Baygon tells me my post is ignorant and then proceeds to NOT tell which things I said were wrong. (He also says he's offended but we can ignore that because so many people get so easily offended these days.)

Baygon offers up excuses as to why the aboriginals failed to advance which are of varying validity. But my point wasn't why they failed to advance, only that they did indeed fail and that therefore their society is not worthy of praise.

But just on those excuses, Baygon tells us that "the flora likewise difficult to manage". I've discussed this elsewhere on this site. The claim is misleading at best. There are indeed flora that could have been domesticated. When you look at wild forms of wheat, rice and maize, they look no more promising than wild forms of kangaroo grass or Lomandra. But the former became the basis of civilisation and the latter didn't.

Baygon asserts "Read Sturt's account of his exploration of the Murray - all along its length were permanent settlements." Well if you go back and look at the 'Dark Emu' thread here you find me advocated a reading of Sturt's diaries. So I'm very familiar with them. They do not show the permanent settlements you assert.

Equally he asserts that Blainey says "the average Aboriginal's standard of living was well in excess of the average Englishman" in 1800. Again that it flat out wrong. Blainey says no such thing. I invite Baygon to quote the passage in Nomads that says that. I have my copy at hand to check it. (Just to be clear Blainey says that the average aboriginal was probably as well of as the average European in a few select areas. Nothing like what Baygon claims).

Again, this is really beside the point. When you show me the aboriginal Parthenon, or Epic of Gilgamesh or Tenochtitlan then I'll agree that the aboriginal culture is praise-worthy. But just showing that they survived unchanged for 50000 is not something to swoon over.

Pauliar,

I know that you are a bit slow, but if you look up all the definitions and requirements for civilisation every one of them will include the requirement of a written language, and in no way do rock paintings qualify.

As for all the other requirements, aboriginal culture meets very few of them. "Culture" has much lower requirements.

Dear Paul,

You wrote: "The European definition of "civilised" which only embraced European civilisation, and the consequential failure of all others to be civilised seen the European engage in the most uncivilised acts in an attempt to civilise so many others, including Australian Aboriginals."

In the above you have used the word, civilised, in two senses. One sense is the achievement of a certain state of knowledge and the other is to act in a humane and decent manner. However, the European definition of the word, civilised, is the one generally used. Acting in a manner which is neither humane nor decent is not restricted to Europeans.

If the Australians were cut off from contact for so long, where did the dingo come from?

AC,
The Neaderthals were not wiped out they were bred out by inter breeding with the ancestors of today’s humans.
Evidence, many, if not most humans have a small lump on the base of their skull at the back, this is first found on Neanderthal skulls then later on human skulls, the unmistakeable evidence is that humans who have the bump are descended, in part from Neanderthals.

Hi David,

"Acting in a manner which is neither humane nor decent is not restricted to Europeans." Absolutely, were the Romans civilised when they fed Christians to the lions, in our book no, in theirs of course they were a perfectly civilised thing to do. Like technology, we might enthuse over the latest 'Intel' processor as; "Wow, what fantastic technology", back in the day one bloke might have said to another; "Wow, what fantastic technology...what do you call that?"..."A BOOM-E-RANG." And another; "What do you call that?"...."I was going to call it a rumberlypol, but on second thoughts I'm just calling it a WHEEL." See, people today could be driving around in their cars on four rumberlypols, if it wasn't for that bloke having second thoughts.

Hi Issy,

You are correct, there are many on this forum who, judging by what they post, they must have some very big lumps on their heads. When you say; "they were bred out by inter breeding with the ancestors" that's not entirely correct, my ancestors only breed with the good lookn' ones, as evidenced by my rugged good looks, I don't know what happened to some today, possibly a stray baboon got into the mix.