Shadow, the tribes in the Sydney region, extending well to the south and north, when Phillip arrived were not nomadic as you put it, but a settled people. Your school boy image of Aboriginals wandering the harsh desert reaches of Central Australia are out of touch with the reality.

It's called trapping, an advanced form of foraging. People have ingeniously been doing this all over the world, perhaps for tens of thousands of years. Ngarrindjeri people used to build fish traps around the southern lakes, for instance.

Joe

Dear Loudmouth,

There is pretty good evidence this was far more akin to herding than just trapping including separation into ages and year round holding of live eels.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Nomadic? What do you mean by the term? At least here in Victoria there is little evidence of wide ranging movement with very strongly defined tribal boundaries. There is plenty of evidence of neighbouring tribes being invited to share in a particular bounty but there was a lot of protocol surrounding such invitations.

The coastal peoples did move with seasonal variations just like today with people packing up to go the 'temporary shelter' of a tent or a caravan on the coast to take advantage of cooler temperatures and fishing.

Where those opportunities didn't exist like along the Murray they tended to be much bigger, more settled communities taking advantage of large food resources.

Just like in the larges towns within Medieval Europe health outcomes did suffer in larger settlements. The first explorers spoke of how healthy and physically impressive the coastal people were.

There's no argument that the indigenous copped crap by having their food-bearing areas trampled over first by the British settlers, followed by others.
Somehow, I think the Aborigines themselves displaced earlier people here.
Other people have gone down but then rose again but there's no such evidence here. There must have been others before them who did all the cave paintings etc.

Not only does Budj Bim bust the myth that all
Indigenous people were nomadic and not
agriculturally inclined - it's also considered
one of the oldest aquaculture sites in the
world.

This aquaculture system,
was created 6,600 years ago
by the Gunditjmara people who used stones
to build an elaborate series of channels and pools
to harvest eels from Lake Condah.

There's not many things on the
planet that still exist today that are older
than that.

The listing ends a 17 year campaign for
recognition. It has been added to the
UNESCO World Heritage site list.

This will bring recognition of
Gunditjimara people's achievements on a
global scale. It will provide increased
protection of the site, and of course the tourism
boost.

The State government has announced $8 million for
a Visitor Centre and major works at the site for
an expected visitor influx.

Big Congratulations!
To all the people who worked
so hard for so many years to achieve this recognition.
Australians all, owe them a debt of gratitude.

Exciting Times Ahead.

Paul,

While I happily acknowledge that the teachings of 50 years ago was biased to depict aboriginals as ignorant savages, similarly I hold a healthy scepticism of inherently partial researchers that are largely unsupported by archaeological evidence.