Steele,

Gathering kangaroo grass is gathering. Is that what you're saying ?

Of course, the Budj Bim eel traps are an amazing construction, advanced and pro-active foraging. Maybe I should have pointed that out earlier. But I'm still not so sure that it constituted farming. Perhaps modern-day eel-'farmers' - and farmers generally - might not think of eel traps as farming.

Yam daisy fields, covering hundred of square kilometres, in marshy ground, were burnt ? Are you sure ? Burning large areas is farming ?

Foxy, I get the feeling I'm being bullied here. Sorry, it's not working :)

Loudmouth, don't let the children get to you.
Remember they should be seen, not heard, which is fortuitous, as they can't be seen either on this medium.
As usual I find the same old regulars overstating and overreaching to always TRY unsuccessfully to make a point.
They try to push some thing on the notion that we have not heard of it before and this then implies that they know something we don't thereby giving them the feeling of superiority on the topic.
Unfortunately for them, all it does is expose their superiority complex, which describes them perfectly.
By suddenly announcing that some new findings has somehow added to the continual allegation that the blacks have some legitimate claim on this country is almost akin to treason.
More so, the attitude of these people to try to use this new discovery? to imply a new fact about the relationship between the blacks and this country.
I don't know about anyone else but I am no more interested about the relationship of the blacks and this country, today, with this new info, than I was a few minutes ago before I started reading this waste of time topic.
Unfortunately, I had to read it and the comments to get a full picture of what it was all about.
Now I know it IS ABOUT NOTHING!
Loudmouth, don't waste your time, the children have been told, and by many, but still they do not listen and want to make themselves out to be the righteous ones.
So, what the heck, let them speak, we know they're mindset by now, if we disagree with them they will only keep going on and on and on......
Like children, they like to feel important as if they made these pathetic discoveries themselves, so as to not send them into a tantrum I suggest we just agree with them, and that way we don't have to put up with their petulant attitudes any longer, and move on.

Joe i have mentioned before SRs ability to dream up all sorts of "facts", he has a very fertile imagination, but trying to discuss these "facts" is a mugs game.

Damned if 1 know if you could call it farming, but at West Point on Magnetic island off Townsville there were stone semi anchor shaped fish traps on the very gently shelving beach, extending out a couple of hundred yards, drying at low tides.

in the late 40s a small low key resort run by a Swede was established, & he rebuilt some of these to some extent. He was not sure, but he believed they were aboriginal constructions.

He built a post a wire copy of the layout, with large 6Ft by 6ft wire boxes to collect the fish, at the root of the arms. From what was said at the time, he made as much money or more, from fish sales in Townsville, as he made from his tourist trade, so they must have been efficient.

Foxy, SR, Belly, et Al,

That there is evidence that animal husbandry and permanent settlements existed in small pockets there is no doubt, that this represented the populations in general is a very long stretch.

If you want to believe that this is the case then go ahead. Your faith is your concern.

In the past, on television, in books, in our class
rooms, our nation's history was presented in a
typically narrow fashion.

Now we are beginning to look at the evidence being
found and presented to us for a reconsideration of
just the hunter-gatherer label for pre-colonial
Aboriginal Australians.

Archaeologists are making discoveries and finding a
more complex picture. The recognition of Budj Bim
internationally is truly amazing. It is an exciting
time.

It is a time in which we can learn a great deal if
we are open to it. Open to understanding what
Australia once was.

We have as our sources not only the archaeological
evidence but the journals of notable explorers, and
surveyors and pastoralists and protectors and authors
like Bruce Pascoe and Bill Gammage (to name just a
few) who quote them verbatim.

The highest form of ignorance is when someone rejects
something they don't know anything about. And arguing
with such a person is like administering medicine to
the dead.

Intelligent people speak because they have something to
say. The ignorant because they have to say something.

For those of you who come onto this discussion with
only insults to add. Please don't. If you have nothing
to contribute to this discussion or if the topic is
of no interest to you - start your own discussion and
be happy. Don't try to divert mine.

Thank You.

Foxy,

For those of you who come onto this discussion with only insults to add, please don't. If you have nothing to contribute to this discussion or if the topic is of no interest to you - start your own discussion and be happy.

Thank You.

Joe