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".