Foxy offers a link that " explains a few things for you". The link? A hagiography to Pascoe from the Grauniad on the Yarra (aka the Guardian). May as well show me an article in Pravda to show how good Putin is.

But no new information there. Just more unresearched and unsupported assertion that many just want to be true. But ask who are the experts who are suddenly buying this and...crickets.

Loudmouth,

Your population discussion is very true. All nomadic populations lived in smallish groups. There was/is an upper/lower limit to the numbers. The upper limit is set by how much food can be gathered in a given area. As you say, nature sets that limit as it does for all mammals. The lower limit is set by the need to have adequate numbers to survive. That is the need to have enough men to fight off attacks and enough to perform hunts or manage things like nets and the such like.

For stone age peoples small groups do create some problems in terms of genetics since there isn't enough diversity in such groups to maintain themselves. Some primitive societies overcame this by having regular festivals where groups could share diversity around - ie marry off the daughters. Aboriginals solved it by having regular wars and raids where women were stolen to bolster the tribes numbers.

As you say, droughts were a major problem for such groups and recovering from them took a long time. Sturt's diary of his expedition to the Macquaire Marshes talks a lot about the sorry state of the tribes battling a long period of drought. Another problem for such nomadic people was that women could really only have a kid every two to three years. This was because women were required to carry the youngsters and couldn't transport more than one. So having two toddlers was out of the question. Within a month of settlement, one aboriginal man was observed killing his two year old daughter. The mother had died and with no one to carry the child it would not have survived.

mhaze,

You did ask who the historians, academics, et cetera
were. You did not specify that they had to only be from
sources that you would approve of.

I gave you a link
from an author whose book has won a slew of awards.
An author who has inspired many projects - from
poetry to permaculture, from the arts to agriculture
and whose work was adapted into a dance performance by
Bangarra in 2016 and is still touring the major cities.

Also the fact that Pascoe in his book uses unimpeachable
European sources and quotes them varbatim appears to have
been lost on you. Sources such as the diaries of explorers
full of information about the way Aboriginal people
managed their lands. Pascoe read them in their original
form.

The example given in the link from the explorer Charles
Sturt I thought you'd find interesting. Especially
the reference to pannicum, as the native grass the
Aboriginal people ground into flour for the "cake"
that saved Charles Sturt. Then also given in the link
is the research that's currently being done at Melbourne
University.

All this in answer to your question. But obviously,
it was a waste of my time. Just as giving you Pravda
about Putin would have been. However, this link was in
English so I assumed you would not have a language
problem with reading it as you would have had with Pravda.

cont'd ...

mhaze,

As you seem interested in Pravda - there's
an English version online:

http://www.pravdareport.com

Well, I suppose inventing history on the run is part of evolution too !

Foxy,

Oy. Collecting grass seed to make into pannican/pannicum, is collecting; gathering; harvesting. It is not planting, cultivating or growing. It is not farming.
Roasting kangaroo grass over a fire is not farming. Setting fire to the bush is not farming. Looking out over a huge path of kangaroo grass is no farming.

But I could be wrong, since, after all, Bruce Pascoe does have a very big beard, and thereby looks real Aboriginal. So who's the mug ?

Joe

Joe,

The diaries of the explorers present us with a
different view to yours:

The explorer Sturt saw "grassy plains spreading out
like a boundless stubble field, the grass being
the kind from which the natives collect seed ...
large heaps that had been thrashed out by the
natives were piled up like haycocks." Sturt was
observing a major harvest that must have provided
a great surplus for the large number of people
known to inhabit the region.

Surplus food production is one of the acknowledged
characteristics of sedentary agriculture.

On a later expedition, one of Sturt's party, Brock,
regarded his impression of land near Evelyn Creek.

"Here it is quite like a harvest field ... In every
hollow we found the remains of the natives' labour
in the shape of the straw from which they had
beaten out the seed. The party remarked on the
prodigious qualities of grain harvested.

This was the same grass explorer Mitchell had seen in
other areas, Panicum decompositum, commonly called
batley grass or native millet, and known to the
local Aboriginal people as cooly or parpar.
In fact, one of the areas Sturt visited was called
Parpir, and his journal records that they had been riding
through vast and pleasant grasslands.

Sturt also noticed that, "The grass consists of Panicum and
several new sorts, one of which springs from the old stem.
The plants were verdant indeed, the luxuriant pasturage
surpassed in quality... anything I had ever seen."

And there's so much more detail given in these diaries.
Another plant, Coopers clover (Trigonella sauvissima)
had also been grown and harvested by Aboriginal people.
Mitchell goes on to describe this in great detail.

These facts are provided in the original writings of
the explorers. What you choose to believe is of course
your choice. However, it still remains that these facts
do exist and are there for researchers and reputable
authors to acknowledge.