Dear Loudmouth,

You wrote about wasting your "time on people with pre-conceived notions, and no incontrovertible evidence to back them up."

I know exactly what you mean, the pre-conceived notion that Aboriginals were strictly hunter-gatherers is not supported by growing evidence yet is clasped as gospel by those on the right for whatever reason, why I'm not quite sure.

Steele,

I'll try again. Is there any evidence the Aboriginal people here cultivated the soil in order to grow drops ? Any evidence of the necessary digging tools ? Of specialised makers of digging tools ? Or harvesting tools ?

Heaping grass is not cultivating and farming. It's just another form of gathering.

And why on earth would people seek to 'farm' something like kangaroo grass, which has very little nutritional value in the seed, although cattle -as you correctly point out - like the leaves ? No farmer in his right mind would 'farm' a species which is common everywhere - even now, they tend to farm why are often exotic species, high-value species - at least higher-value than the grasses and saltbush that might have been there before, for sixty thousand years and 0f course longer.

So do YOU have any evidence of actual farming ? You assert, Pascoe asserts, so you and he must prove, not just pluck 'maybes' out of thin air, and shift the goal-posts on what is to be defined as farming. Harvesting a natural grass, which has grown unaided by man (or woman), is 'gathering', not farming. Heaping such grasses is 'gathering'.

Why are you so insistent that Aboriginal people were not hunters and gatherers, like our ancestors were not so long ago ? Do you want me to cite evidence that Aboriginal people were hunters and gatherers ? Hunting tools, gathering tools ? Throwing sticks ? Not much use against kangaroo grass, but quite effective against ducks.

Joe

Adelaide Library.
Title Dark emu .
Author Pascoe, Bruce.
Publication Date 2016

Format
Available: 1

Give me one reason, Nick :)

Did Aboriginal people put labour into cultivating the soil in order to put seed in the ground, tend it and harvest it when it ripened ? Is there any evidence anywhere of cultivating tools ? Marx would say that, once someone started doing that, they would regard that bit of ground as their private property, fence it, patrol it, guard it. Any evidence that this happened ? Any evidence, other than ample evidence that people hunted, fished and gathered food ? Any evidence of tools other than hunting and gathering tools ?

Just one bit of evidence, Nick :). Otherwise don't waste everybody's time.

Joe

Yes I have . All your questions are clearly answered in the book. The book clearly states records by British explorers and surveyors. The harvesting tool is there p 34, 116.

hoe p.27, 34.