Foxy,
Small glimpse or no, it’s hardly legendary.

Seems that the first humans in England were there 800,000 years ago and the earliest hand writing dates from c.2,000 years ago, luck for the Aboriginal Australians that they got a headstart from the Poms.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE & A HAPPY NEW YEAR. I LOVE YOU ALL.

Thanks for all the entertainment through the year. I Hope were all still here to do it all again next year.

JB

Is Mise,

Australian Aborigines got quite a great deal from
the Poms. In settling Australia as Ben Pobjie points
out they got "Wide open spaces for criminals to die
in, trees to make boats with, a base from which to
have wars, all the kangaroos a man could ride - and
all completely uninhabited, unless you counted the
people who lived there, which in accordance with
the "Ignoring Natives Act of 1754," Britons did not."

"Indeed, the entire British Empire was founded on the
principle of not paying too much attention to anyone
who happened to be standing on a spot that a British
person wanted."

"As George III said, "Nobody ever got anywhere by not
assuming he owned everything he found." (Of course,
he also said, "I am a happy horse, gimme dem oats,"
but that was later on after he joined the grand
tradition of kings going absolutely badger-fiddling
nuts.)

As I said earlier - read the book. You'll love it.

_______________________________________________________

Jayb,

We love you too.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A SAFE, HEALTHY AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Dear mhaze,

We can ask, “What use is a baby?” Those who get excited and horrified by abortion may talk about the loss of a potential Einstein or Shakespeare. The reality is the baby will more likely grow up to be a no good bum. No good bums are much more plentiful than Shakespeares and Einsteins.

Anthropologists who study tribal cultures learn how tribal people meet the challenges of their society. Is this useful information? The challenges of their society are usually unlike the challenges of our society.

Just as we cannot tell what a baby will grow up to be we usually cannot tell what applicability the dynamics of a tribal society are to us.

However, I know of one example where the actions of a tribal culture affected the actions of a modern nation. When the British colonies of North American gained independence from their mother country the Articles of Confederation proved an inadequate means of keeping the new nation together. Shay’s rebellion and other conflicts were tearing the new nation apart. Things looked bad. However, there was a possible solution in emulating the actions of some American Indians.

Faced with the pressures of the French and English in Colonial North America five American Indian tribes (Senecas, Cayugas, Oneidas, Onondagas and Mohawks) formed the Iroquois confederation. Benjamin Franklin was an admirer of the Iroquois Confederation and saw that some of its principles were incorporated in the US Constitution. The US constitution has been the basic law of the nation for over two hundred years.

In Australia it is possible that the Aborigines with controlled burning have a thing or two to teach the Australian government about forest management.

Study of the actions of another culture helps us to look at our culture and question its practices. It may result in our challenging bad practices that we have accepted

david f says: "In Australia it is possible that the Aborigines with controlled burning have a thing or two to teach the Australian government about forest management."

Hmm, nope! The aboriginals' traditional understanding of controlled burning and its impacts on the environment is insignificant compared to what modern western science knows. For example, the aboriginals didn't know what carbon based molecules, Oxygen, CO2 and energy are (ie: the reactants and products of a forest fire), they don't know much energy for a given amount of fuel burnt is released, etc.
Also, their knowledge of the complexities of the environment in general is negligible when compared to modern western societies. For example, their knowledge didn't include anything at all about the microscopic species and these entities are absolutely crucial to a functioning environment. They had no idea, in quantitative terms, about the energy flows and nutrient flows throughout the environment. The knew nothing of the cellular biology and had zero knowledge of chemistry. The knew nothing of evolution.

Overall, modern western scientific knowledge has next to nothing to gain from traditional aboriginal knowledge. The sum total of the aboriginals' understanding about the world around them (ie: scientific knowledge) could be contained in just a few bookcases worth of books. Whereas we have rows and rows and rows of shelves of books in our libraries and there are hundreds of these libraries (devoted exclusively to science) around of the world.

the Aborigines with controlled burning have a thing or two to teach the Australian government about forest management.
davidf,!
Not the government, the bureaucrats who are all Uni educated & who work for the Government !