Hi Belly, the deniers have an agenda, as I said earlier it has to do with recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty. They want us to believe Aboriginals were a transient people not long in any particular location, therefore never obtaining "ownership" or any kind.

The instances of past nomadic lifestyles is associated with people whose major food source, and many other necessities were derived from herds of migratory animals. People like the Plains Indians of North America whose nomadic life was necessitated by the migratory habits of the great buffalo herds. The majority of Indian tribes were not nomadic, but settled in a particular location. Australia had no great migratory herds, so there was no great movement of people.

There never was a great migratory push into Australia by people from somewhere else. Gradually over many thousands of years, from a small nucleolus of migrants, the population grew and expanded. Its a fact when Phillip arrived all Aboriginals within a hundred miles of the European settlement were well established on lands with clearly defined boundaries. I would say the vast majority of Aboriginal people at the time of European colonisation were living in fairly bountiful locations around Australia, those living around Sydney Harbour are a good example, and they were living a fairly sedentary lifestyle.

Paul,

Steele has supplied valuable information on vegie cropping in Victoria, what was the principal crop around Sydney?

Issy, where did I say Aboriginals were growing crops around Sydney? So why are you asking me. One thing is for certain, Aboriginals were able to provide for their needs very easily, yet the dumb Europeans almost starved to death in the same environment. The white galahs boiled the pink galahs and tried to eat them.

Paul,

Are you suggesting that the only real nomads were those groups who followed herds of animals ? No other way for people to be called nomadic ? Only herders ? In Australia ? [Have you ever tried to follow a 'herd' of kangaroos ? Or Bruce Pascoe's cassowaries ?] No such thing as 'mere' hunters and gatherers anywhere ?

Steele,

Tens of miles of yam daisies ? Growing naturally, or are you claiming that women planted it all ?

It's very interesting that the odd planting may have been a sort of precursor to full-on horticulture in other parts of the world, such as PNG and SE Asia, something women may have done as a sort of game, while vast areas of the tubers were easily available. Agriculture (and horticulture as well) developed probably in many, many small steps like this, trial and error, and repetition over maybe hundreds of years or more.

Was this a very common activity involving many women ? Do you know how the tuber was prepared for eating ? How much time it took to prepare, for example, and how much nutrition did the tubers provide ?

Joe

Paul,

I thought that you might have an insight into agriculture in pre 1788 NSW, particularly the Sydney area.

I remember only too well collecting the edible plants that grow around the harbour, there are plenty of them but they are so tiny that it takes a day to collect enough for a slim meal,
Seaweed, shellfish and fish are much easier to obtain.

See:http://www.researchgate.net/publication/322664342_Aboriginal_uses_of_seaweeds_in_temperate_Australia_an_archival_assessment

Dear Shadow Minister,

You write;

“So over the past 10 millenia there is only one site where there is any evidence of permanent settlement and that was nearly 7000 years ago.”

No there were plenty but as archaeologist Elizabeth Williams explains they did not survive colonisation.

“Aboriginal society changed greatly as a result of contact with Europeans and while the construction of substantial huts persisted in certain areas until well into the contact period the use of Villages’ as a settlement form seems to have disappeared soon after first contact.”

This was an account from William Thomas relates one such destruction event;

“. . . by Mustons and the Scrubby Creek to the westward . . . first settlers found a regular aboriginal settlement. This settlement was about 50 miles NE of Port Fairy. There was on the banks of the creek between 20 and 30 huts of the form of a beehive or sugar loaf, some of them capable of holding a dozen people. These huts were about 6’ high or [a] little more, about 10’ in diameter, an opening about 3’6” high for a door which they closed at night if they required with a sheet of bark, an aperture at the top 8 or 9” to let out the smoke which in wet weather they covered with a sod. These buildings were all made of a circular form, closely worked and then covered with mud, they would bear the weight of a man on them without injury.

Cont..