're wasting out time trying to inform the likes of Leo Lane and Leoj. I wonder what is about the name 'Leo'...seems it bestows a special type of ignorance and inability to recognise their opinions are not fact and easily countered. And when refuted by reputable and verifiable evidence they resort to diversions and name calling.

Seems Paul Hogan got it right by having a character name Leo Vanker (or something close to that and also nicely done by 'nicknamesnick' who described Joseph Banks as Joseph W@anks).

//nobody had some sort of map and decided, "Okay, we've come 5,000 miles from Africa now, maybe we should stay here, in what will become known as 'Pakistan'", while other groups said, "Nah, let's keep going around the Malay Peninsula in about five thousand years, turn slightly left and move over the next five thousand years, through those islands which will later be called 'Indonesia', keep going past Papua, turn right over the land bridge down what will become known as Cape York, and keep going, until we are distributed across a huge continent, later known as 'Australia'.//

Of course they didn't. Where would they have got the maps from?

The really interesting thing is that 10's and even 100's of thousands years after the facts, we can trace their courses of their migrations through genetics (and plot them on our nice shiny Mercator projection maps). Pretty cool, huh?

For some of our more aged posters who were probably old men (mentally if not physically) when Crick, Watson & Franklin discovered the structure of DNA, all this paleogenetics probably sounds like some of pseudoscience. Nothing to do with the proper study of prehistory.

But I bet there were stick-in-the-muds who said the same thing about radiocarbon dating when it was a new idea. And where are they now?

Dear minotaur,

You're right. I can see that I have wasted my time
here.
However, all is not lost. I got to meet you and read
your thoughts on the subject.

Thanks for your link and for sharing your knowledge
on this discussion. I appreciated it greatly.

I look forward to sharing more thoughts with you in future
discussions.

Enjoy your evening.

Minotaur,

I don't know or really care where you live. Yes, I am probably much older than you, at 75. I agree with pretty much everything else you write in that last post, except for that last assertion.

Toni,

There's a little place in Beirut which might have had the maps.

Sorry to see you go, foxy. Please come back :)

Joe

Where facts are known it's possible to twist words. I hope more science can be used to correct this word-butchering:

Archaeologist 2015:
"When you look carefully , the striations are diagnostic of an steel weapon..in experiments on bone in the United States , edged weapons and swords create traumas very similar to the man from Toorale. Bizarrely, the skull wounds on Toorale Man appear similar to those on gladiators in Imperial Rome.. They're around 170mm in length,. The scans reinforce the theory that the cuts were made with a long, sharp, light blade, .But the idea that these injuries were caused by a steel sword is contradicted by the radio carbon dating. ."

2016:
" Could sharp-edged wooden weapons from traditional Aboriginal culture inflict injuries similar to those resulting from later, metal blades? Analysis indicates that wooden weapons known as 'Lil-lils' and the fighting boomerangs ('Wonna') both have blades that could fit within the dimensions of the major trauma and are capable of having caused the fatal wounds., the boomerang is the most probable candidate for the main trauma. . Of the weapons tested, the frontal wound observed in Kaakutja most closely resembles that produced by an African ‘Samburu’ sword.. only a traditional, Aboriginal, sharp-edged weapon could have inflicted the trauma. . The pattern of trauma on his skeletal remains is not previously documented in the Australian archaeological record, . The nature and expression of trauma suggests that edged weapons from traditional Aboriginal culture had the capacity to inflict injuries similar to those by edged metal weapons.. "

2017 :
"..they have no experience of wooden weapons .. The ethnography is clear that these weapons created trauma patterns similar to that documented in Kaakutja. There is rock art in the region showing people in combat using wooden weapons.. The OSL and C14 dates on the remains pre date metal in Australia."

-
Can you find the tricky bits? Where did the naughty man tell fibs? Draw a picture of ethnographic expression of trauma patterns using traditional African rock-art boomerangs not previously seen in documented pre-metal dates.

//I wonder what is about the name 'Leo'...seems it bestows a special type of ignorance and inability to recognise their opinions are not fact and easily countered.//

An astrologer could have a field day with this question. But I don't believe in that shite, so I think it's probably just coincidence.

Although it could be some sort of reverse nominative determinism, whereby cockheads gravitate to the handle of Leo because they think the name will bestow some sort of noble character upon them.

//nicely done by 'nicknamesnick' who described Joseph Banks as Joseph Wnks//

So now we're going in for character assassination of botanists?
Really?

We're not talking about some mass-murderer of Aboriginals here. Banks was a scientist. He liked plants. I know it's very trendy to be fanatically opposed to anybody with even a vague whiff of colonial oppressor about them, but you're drawing a very long bow there.

He came out with Cook, collected lots of samples, then went home. Where he proceeded to make Kew Gardens the best botanical gardens in the world. Trying to paint him as the enemy suggests that you're straying into an extremist camp of the history wars.

//There's a little place in Beirut which might have had the maps.//

Sounds unlikely... but please elaborate.

Sorry Toni, I just learnt that it had burnt down. So no evidence, I'm afraid. But you can take my word for it: that's what progressive people do, it seems.

Strange, it used to be devout Catholics who believed without question. Moslems too, sin ce the Book tells them to. Communists too, I have to admit. It certainly saves thinking, and invariably gives you an enemy to condemn, usually doubters and thinkers who, unfortunately have to be ...... extracted.

Plus ca change ......

Joe

//Sorry Toni, I just learnt that it had burnt down.//

Beirut? Nah, it's still there mate. Or at least, if it's been burnt down then the fourth estate have been awfully quite about it, which is not like them at all.

I'm a bit cynical about where you're getting your evidence from, Joe. It's not the bloody History Channel is it?

Hi Toni
There are multiple sources which confirm Cook and Banks did what the records claim and also there are multiple sources for some claims in Aboriginal matters which then may be accepted . Some claims have little back-up . And then the implications can be various, again either with some support or none. Sometimes the logic is faulty such as absolute as against limited statements . Certainly old mate Banksy liked his plants ( fairly certain about that).

Bullhead says:” Last year a researcher finally decided to find out more about White...”
Even a minimally educated contributor would identify the researcher and link to his report.
But not an ignoramus.
Bullhead’s lack of education also shows in his poor comprehension. When Joe said he would enjoy lunch with Keith Windschuttle, bullhead inexplicably thought Joe would have lunch with him.He made the laughable comment that Joe seemed confused.
His lack of comprehension ensures that his comments are always mistaken and ineffective, and generally inaccurate.
Joe, I think your comments on Thorne’s position, are about right. I think he had a theory that the aborigines were a merger of the chinese and a later arriving race.
I will try to find his book, as I cannot find anything on it on the net.

A China-region people may have moved into the islands.
www.dailymail.co.uk/.../The-great-seafarers-DNA-ancient-skeletons-reveals-Polynesians...
Oct 3, 2016 - The first great seafarers: DNA from ancient skeletons reveals the Polynesians may have come from Taiwan 5,000 years ago. ..
-

According to Sima Qian 145-86 BCE, Huang-ti emerged from the tribal system of pre-historic China to rule Shandong between 2697-2597 BCE. Many scholars maintain that the Xia Dynasty 2070 BCE is a myth. Those who believe the Xia Dynasty was a reality are at an equal disadvantage as the sites uncovered could as easily be interpreted as early Shang Dynasty buildings. They may have discovered China or been the first Chinese or had early writing or contaminated DNA or black arm-band history.

Great to see Leo Lane providing such great self description: His lack of comprehension ensures that his comments are always mistaken and ineffective, and generally inaccurate. Bravo! Paul Hogan would be proud of LL!

minotaur,

You said you were a skeptic, so I put to you and ors this post to establish the common ground,
"Skepticism, some common ground,

Dr Michael Shermer, Baloney detection Kit, 15minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJmRbSX8Rqo&feature=youtu.be

Gilovich
http://psy.haifa.ac.il/~ep/Lecture%20Files/Gilovich%20-%20Systematic%20Biases.pdf

Still at foot, Elizabeth Loftus,
http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_loftus_the_fiction_of_memory"
Posted by leoj, Friday, 8 September 2017 9:17:58 AM
[thread page18]

Where is the problem with stating a standard and seeking agreement on it?

Next, since you (Foxy too) want others to accept indigenous narrative, oral history (his story) as proof, I put this to you,

"However, lets not lose the science that distinguishes the skeptic you say you are from the sloppy 'research' that always seems to find a place in the media and in government policy to placate noisy minorities.

Memories are being planted, wholesale, some might say. What about the 'Stolen Generation'? And 'that' long walk by girls that seems to be sold as fact in schools? Of course it had to be girls, a much more powerful image.(sic)
...
Since you find most aboriginal narrative (all sources are OK so long as indigenous?) is believable and you imply that academics are with you on that, you are going to have to confront the findings of psychologists on memory, just for starters,

Elizabeth Loftus,
http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_loftus_the_fiction_of_memory "
[thread page 19]

Why about a reply?

Gold prospecting may have drawn foreign adventurers.
The Gympie Pyramid Story
http://www.warriors.egympie.com.au/pyramid.html

Several unusual objects have been found in and around the Gympie area. These include among other things : a carved, yellow stone head suggesting South American influence; an ancient statuette of the Indian goddess Lakshmi; a Grecian urn; an ancient Chinese bronze teapot, and an apparent stone statue of an ape-like figure, known as ‘The Gympie Ape’.

Hi Toni,

Well, that's what our family story has been: once you get across the Red Sea, turn left and head up to this other big sea, keep going along the shore to Beirut, ask for the only bookshop there, and then get your maps from that bloke. He even had maps in Neanderthal, for my mob !

That story has been passed down absolutely unchanged for at least fifty thousand years. My grand-dad assured us that it was true, just like we were each born under a cabbage. Well, boys under cabbages, girls under strawberries.

Conservative groups were right to have left Africa Greens and always kept turning right . This only leads to Darwin , a country party and shooters and fishers with lever action woomeras. Everyone else had to buqa off.

//Well, that's what our family story has been//

Pictographs or it didn't happen.

//once you get across the Red Sea, turn left and head up to this other big sea, keep going along the shore to Beirut//

*Translated from the original languages*

Fisherman 1: Hey, you see that weird guy over there?
Fisherman 2: Yeah, he seems to be looking for something. [shouting] HEY, DUDE, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?
Joe's Ancestor: [shouting] BEIRUT!
Fisherman 1: What did he just say? It sounded like bayroot. What the fcuk is a bayroot?
Fisherman 2: I dunno, man. I'm not sure he's got enough waves to make a tide. [beckoning, shouting] COME OVER HERE, DUDE.
Joe's Ancestor: [approaches, shouting, gesturing wildly] BEIRUT! BEIRUT! BEIRUT?
Fisherman 2: No, bayroot is too far. Have some water and shade, and find bayroot when you feel better....

Thousands of years later...

Farmer 1: Hey, do you see that weird guy between those two houses?
Farmer 2: Yeah he seems to be looking for something. [shouting] HEY, DUDE, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?
Joe's Ancestor: Beirut.
Farmer 1: Well, you're standing in it. She ain't much of a town, but she's better than some. Would you like a drink, friend?
Joe's Ancestor: Drink? No! Drink later. First bookshop.
Farmer 1: Bookshop?
Farmer 2: [shrugs] I dunno. [slowly, loudly] WHAT IS A BOOKSHOP? BOOOK-SHOPPP?
Joe's Ancestor: Bookshop! Shop that sells books! [mimes flipping through books]. BOOKS! MAPS!
Farmer 1: I think the power of almighty sun as addled your brains. Have some water and shade, and find 'bookshop' when you feel better...

//My grand-dad assured us that it was true, just like we were each born under a cabbage.//

Nah, I don't buy it. How's a stork going to manage to fly underneath a cabbage?

Denier !

Scribble on white paper is undeniable and out of Australia.

Tracing the origins of songbirds - Australian Geographic
www.australiangeographic.com.au/.../the-worlds-songbirds-island-hopped-out-of-aust...
Aug 31, 2016 - The world's songbirds island-hopped out of Australia ... new estimates about when and how songbirds spread and diversified across the globe.
-

The first bird shown looks suspiciously like an Indian myna which took over India . Uluru was a human origin from where Chinese and Irish learned to sing.

Hi Nick,

You might be right about Chinese history: there seem to be great gaps between 2000 BC and 500 BC, perhaps filled with fascinating myth. As well, strictly speaking, China was ruled by outsiders for most of the last thousand years - Mongols, perhaps the Mings from western China, then the Manchus (a branch of th Mongols?). Much of what the current Chinese government claims as part of 'their' empire was really part of the Manchu Empire.

Of course, 'our' empire good, 'their' empire bad. Perhaps, to follow the Manchu/Chinese example, England can demand to get Ireland 'back', and demand the recognition of the Irish Sea as domestic territory, as China plans to do with the South China Sea.

God knows who could claim Syria on those shaky grounds.

Cheers,

Joe

Mexico should be worried too. Most experts are discovering that Australia was empty apart from crocodile shooters from Dundee and China just unloaded surplus Manchus between 1770 and 1788 in the big picture.

I'm fascinated by the way threads go off in all sorts of directions. Try to get a better idea of Indigenous history and you end up writing about China or Mexico.

Anyway, to get reluctantly back to topic: should we believe everything that is asserted about our past, or suspend belief until we have some acceptable level of evidence for any claims ?

For example, massacres: I assume they occurred, but where ? It appears that there has not yet been a single forensic examination of any supposed site in Australia. Surely, one would have thought, some amateur archaeologist or forensic detective has spent years combing their local countryside to find sites ? So claims of thousands here or tens of thousands there are a bit premature. About all we know about massacres are those of the 28 on the Coorong in 1840, of the 19 on the Dawson River in Qld in about 1858, of the Rainbird family on Yorke Peninsula in SA around 1860, the Baird family on Eyre Peninsula around 1848, and a few other families. But they don't matter much, because after all, they were white.

As for, say, the 'Stolen Generation': were kids taken into care ? Of course, for neglect, abuse and abandonment. Should governments have done that ? Or don't governments have any responsibility for the most vulnerable in the societies they administer ? i.e. were governments 'reactive' to actual circumstances, or were they scheming and 'proactive', taking children for no reason, with some devious plan to adopt them all out ? How did that go ? As far as I can tell, none of my wife's relations were ever taken for no reason, or adopted out: so is that a myth ? Anyway, any claimant's record would show the truth, if they dared to present it in court.

Sometimes the truth is very hard to discover. Acceptance of story is easier. Everybody's choice.

Joe

Should be records in undertaker's files about black horses and funeral carriages for beloved deceased 142 miles west of outer Bringabeeralong . Marble slabs and concrete head stones were the bare minimum with gold lettering of dates of birth and bullet calibre. Otherwise rest in peace for dingos , wedgetails and quolls.

Hi Nick,

Yes, remembering history. In many, if not all, Aboriginal groups, a practice of 'forgetting' was common: the names of the deceased were not used, nor any words which sounded like their names, so many ordinary words in the dialects had to be changed. Hence rapid differentiation between dialects, to the point of mutual incomprehensibility. Hence also, no handed-down genealogies.

The bloke on the $ 50 note, David Unaipon, from Pt McLeay, died in 1967 and his grave was marked only with a little wooden cross. More or less forgotten. When my wife was appointed to a senior position at her university, she exploited her financial situation so that funds could be allocated to provide him with a proper headstone, I think about $ 3000. Big unveiling, many putative relations suddenly came forward. School at the university named in his honour.

Now, I suspect, forgotten again. No more University School in his name. Sic transit gloria.

Joe

I've just come across this amazing article by the historian Michael Connor, titled 'Error Nullius Revisited', available on:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1906369299642736/

Anybody who believes that there ever was such a term as 'terra nullius' used liberally in Australian history, should have a good look at this article, it's a real eye-opener.

One wonders how other historians, judges, lawyers, etc. could have got it so wrong. How can you so easily mix up 'res nullius' - a stretch of land without observable forms of government', with 'terra nullius', a stretch of land which seems to have no form of land ownership, only land use' ?

i.e. confusing concepts of sovereignty with concepts of land ownership ? Amazing.

Sory, that URL should be:

https://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volume16/v16chap4.html

And therefore , logically speaking , the marble tombs of deceased tribal people are readily located and bullet holes identified . In the absence of granite mausoleums this may be slightly more difficult. Impossible. Insane.

On 'Terra nullius', there is this article too:

https://www.samuelgriffith.org.au/papers/html/volume19/v19chap11.html

I wonder if any left-wing publication has put out anything as detailed as these, but of course from a more left point of view.

In today's Australia, they cunningly printed two articles side by side, one about the ghastly mess that is Roebourne, and the other about Linda Birney's call for a consultative body to oversee proposed legislation.

Yeah, that might do it, Linda. The people of Roebourne must be ever-so grateful.

But she does make the point that, if a referendum on such a body fails, there won't be a chance for another one for generations. If ever.

Joe