Have to laugh, three posters desperately looking for something to be offended about
And trying just as desperately to convince us the eel traps do not prove Aboriginals did not wander around blindly waiting for us to come and take their country from them
Sad funny, but truly bleek too

Belly, so does this mean you've found evidence to support your take on the position of the black fella's and their superior agricultural and aquaculture skills thousands of years ago?
I am keen to learn of these worthy achievements when one considers how they presented themselves then and still today.
I can only speculate that the first white settlers must not have delved deep enough into the bush, when they first arrived, then apparently the blacks destroyed any evidence of their prowess in all fields of an advanced culture to fool anyone into believing they were just another rabble of nomadic transients or drifters.
I must admit Belly, they did an exceptional job in fooling everyone.
Although I might suggest, they don't need to keep up the facade anymore, we now know the truth, so they can go back to their advanced way of life once more and they can go back to being self sufficient and ease the burden of welfare and charity on the rest of us, or at least redirect it to those who really need it.
If it's true they were once such an advanced culture, that is.

Steele,

What's petulant about asking how explorers journals have any insight into Aboriginal life thousands of years before Cook?

Do you think that explorers' journals from the 19th Century do so?

Belly,

For our sake, if not your own, get one of the free spell checkers.

Is Mise,

You continue to nit-pick.

Bruce Pascoe used more than just the sources
of explorers.

Read the book.

Issy, I listened to a couple of his lectures on the book.
He speaks with confidence about the book and HIS take on the issues described within.
I went looking for his references, and found some.
They were enough to learn that these explorers and people he refers to in collecting his information, were mainly assumption based.
Best guess theories by the language used.
He speaks of park like grassy areas, with pockets of forests or trees.
He appears to be saying, the abo's cleared the land and planted flora, (trees and grass)
Throughout any time in the history of the blacks have I ever heard of any tools or mediums used by them to perform ANY form of agriculture.
There may have been, I don't know, and apparently neither does anyone else, explorers included.
Nowhere did he ever mention the possibility that what he was describing, just might have been instigated by a previous race, 'passing' through, and were unceremoniously dealt with as history regularly reported.
These were not the 'angels' we have been led to believe, they were like anyone who encroaches on anothers lands or territories.
They would fight anyone who they felt threatened by, and so it was that Australia was in fact claimed as in the same circumstances as a victor in war.
If you want to know a little more about the 'fun loving' abo's and how strangers were received in the good ole days, dig up good ole' Captain Willem Janszoon of the good ship Defkyen, and ask him how well he and his sailors were treated, well those that the black's did not kill.
So the author does not mention or give direct reference or credence to the fact that there WERE others before and even during the time the blacks were here.
Which leaves the questions as to who exactly did what and when.
So I wonder, did any of the thirty judges stop patting each other on the back long enough to actually take a 'mommy look' into the claims and alleged findings he mentions in writing this book?

Foxy, I don't care if his name is Bruce or Bill.
If they cannot give a clear and guaranteed confirmation that any previous people or race were not responsible for the establishment of the things they purport were established and promulgated by the blacks, then I think we have only more questions.
Every moron out there is so hell bent on elevating the blacks to a station they either don't want to be in or are just not naturally in.
Today's blacks, we are told, want to be in control of their own matters.
Well that's been happening for decades.
Wanting a say in parliament, they already have that, hell we don't, so why should they? and yet they do.
So I am at odds to understand what else can we give them that they do not already have.
Every race has 'special' needs, they are no different, yet we all settle for the rule of law and what the govt comes up with, whether we like it or not, so can they!