cont'd ...

Victorian Aboriginal Affairs Minister Gavin Jennings
stated that Budj Bim showed the development of -

"very extensive aqua culture practices in the
landscape, by weaving nets, and manufacturing traps,
and techniques to release or holod eels to
cater for seasonal variation of supply."
This combined with the use of basalt
rock formations to build small rock dwellings with
thatched roofs would provide a "counter narrative to the
idea that Aboriginal people didn't have any form of
settlement and that they continually moved," Mr Jennings
said.

Some people made the mistake of thinking that this landscape
in this part of western Victoria as being changed by
pastoralists who came from Europe and removed rocks to
create vast tracts of grazing land. But the Gunditjmara people
demonstrated at Budj Bim that manipulation of the
landscape was possible in an entirely more sympathetic way.

"This was manipulating it by using the landscape's form to
cultivate aquaculture and to live in that landscape in
harmony with it, rather than completely modify it to
change its land use,"Mr Jennings said.

In May the Andrews government committed $5.7 million for
preserving and promoting Aboriginal heritage, in large
part to complete the master plan for Budj Bim in
anticipation of an increase in global attention to the
World Heritage listing will bring.

Foxy,

The Aboriginal people of Australia were basically hunter-gatherers and nothing will change that, not even blinkers.

Is Mise,

Evidence is being discovered all the time that changes
that perception whether you accept it or not is of
little consequence.

Where to start ? What's the point ? Evidence means nothing. Of course people built permanent and semi-permanent shelters in very productive areas, or at least the foundational walls. Of course people trapped eels, and all manner of other fish. Who denies that ? And alongside all that, people still hunted and gathered in the slow seasons. Who denies that ?

Are you suggesting that somehow, Aboriginal people in Australia weren't hunters and gatherers ? Anywhere ? That they didn't use their human ingenuity to understand the environment in areas which were not all that productive and which, even now, preclude any form of agriculture, or even pastoralism ? That they didn't live across this continent the best way they could, by - overwhelmingly - hunting and gathering, foraging ?

You still haven't given any indication that people were farmers, if that's still relevant to this discussion. Of course people harvested ( = gathered) kangaroo grass to make twine, perhaps for all sorts of nets. Making nets is not agriculture. Catching animals in nets is not agriculture. Everybody did it wherever it was relevant.

I think I'll take up knitting, it's more enjoyable than these barren arguments.

Joe

personally I think we are far more productive to focus on the future than wasting time and money rewriting history. Who really cares if a few huts were made hundreds of years ago. We want productivity now and it won't happen if we allow the victim industry to keep pushing its barrow.

The Australian aboriginal were a stone age people. They remained a stone age people right up to 1788.

Their 'achievements' as a stone age people were no more or no less than the achievements by stone age people all over the planet. The only way you could swoon over what was done at Budj Bim is if you are utterly ignorant of achievements such as Göbekli Tepe or 100's of other stone age sites from Scotland to China.

Budj Bim is only remarkable because it was so unusual in Australia. But if it was found in Asia or Europe it would barely rate a yawn.

Equally, the notion that it proves aboriginal weren't nomadic is mere hyperbole. It shows that some aboriginals were able to fed themselves without roaming. But that has been known for generations. What has also been known for generations is that the vast majority of aboriginal communities were nomadic. That some weren't is only significant for those who are embarrassed by the backwardness of aboriginal society.