Hi Alan,

Everybody in the world has some Neanderthal ancestry in their DNA except Africans - anybody whose distant ancestors travelled through the Middle East or Europe, including East Asians, Native Americans and Australian Indigenous people.

But yes, a DNA test would be conclusive, any Indigenous ancestry would be easily detected.

There are some amazing researchers who follow all this: Peter Bellwood, David Anthony, David Reich, the late wonderful Luigi Cavalli-Sforza - check them out on Google Scholar.

My bet is that Pascoe's DNA would show nothing but ancestry from northern Europe, specifically England.

Weird. To some people, you can just choose your DNA, whatever you wanted it to be. For others, people are simply what you would like them to be. I don't think it works quite that way.

But I'm looking forward to seeing how Ken Wyatt et al. twist and turn to 'prove' that Pascoe is Indigenous - or that it doesn't matter, anyway, because he might as well be because he says nice things about Blackfellas.

Joe

so refreshing to read Big Nana and Joe's comments on this issue. Maybe we could set up a new class of people headed by Elizabeth Warren. Maybe just maybe some whitefellas luv the land as much as the blackfella.

Well written concise expose of one on many charlatans who make similar claims. Having worked on supply remote communities with water and sewerage services, their world is very different from Urban Redfern or Leichardt (Sydney luvies are the 'mob' of urban 'avo toast' eaters live there, where they can be seen gathering their Avo's and sourdough from local trees early each morning). David Attenborough is soon to release a documentary on this wonderous species!

I only read Pascoe's fictional book to deal with colleagues who were parents of kids fed Pascoe's earthshattering words at school. What BS, and 'how dare they!' feed this to innocent kids as an alternate history that is "THE truth".

Joe has laboured to establish a remarkable archive, and I hope Big Nanna is keeping a record of first hand experience of aboriginal society, at least to apply some check on baloney. The pre history of Australia dismissed by Pascoe was written after decades of rigorous field work and scholarship by archaeologists and anthropologists of international stature, including John Mulvaney, Isabelle Mc Bride and Rhys Jones.
Today, universities see a proliferation of professors and lecturers of “Indigenous Studies”. Bruce Pascoe a writer of literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays and children's literature is Professor, Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research, University of Technology Sydney. And with Dark Emu, he has supplied/sold a text book for “Indigenous Studies”. Les Louis

I have sensed a definite decline of general interest in matters indigenous here on OLO. Has the subject reached saturation point ?
Has Bruce Pascoe inadvertently done indigenous Australians a disfavour ?

Hi Individual,

Yes, the AFP is supposed to be investigating the Pascoe Fiasco.

And yes, what Pascoe has done, both by fraudulently taking Indigenous positions and awards, AND with the forged documentation for his bogus research, will sooner or later be condemned as directly against the interests of Aboriginal people. But I fear not for a long time yet.

Actually, as for information, yes, there is an enormous amount around. I was just checking out a document from Queensland, 1933-1941, on:

http://www.cifhs.com/qldrecords/CPA-Correspondence%20Index.html

and was amazed to read again of the hundreds of places where Indigenous people (named in the thousands) were receiving rations or some other services. I put it on my web-site, www.firstsources.info , on the Queensland Page. The value of just this document - where names are associated with places, i.e. people are associated with country - is an indication of what's available.

Joe