Aborigines with villages? This is new to me. Readers had better look more deeply into this before believing it.

My understanding is that aboriginal society was the lowest low-tech in the world. This was not because aboriginals were dumb but because they had the technology they needed and there was no pressure to change.

The basis of low aboriginal technology is that there were no herding animals on the continent. This meant aboriginals had to keep moving and wherever that happens, there can be no structured settlements.

I'm interested in this. Can anyone shed any light on the 'village' arguement?

The internal logic of this article is rather empty.

First, the straw horse of Australians 'in the middle of the floor with a bag over our head' is a metaphor of complaint, rather than grounded in any serious analysis of collective memory, academic consensus or public opinion.

Second, in arguing about the specialness of traditional Indigenous societies, the author puts the case entirely in terms which are valourised in modernity: that is, democracy, productivity and infrastructure. The logical problem with this is that if in fact the author's mythologising of the Aboriginal past is demonstrated to be hyperbolic, then the logical inference is that it would be fair to dismiss the Indigenous inhabitants as 'primitive hunter gatherers'. In other words, the author is actually accepting the analytical framework which supports the opinions which he wants to critique.

Third, there is the confusion of a moral issue with an historical and ethnographic one. Some societies may indeed have different belief systems, less technology, simpler social structures and be less immediately fitted for the shocking impact of modernity, but such conclusions need to be divorced from moral questions. To put the point another way, you can still believe that traditional Aboriginal society was simple and unsophisticated and with plenty of downsides, but very much support an emancipative agenda for Aboriginal people in the present

It is true that Australians in general are ignorant of many aspects of classical Australian Indigenous societies and cultures. Many old Australian families have traditions of racism, prejudice and ethnocentrism, as Pauline Hanson's accounts of her upbringing illustrates in cameo. However Bruce Pascoe's contribution here illustrates another kind of Australian ignorance and prejudice. He insists that instances of crude engineering (the 'eel-farms' and stone cottages in a small part of Victoria) or seed storage amount to anything more than local adaptations to relatively rich environments. There are many such instances evident across pre-European Australia, but they don't contradict the evidence of all historical witnesses, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, about the general fundamental modes of Australian Indigenous production, the dynamics of their social organisation and the nature of their cultures. Gathering yams and grain is a form of harvesting, but it is not an 'agrarian' mode, even though the gatherers sometimes did take some steps to ensure the reproduction of the supply. There were apparently around 500 distinct Indigenous groups, based on language. If one or more of these built stone cottages, it hardly says anything about how the rest lived. Having music, language and art are wonderful achievements, but their presence implies nothing about the presence of democracy. Many authoritarian patriarchal societies have had plenty of music, language and art. To infer that somehow Indigenous societies were like modern states is simply silly, and indicates a fundamental ignorance of the basic hallmarks of what constitutes a modern state. Theorists such as Pascoe need to beware of wishful thinking and fantasy capturing their critical faculties. Indigenous people are no more served by their spokespeople descending into infantile delusions than we non-Indigenous Australians are served by the equally infantile propaganda of people like Hanson. Bruce, you are a great guy, but please, get a little more careful when you go into bat for Indigenous people. Otherwise you risk discrediting them, by feeding the appetites for self-delusion on the one side, and racist prejudice on the other.

Interesting reactions to this passionate message.

healthwatcher says that because it's news to him 'Readers had better look more deeply into this before believing it.' Then without further ado, he concludes: 'The basis of low aboriginal technology is that there were no herding animals on the continent. This meant aboriginals had to keep moving and wherever that happens, there can be no structured settlements.' Bags over the head never stop some people shooting their mouths off.

Gazza2121 obfuscates with an hysterical 'straw horse', 'valourised in modernity', 'confusion of a moral issue with an historical and ethnographic one' and possible support for 'an emancipative agenda'. Not to mention a pseudo-sympathetic call for 'serious analysis of collective memory, academic consensus or public opinion'. (Well which would you count for most Gazza: collective memory, academic consensus or public opinion?)

Media, at least, is interested, has an open mind and asks for more information. Some can be found in:

Critchett, Janet 1980 A History of Framlingham and Lake Condah Aboriginal
Stations 1860-1918. Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Melbourne

Critchett, J.1992 A 'distant field of murder' – western district frontiers 1834-1848.
Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.

Coutts, P.J.F, R.K. Frank & P. Hughes 1978 ‘Aboriginal Engineers of the Western
District, Victoria’ Records of the Victoria Archaeological Survey, No. 7

Hedditch, Katrina 1996 Land and Power: A Settlement History of the Glenelg Shire to 1890

Rhodes, David 1986 The Lake Condah Aboriginal Mission Dormitory: an historical
and archaeological investigation. MA Prelim. Thesis, LaTrobe University.

Wesson, Jane 1981 Excavations of Stone Structures in the Condah Area, Western
Victoria. Unpublished MA (Prelim) Thesis, La Trobe Universit

Thanks FrankGol. I am really interested in this topic. Can anyone refer me to a few online sources about Aust Aboriginal history, culture and current situation? I do feel that the original article was thought provoking. I'm from OS and I get the sense that in Australia there is this general dismissal of the indigenous people. I detect a sort of cultural guilt about the colonisation of the continent, the 'war' and a sense that if we as a community throw money at the 'Aboriginal problem' it will hopefully go away. If not, not our problem. Rather than valuing the enormous history of the people who have been here for tens of thousands of years and who are in fact still here. The NZ culture and identity would seem (superficially) to be much more enriched by their indigenous cultures.