tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/bruce-pascoe-90636/articles
Bruce Pascoe – The Conversation
2023-02-07T19:04:47Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195934
2023-02-07T19:04:47Z
2023-02-07T19:04:47Z
Dark Emu has sold over 250,000 copies – but its value can’t be measured in money alone
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508553/original/file-20230207-13-pqykou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C16%2C3723%2C2942&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bruce Pascoe</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Linsey Rendell</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bruce Pascoe’s <a href="https://www.magabala.com/products/dark-emu?_pos=27&_sid=160b08e95&_ss=r">Dark Emu</a>, first published in 2014, represents that rare bird in small press and independent publishing in Australia: a long-term sales success. </p>
<p>Dark Emu attempts to debunk the idea that pre-European Aboriginal people were purely “hunter-gatherers”. </p>
<p>Indeed, it suited settler-colonists, Pascoe argues, to fail to recognise Indigenous agricultural practices as organised, intelligent land management. In the original publisher’s press release, Pascoe described it as a book “about food production, housing construction and clothing”. </p>
<p>By mid-2021, seven years later, it <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2021/july/1625061600/james-boyce/transforming-national-imagination-dark-emu-debate#mtr">had sold</a> an impressive 250,000 copies.</p>
<p>But sales are just one way to demonstrate the success, or value, of a book. </p>
<h2>Measuring value beyond sales figures</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443058.2022.2147573">We tracked</a> the impact of the original edition of Dark Emu over five years, from 2014 to 2019, to look at how it contributed to (or otherwise altered) six categories of value, or “capital”. They were: financial (the primary way our culture measures a book’s success), but also social, human, intellectual, manufactured and natural. </p>
<p>We borrowed these six categories from a value-reporting mechanism used in the corporate sustainability sector, <a href="https://www.integratedreporting.org/resource/international-ir-framework/">The Integrated Reporting Framework</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505566/original/file-20230120-22-cs6mv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505566/original/file-20230120-22-cs6mv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505566/original/file-20230120-22-cs6mv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505566/original/file-20230120-22-cs6mv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505566/original/file-20230120-22-cs6mv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505566/original/file-20230120-22-cs6mv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505566/original/file-20230120-22-cs6mv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505566/original/file-20230120-22-cs6mv4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Dark Emu was one of around 20,000 books published in Australia in 2014. Most of these works would have been aimed at <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-read-the-australian-book-industry-in-a-time-of-change-49044">a modest market</a>, with print runs of between 2,000 and 4,000. </p>
<p>By 2016, Dark Emu was reported to have sold more than 100,000 copies. Many local releases all but disappear from bookshop shelves within a few months of their release. But instead, Dark Emu gathered slow momentum. </p>
<p>Five years later, in 2019, it <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/i-m-hoping-it-s-a-blip-sales-down-in-difficult-year-for-publishing-industry-20200109-p53q43.html">reportedly sold</a> 115,300 copies in Australia and New Zealand in a single year.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-our-new-archaeological-research-investigates-dark-emus-idea-of-aboriginal-agriculture-and-villages-146754">Friday essay: how our new archaeological research investigates Dark Emu's idea of Aboriginal 'agriculture' and villages</a>
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<h2>Impact on manufacturing</h2>
<p>Manufactured capital looks at the physical object that’s been created. In this case, that’s the first-edition physical book of Dark Emu, as well as subsequent physical objects generated by or through it (including reprints).</p>
<p>Between 2014 and 2019, Dark Emu was <a href="https://www.screenhub.com.au/newsarticle/%20news/writing-and-publishing/performing-arts-editor/dark-emu-to-be-adapted-as-tv-documentary-259030">reprinted 28 times</a>. It was also produced as an e-book and an audio book. </p>
<p>By 2017, world rights were sold to Scribe, which published North American and UK editions in 2018. An <a href="https://www.magabala.com/products/young-dark-emu?_pos=1&_sid=160b08e95&_ss=r">edition for younger readers</a> was released by its original publisher, <a href="https://www.magabala.com/">Magabala</a>, in 2019. Magabala also published at least one secondary text: a resource for secondary school teachers, <a href="https://www.magabala.com/products/dark-emu-in-the-classroom?_pos=11&_sid=160b08e95&_ss=r">Dark Emu in the Classroom</a>. </p>
<p>We tracked the significant impact on manufacturing from this single book title as it was reproduced in various forms, showing evidence of its impact across a range of allied book industry sectors – especially the print industry – both in Australia and internationally. </p>
<h2>Supporting Indigenous creators</h2>
<p>In the five years immediately following the release of the original edition of Dark Emu, it accumulated considerable intellectual capital. </p>
<p>Numerous arts and literary sector awards recognised the book’s outstanding public, literary and cultural value between 2014 and 2019. This recognition culminated in Bruce Pascoe being awarded the Australia Council for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature in 2018.</p>
<p>The publication of Dark Emu had a significant impact on its small not-for-profit publisher, <a href="https://www.magabala.com/pages/about-us">Magabala Books</a>. Founded in 1984, Magabala is Aboriginal owned and led, and focuses on celebrating and nurturing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices.</p>
<p>After Dark Emu was published, Magabala expanded its publishing program.</p>
<p>Magabala was shortlisted for Small Publisher of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards in 2017 and 2019. That second year, it was also the fastest-growing independent small publisher in Australia.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505546/original/file-20230120-20-ct6ye3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505546/original/file-20230120-20-ct6ye3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505546/original/file-20230120-20-ct6ye3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505546/original/file-20230120-20-ct6ye3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505546/original/file-20230120-20-ct6ye3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505546/original/file-20230120-20-ct6ye3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505546/original/file-20230120-20-ct6ye3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505546/original/file-20230120-20-ct6ye3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Peter Bibby, Merrilee Lands and June Oscar heading to a Magabala book launch in 1990.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Magabala Books</span></span>
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<p>Magabala also invested in philanthropy. Its <a href="https://www.magabala.com/pages/scholarships">Creative Development Scholarship</a> to “support professional development relating to writing, illustration and storytelling” for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytellers, writers, illustrators and artists supported 27 scholars between 2014 and 2019. </p>
<p>Dark Emu created jobs in the performing arts, too. </p>
<p>A dance adaptation by <a href="https://theconversation.com/bangarras-dark-emu-is-beautiful-but-lacks-the-punch-of-its-source-material-98628">Bangarra Dance Theatre</a> premiered at the Sydney Opera House in 2018, involving more than 30 arts workers. Program notes for the national tour list three choreographers, 17 dancers and a production team of six, as well as 11 musicians and a composer employed to work on the production. </p>
<p>In 2019, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/bruce-pascoe-s-dark-emu-series-for-abc-tv-likely-to-still-go-ahead-20210701-p585za.html">Screen Australia</a> announced a documentary series would be developed based on the book. While delayed by COVID-19, the series is still in production. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505549/original/file-20230120-24-rmmstq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505549/original/file-20230120-24-rmmstq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505549/original/file-20230120-24-rmmstq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505549/original/file-20230120-24-rmmstq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505549/original/file-20230120-24-rmmstq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505549/original/file-20230120-24-rmmstq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505549/original/file-20230120-24-rmmstq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505549/original/file-20230120-24-rmmstq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bangarra Dance Theatre’s production of Dark Emu was just one way the book led to arts jobs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bangarra/Daniel Boud</span></span>
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<h2>New understandings of Australian history</h2>
<p>To measure the book’s social impact, we focused on how it contributed to the human rights, health and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples in Australia, as well as how it contributed to broad public understanding of Australian history. </p>
<p>Then we looked at how the book increased public debate. (We should note, we didn’t include Peter Sutton and Kerry Walsh’s 2021 book rebutting Dark Emu, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-dark-emu-debate-limits-representation-of-aboriginal-people-in-australia-163006">Farmers or Hunter-gatherers?</a>, as it was beyond the scope of our study: our research spanned 2015-2019.)</p>
<p>Digital forums provide short, sharp narratives that bring qualitative value into focus. (<a href="https://bridges.monash.edu/articles/monograph/What_Matters_Talking_Value_in_Australian_Culture/12821456">So-called</a> “parables of value”.)</p>
<p>On <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/dark-emu-bruce-pascoe/book/9781921248016.html">Booktopia</a>, many hundreds of readers reviewed Dark Emu; 86% of them gave the book five stars, reflecting its broad popularity. This selection of Booktopia reviews speaks to the way Dark Emu contributed to new understandings of Australian history: </p>
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<p>A marvellous book, full of information and insights which were new and fascinating to me. Well researched and well written. It should be compulsory reading for all Australian schoolchildren.</p>
<p>Super interesting and I wish I’d been taught more of this earlier in life.</p>
<p>I have only just started using this resource for my Year 9 class […] It has thus far provoked conversation and questions. It is particularly interesting as we live in an area that Major Mitchell explored, and there are numerous tracks etc named after him. Always interesting [to be] given the other side of history.</p>
<p>I couldn’t stop thinking about this book […] after reading it and going through any bush in Australia you see the landscape very differently.</p>
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<p>Our analysis identified an extraordinary degree of public debate generated by the book – in part because it soon provoked another chapter in the “<a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/russell-marks/2020/05/2020/1580868886/taking-sides-over-dark-emu">Australian History Wars</a>”. </p>
<p>Social commentator Andrew Bolt, for example, published several columns on Dark Emu in the Herald Sun during 2018-19. He drew heavily on an anonymous website, Dark Emu Exposed, which purports to “expose” and “debunk” what it asserts are the book’s many myths, exaggerations and “fabrications”. </p>
<p>Interestingly, <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/russell-marks/2020/05/2020/1580868886/taking-sides-over-dark-emu">Russell Marks</a> links the extraordinary sales success of Dark Emu in 2019 directly to the increase in public debate fuelled by Bolt.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-dark-emu-debate-limits-representation-of-aboriginal-people-in-australia-163006">How the Dark Emu debate limits representation of Aboriginal people in Australia</a>
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<h2>Environmental impacts</h2>
<p>It is not possible to precisely measure the air, water, land, minerals and forests required to produce and distribute Dark Emu. But we were able to make some informed estimates. </p>
<p>Figures from <a href="https://www.isonomia.co.uk/balancing-the-books-the-environmental-impacts-of-digital-reading/">an overseas study</a> found that the paper required to produce 100 books requires about one tree. On this basis, copies of the original Dark Emu title sold in Australia in 2019 consumed the equivalent of 1,153 trees. </p>
<p><a href="https://climateinemergency.wordpress.com/2016/04/12/the-carbon-footprint-of-a-book/">Other sources</a> estimate the carbon footprint of a single book is 2.71 kilograms carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂ equivalent). On this basis, Dark Emu’s sales in Australia in 2019 could be said to have produced 312,467kg of CO₂ emissions. That’s the equivalent of emissions produced from 5,002kg of beef – or, the amount of beef consumed by 200 Australians <a href="https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/research-topics/agricultural-outlook">in an average year</a>. </p>
<p>But unlike many other Australian books, Dark Emu has not just consumed natural capital: it has also contributed to it. </p>
<p>With earnings from his royalties, Pascoe purchased <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/may/13/its-time-to-embrace-the-history-of-the-country-first-harvest-of-dancing-grass-in-200-years#img-1">farmland in regional Victoria</a>. There, he is applying knowledge gained through research for the book to regenerate the local ecology, using Indigenous agricultural practices. He says:</p>
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<p>The farm I’m working on, I got rid of the cattle and within a season the grass was knee-high again. And areas that had been cut, that should never have been cleared at all, where they were showing their bones through the soil, they’ve come good again.</p>
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<p>Pascoe’s appointment as <a href="https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/185335-bruce-pascoe">Enterprise Professor in Indigenous Agriculture</a> at the University of Melbourne makes likely further positive contributions to natural capital: via teaching and research in Indigenous land management. All traceable to a single book title. </p>
<h2>Why do we measure value beyond money?</h2>
<p>In a capitalist world, it sometimes seems like the almighty dollar is the only marker of value. So many conversations about value stem from that single category – but there’s far more to it than that. </p>
<p>Our interest in value in relation to Australian books is informed by multiple disciplines that together enable a more holistic conceptualisation of value. From cultural economics, a sub-discipline of economics concerned with the economic analysis of the arts and culture, researchers like <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/economics-and-culture/14439A4E891452AA74D15EFAF3C69EC4">David Throsby</a> distinguish economic value from cultural value. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.klamer.nl/book/the-value-culture/">Arjo Klamer</a> is a Dutch cultural economist whose valued-based approach has been described as advocating “humanonics” (economics with humans and meaning left in). His work helps us consider the impact of the environment around us on how and why things become valued as social and cultural practices. </p>
<p>He cautions that attempting to measure the value of culture in purely quantitative terms invokes the “<a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpgt/9904004.html">Heisenberg principle of economics</a>”: what is measured impacts how value is perceived. (So, for instance, measuring the value of Dark Emu in terms of its sales alone ignores other “value dimensions” that are generated.)</p>
<p>In the discipline of sociology, Pierre Bourdieu describes how cultural fields are shaped by <a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/bourdieu-forms-capital.htm">symbolic capital</a>. To use the field of book production as an example, writers or publishers accrue symbolic capital through markers of prestige, such as when their books receive favourable reviews or win prizes. </p>
<p>John Frow further <a href="https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/the-practice-of-value-essays-on-literature-in-cultural-studies">explains</a> that the value of cultural objects is derived from their use in different contexts (or “regimes of value”). </p>
<p>For example, within the Australian tertiary education sector, a cultural object like an Arts degree has value it would not have in another industry. And a book might be chosen for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/nostalgic-classics-or-edgy-contemporary-texts-what-books-are-kids-reading-in-australian-schools-and-does-it-matter-198234">Australian school curriculum</a> based on aesthetic principles (like the quality of its prose), but also on criteria such as its depiction of a particular idea of Australia, or its relationship to other parts of the curriculum. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/two-thirds-of-australian-authors-are-women-new-research-finds-they-earn-just-18-200-a-year-from-their-writing-195426">Two thirds of Australian authors are women – new research finds they earn just $18,200 a year from their writing</a>
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<h2>The national value of Australian books</h2>
<p>What do locally written and produced books contribute to Australian life? </p>
<p>At a time of national cultural policy renewal – and as so many Australian authors <a href="https://theconversation.com/two-thirds-of-australian-authors-are-women-new-research-finds-they-earn-just-18-200-a-year-from-their-writing-195426">struggle to survive financially</a> – our preliminary work with Dark Emu shines light on this question. </p>
<p>Our research shows how Australian books circulate in our culture and what they bring – not just in dollar terms, but across a range of other important dimensions. </p>
<p>It’s the kind of work – collecting data relevant to our local book industry – that many contributors to last year’s <a href="https://www.arts.gov.au/have-your-say/new-national-cultural-policy">national consultation</a> on a new Australian cultural policy have called for. </p>
<p>This investment is urgent, with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-years-of-austerity-revive-writes-the-next-chapter-in-australian-literary-culture-198758">new cultural policy, Revive</a>, sending a strong message that Australian authors and literature have a vital role to play in “telling Australian stories”. The evidence for gauging policy success over time will need to be broad – beyond measures of economic impact alone.</p>
<p>We need data that will complement and help contextualise the economic indicators of a book’s success, through an expanded frame of reference. </p>
<p>These additional indicators might include health and wellbeing, social inclusion and educational value, and the contributions a book makes to place-making and truth-telling. </p>
<p>Dark Emu is an extraordinary book. In many ways, it’s one of a kind. </p>
<p>But our work in measuring Dark Emu’s impact over a five-year period offers interesting future possibilities. Possibilities for how we might measure and articulate a broader set of value dimensions in relation to Australian books. The question of what a book might really be worth can – and should – be answered across multiple dimensions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195934/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julienne van Loon has been a recipient of funding from Creative Victoria, ArtsWA and the Australia Council for the Arts. She is a member of the Australian Society of Authors.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bronwyn Coate has been a recipient of funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Australia Council for the Arts. She is currently the Executive Secretary/Treasurer for the Association for Cultural Economics International (ACEI). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Millicent Weber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Our research team tracked the impact of Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe’s bestseller, over five years. We measured its value across a range of criteria, from financial to environmental.
Julienne van Loon, Associate Professor, Writing and Publishing, School of Media & Communication, RMIT University
Bronwyn Coate, Senior Lecturer in Economics, RMIT University
Millicent Weber, Senior lecturer, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/172142
2021-12-16T02:27:47Z
2021-12-16T02:27:47Z
Book Review: Country is an urgent call to learn from Indigenous knowledges to care for the land
<p>“We know we can do better than this, don’t we?” </p>
<p>This line sits towards the concluding paragraphs of <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/country-bruce-pascoe/book/9781760761554.html">Country: Future Fire, Future Farming</a>, by Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian activist and author Bruce Pascoe and non-Indigenous historian Bill Gammage.</p>
<p>The book is part of the wider six-part “First Knowledges” series published by Thames and Hudson in collaboration with the National Library of Australia. It focuses on a collection of topics, including astronomy, design, law and, in the case of this book, Country.</p>
<p>As stated by editor Margo Neale in the introduction, the overarching series is designed to “stimulate and provoke you to enlarge your mind and expand your worldview to encompass limitless other possibilities, including ways in which you can learn from the Aboriginal archive of knowledge embodied in Country.” </p>
<p>For many, the book will be a timely invitation to be a part of constructive dialogue and a call to take action, especially in light of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-why-the-cop26-summit-ended-in-failure-and-disappointment-despite-a-few-bright-spots-171723">lacklustre resolutions from COP26</a> and following <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-staggering-1-8-million-hectares-burned-in-high-severity-fires-during-australias-black-summer-157883">the Black Summer bushfires</a>. </p>
<p>For myself, a non-Indigenous scholar researching waters throughout Eora Country, I humbly come to this review with deep awareness of my position, and firmly take up the invitation to be part of this dialogue and follow through with action.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-dark-emu-debate-limits-representation-of-aboriginal-people-in-australia-163006">How the Dark Emu debate limits representation of Aboriginal people in Australia</a>
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<h2>A conversation between experts</h2>
<p>Country: Future Fire, Future Farming is crafted to present the two authors’ own personal perspectives, while drawing on rich evidence to support their claims. </p>
<p>After their co-written opening chapter, Pascoe starts off the book’s first three solo-written chapters. Then, Gammage takes over with the next four, before they round off their thoughts in two distinctly separate but ideologically similar concluding chapters. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A black book cover with the words " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437449/original/file-20211214-15-1yipmk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437449/original/file-20211214-15-1yipmk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437449/original/file-20211214-15-1yipmk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437449/original/file-20211214-15-1yipmk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437449/original/file-20211214-15-1yipmk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437449/original/file-20211214-15-1yipmk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437449/original/file-20211214-15-1yipmk0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1143&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://thamesandhudson.com.au/product/country-future-fire-future-farming/">Thames & Hudson Australia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the core of their book, Pascoe and Gammage affirm in varying ways that Aboriginal people were - and are - farmers and agriculturalists. Pascoe expands on this in his chapters by describing the ways Aboriginal peoples have made use of the plants and animals across Australia. </p>
<p>According to Pascoe, using and understanding these knowledges can make farming in Australia better. </p>
<p>Gammage’s chapters focuses almost entirely on fire – its use by Aboriginal people as a tool to farm the land, and the detrimental misunderstandings of Aboriginal fire practices appropriated by non-Indigenous people. </p>
<p>Consistently throughout the book, there is a subtle dialogue that emerges between the two authors. The dialogue could at times be more pressing, especially when contrasting perspectives arise, such as their differences in dating Aboriginal people’s presence on the continent or their interpretations of particular terms. </p>
<p>On their own, the wonderfully detailed chapters provide ample room to reflect on key ideas (farming and fire) which both authors have become known for. That said, at times, I craved a more emphatic conversation between the two.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two Aborginal Aunties digging for honey ants." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437946/original/file-20211216-21-1ul0q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437946/original/file-20211216-21-1ul0q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437946/original/file-20211216-21-1ul0q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437946/original/file-20211216-21-1ul0q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437946/original/file-20211216-21-1ul0q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437946/original/file-20211216-21-1ul0q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437946/original/file-20211216-21-1ul0q16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/yuendumu-nt-australie-february-15-2020-1706306179">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Payment where payment is due</h2>
<p>In both subject and in tone, Country: Future Fire, Future Farming feels like a polite conversation, with any arguments quite restrained. </p>
<p>Pascoe writes with urgency and an enthusiasm as vibrant as the landscapes he describes. He opens the book’s first chapter with an unequivocal call to arms – what is happening across Australia with land care (as well as the many other issues relating to Indigenous affairs) is not good enough anymore. </p>
<p>Quite consistently throughout, Pascoe reaffirms the idea that Aboriginal land care is done with the aim to better the “common wealth”, in contrast to the damaging practices of non-Indigenous settlers. </p>
<p>He asserts Aboriginal people should be the primary beneficiaries of wealth generated by land care practices that are environmentally <em>and</em> economically productive. </p>
<p>Similarly, Gammage directs non-Indigenous peoples not to “commandeer traditional expertise” – a hard-pressed claim to refute.</p>
<p>This tension of wanting to celebrate Indigenous knowledges while also ensuring it is not appropriated by non-Indigenous people for economic gain has been articulated as “bio-piracy.” The scholars Dr Daniel Robinson and Dr Miri Raven <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-plants-and-animals-have-long-been-used-without-indigenous-consent-now-queensland-has-taken-a-stand-144813">focus on this issue extensively in their work.</a></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-agriculture-sector-sorely-needs-more-insights-from-first-nations-people-heres-how-we-get-there-173154">Australia's agriculture sector sorely needs more insights from First Nations people. Here's how we get there</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>We know we can do better than this</h2>
<p>The bulk of the book outlines the many intricate knowledges that Indigenous people across Australia have maintained. </p>
<p>Pascoe works tirelessly to address <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2016/05/17/bruce-pascoe-storytelling-history-and-cultural-pride">the misconception surrounding “hunter-gatherering”</a> - the idea that Indigenous peoples were only ever nomadic hunter-gatherers – which is also at the core of Pascoe’s acclaimed work, <a href="https://www.magabala.com/products/dark-emu">Dark Emu</a>. </p>
<p>In addition, Pascoe’s witty, sharp, and conversational chapters on plants and animals are what many have come to expect of him. </p>
<p>Gammage presents a pragmatic recount of the importance of fire to people in Australia – both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, now and in the past. It is detailed and logical. In places, the practicality of Gammage’s writing overwhelms the reflexive narrative I was craving, especially when read against the works of <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/fire-country-by-victor-steffensen/9781741177268">Victor Steffensen</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-this-grandmother-tree-connects-me-to-country-i-cried-when-i-saw-her-burned-129782">Vanessa Cavanagh</a>. </p>
<p>That said, both the breadth of materials the two authors engage with, and the depth with which they are analysed, is impeccable. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-farmers-or-hunter-gatherers-the-dark-emu-debate-rigorously-critiques-bruce-pascoes-argument-161877">Recent critiques</a> of Pascoe’s engagement with evidence in relation to Dark Emu have brightened the discussions in this space. Quite pleasantly, Pascoe makes some effort to respond to these critiques, stating,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hunting and gathering is a sustainable and healthy lifestyle but it is not the only thing that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people did. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The book’s interpretation of historical material, such as Pascoe’s commentary on the Melbourne Museum’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWVn8Lgxaeo">recent Indigenous Bread research</a>, or Gammage’s interrogation of historical archives, is invigorating, contemplative and lush.</p>
<p>Reading the book excites me to want to act to care for land, and respectfully celebrate Indigenous knowledges. If you have a desire to be part of the action, then this book is for you. </p>
<p>Country: Future Fire, Future Farming opens space for dialogue, but readers need to want to be part of this conversation to begin with.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Taylor Coyne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Country by Bruce Pascoe and Bill Gammage is a dialogue between experts on First Nations ways of farming and agriculture. It is also a call to Australia to look after Country better.
Taylor Coyne, Doctoral Candidate, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/163006
2021-07-08T02:08:30Z
2021-07-08T02:08:30Z
How the Dark Emu debate limits representation of Aboriginal people in Australia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409577/original/file-20210704-13832-z8vgmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ranger David Wongway on Angas Downs, Northern Territory.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.commons.wikimedia.or">Wikimedia Commons/JennyKS</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Anthropologist Peter Sutton and archaeologist Keryn Walshe, recently published a book titled <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/farmers-or-hunter-gatherers-paperback-softback">Farmers or Hunter-gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate</a>. This book offers a dramatically different account of the social, spiritual and economic worlds of Australia’s First Peoples “before conquest” to what is presented in the acclaimed work by Yuin writer Bruce Pascoe, <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/dark-emu-bruce-pascoe/book/9781921248016.html?source=pla&gclid=CjwKCAjwuIWHBhBDEiwACXQYsfSMDNrAfRsBxUJv-HSe2arxO265M56BhWEYI2gket745JQp4R4k4xoCtakQAvD_BwE">Dark Emu</a>. </p>
<p>The debate Sutton and Walshe seek to have is whether farmers or hunter-gatherers is the right way to describe my maternal ancestry, the people who lived in Australia before colonisation by Europeans. </p>
<p>Sutton and Walshe want to strip the debate of any contemporary meaning, and return our thoughts to the facts of what went on before their own ancestors arrived on the scene to record, in English using foreign concepts, the truth about what they want to call hunter-gatherer societies or now, the “Old People”.</p>
<p>The central debate between these books is the characterisation of Aboriginal worlds at 1788. </p>
<p>Pascoe draws on colonial archives and actively and creatively offers a different interpretation to colonial bias to tell the story of Aboriginal peoples’ farming and associated practices. Sutton and Walshe, meanwhile, reject the label agriculture or “farming”. Instead, they prefer the descriptor “hunter-gatherers-plus” in relation to who they refer to as the “Old People”.</p>
<p>Rather than organising Aboriginal worlds along a spectrum weighted according to their agricultural development and progress, Sutton and Walshe argue there was a far more complex system that involved modifications to one’s environment and its resources, as well as elaborate spiritual work to keep it all going. This system was at least as complex as gardening or farming. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-our-new-archaeological-research-investigates-dark-emus-idea-of-aboriginal-agriculture-and-villages-146754">Friday essay: how our new archaeological research investigates Dark Emu's idea of Aboriginal 'agriculture' and villages</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Characterisation of Aboriginal peoples as hunter-gatherers or farmers/agriculturists is a long running and shifting debate among anthropologists and archaeologists.</p>
<p>These characterisations and classifications seem to hinge on definitions and interpretations established by the academy. It would be unsurprising if anthropologists critiqued these labels, one another’s field work and conclusions almost entirely in the absence of Aboriginal people.</p>
<p>Sutton and Walshe state their intention to “avoid identity politics and racial polemics”, instead claiming to offer their critique in the spirit of debate. </p>
<p>However, they are clearly on the side of academic anthropology and archaeology — and the past — while Pascoe’s work is focused on the history of the present. Even with this claim, debates over interpretations of the past shape the politics of Aboriginal recognition today. </p>
<h2>Agriculturists or hunter-gatherers?</h2>
<p>In his book, Pascoe crafted a persuasive account of Aboriginal people and the way they lived, largely unknown by a nation still viewing this land and First Peoples through a foggy colonial lens. Through his writing and speaking appearances, Pascoe has made the deep ancient past and the present intelligible and imaginable for a wide audience. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Dark Emu’s case for appreciating First People as agriculturalists has proven remarkably popular and is critically acclaimed. Dark Emu was named book of the year and won the Indigenous writers’ prize in the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. </p>
<p>In 2018, Pascoe received the Australia Council award for lifetime achievement in literature. His work has also attracted careful and considered, and not always supportive, reviews and articles in the academic sphere of peer-reviewed journals. </p>
<p>Now, Sutton and Walshe seek “to set the record straighter”.</p>
<p>Sutton and Walshe’s critique of Dark Emu at times comes across as churlish and pre-occupied with the historically dominant position of anthropologists in their claim to know Aboriginal people. With statements such as “Pascoe is some 50 years behind the scholarly discussions” and “a garden by definition is not wild”, we are reminded repeatedly that Western definitions and labels are supreme. </p>
<p>Farmers or Hunter-gatherers? is occasionally scathing of the use of archival sources in Dark Emu, suggesting they have been misquoted, selectively deployed, and excluded large areas of relevant scholarship. The text provides numerous examples: some are significant omissions, others do not change the meaning Pascoe conveys.</p>
<p>Sutton and Walshe assert Pascoe’s conclusions about village life and population numbers, among other points, are flawed. Elsewhere, they deem Pascoe’s use of sources in Dark Emu to be correct. Some of this critique seems unnecessary and exceeds the authors’ declared concern for fact, scholarship, countering the popularised mythology of history, and truthfulness.</p>
<p>Sutton and Walshe’s book is interesting for the account of how they arrived at the label of First Peoples as “hunter-gatherers-plus” or “The Old People”. </p>
<p>They detail the complexity of classical Aboriginal life: including mental and aesthetic culture, intricate webs of kinship, ritual performance, visual arts and land tenure systems. </p>
<p>Rather than farming, the authors highlight how spiritual propagation, magic and Dreaming were maintained by human reverence and direct action — despite the introduction of gardening and agricultural methods by the invading settlers being consciously resisted.</p>
<p>Sutton and Walshe’s overarching criticism is that Dark Emu does not engage with these non-physical complexities and instead “places high value on technological and economic complexity as a standard of a people’s worth”. </p>
<p>This, as Sutton and Walshe state, is the gap in the book. However, this feedback also explains its audience appeal because it is largely confined to material economic behaviour and “separated from meaning, from intent, from values, from culture, from the spiritual, and from the emotional.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/secondary-school-textbooks-teach-our-kids-the-myth-that-aboriginal-australians-were-nomadic-hunter-gatherers-133066">Secondary school textbooks teach our kids the myth that Aboriginal Australians were nomadic hunter-gatherers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Constructive critical debate should serve First Peoples’ futures</h2>
<p>With only a few exceptions, anthropologists working in Australia have long fixed their gaze north, to the peoples who Sutton and Walshe are enamoured with and sometimes refer to as “before conquest”, on the “other side” of the frontier. </p>
<p>Anthropologists rarely canvas the adjustments that Aboriginal peoples made after European invasion, especially as this hallmarks survival in southeastern Australia. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405283/original/file-20210609-6115-z4qga2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405283/original/file-20210609-6115-z4qga2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405283/original/file-20210609-6115-z4qga2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405283/original/file-20210609-6115-z4qga2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405283/original/file-20210609-6115-z4qga2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405283/original/file-20210609-6115-z4qga2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405283/original/file-20210609-6115-z4qga2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405283/original/file-20210609-6115-z4qga2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Sutton and Walshe offer several examples from the 1960s and 1970s of anthropological work that engaged public interest and some key and comprehensive texts. One example they cite is Catherine and Ronald Berndt’s seminal anthropology work, <a href="https://www.amazon.com.au/World-First-Australians-Aboriginal-Traditional/dp/0855751843">The World of the First Australians</a>.</p>
<p>They offer these examples as a critical counterpoint to the claim in Dark Emu of a pervasive and wilful ignorance of the complexity and sophistication of Aboriginal worlds.</p>
<p>My experience teaching undergraduate students more closely aligns with Pascoe’s observations - students continue to arrive at their studies with little intellectual depth or appetite for engaging in debates over Aboriginal worlds or futures. They cite repeat viewings of popular films as the extent of their school curriculum. </p>
<p>The legal recognition of Aboriginal land tenure may have dispensed with the myths of nomadism, yet rejection of the rightful place of First Peoples in the national political discourse attests to the need for more effective communication with the public, which includes popular and relatable texts. </p>
<p>This is the sweet spot in the public imagination that works such as Dark Emu have appealed to. However, constructive and critical debate should accurately represent the history of First Peoples and, importantly, comprehend and better serve our present and future. </p>
<p>This weeks marks the commencement of the annual NAIDOC celebration with the theme “Heal Country”. This should hopefully lead to consideration of landscapes and all our relationships to them, before 1788, since, and into the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163006/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heidi Norman receives funding from the Australian Research Council and NSW Government. </span></em></p>
The characterisation of Aboriginal worlds at 1788 is the central debate between Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu and Peter Sutton and Kerryn Walshe’s Farmers or Hunter-gatherers.
Heidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146754
2021-06-17T20:11:46Z
2021-06-17T20:11:46Z
Friday essay: how our new archaeological research investigates Dark Emu’s idea of Aboriginal ‘agriculture’ and villages
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406372/original/file-20210615-3808-15xljrp.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=868%2C286%2C4177%2C2785&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An aerial view of an Aboriginal stone arrangement in the Channel Country of Central Australia. Such arrangements may be associated with initiation ceremonies and exchange of marriage partners, as well as trade. The main structure is around 30 metres long. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu is in the news again, with the publication of <a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-farmers-or-hunter-gatherers-the-dark-emu-debate-rigorously-critiques-bruce-pascoes-argument-161877">a new book</a> critiquing Pascoe’s arguments. Dark Emu builds on an earlier, less known work by archaeologist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Gerritsen">Rupert Gerritsen</a>, who argued a number of regions across Australia should be considered centres of Aboriginal agriculture. </p>
<p>Historians <a href="http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n4634/pdf/article02.pdf">Billy Griffiths and Lynette Russell</a>, and now anthropologist Peter Sutton and archaeologist Keryn Walshe, <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/farmers-or-hunter-gatherers-paperback-softback">have argued</a> Pascoe has fallen into a trap of privileging the language of agriculture above hunter-gatherer socioeconomic systems. </p>
<p>We have been working in a landscape that provides an important test of the Dark Emu hypothesis. In partnership with the Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, who occupy the Channel Country in Central Australia, we have begun investigating Aboriginal settlement sites, pit dwelling huts (known as gunyahs) and quarries.</p>
<p>Our landscape study, <a href="https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2021.31">published in the journal Antiquity</a>, has found over 140 quarry sites, where rock was excavated to produce seed grinding stones. We have also developed a method to locate traces of long-lost village sites. </p>
<p>Were First Australians farmers or hunter-gatherers? Contemporary archaeological research suggests it’s not such a simple dichotomy. Understanding the Mithaka food production system may well tell us whether such terms are a good fit for defining socio-economic networks in Aboriginal Australia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403756/original/file-20210601-19-z1aj0j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The location of Mithaka country within the trade network of Pituri. Pituri leaves (some of which are from the Mulligan river region) are a narcotic and highly valued. This map shows the direction of trade and market centres and also the location of other important items of exchange.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Illustration by Nathan Wright</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An extraordinary landscape</h2>
<p>The Channel Country spreads across the Lake Eyre Basin, found in parts of Queensland, Northern Territory and South Australia. It is the world’s last unregulated desert channel system (meaning there has been no intensive irrigation or damming) and one of Australia’s richest beef cattle areas. The meandering channels are fed infrequently by monsoonal rains from the north, which transform large sections of the desert into a lush, green landscape. </p>
<p>In 2017, Mithaka Elder George Gorringe led a small expedition to an ancient clay-pan (an old lake bed) where one of us had recorded a burial site some years before. But the plan dramatically changed when monsoonal rains in the tropics flooded the land, diverting the expedition from north to the south. </p>
<p>The extensive flood plains turned green as life-giving water irrigated native grasses and other plant species. George led the expedition to a series of sites he knew about from his father, Bill Gorringe, and from his previous work on numerous stations and as a council road works foreman. They included massive sandstone quarry sites, stone arrangements and the remains of Aboriginal pit dwelling huts (gunyahs): excavated structures with branches constructed over the top. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406013/original/file-20210613-27-13r0pts.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A gunyah, believed to be from the 19th century, on the floodplains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nathan Wright</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This largely intact archaeological landscape has the largest seed grinding quarry sites in the country. Archaeologist Mike Smith <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/archaeology-of-australias-deserts/50C399077C1A0AA43922030129972436">has discussed the importance of seed grinding implements</a> for the economy of this region. Grinding stones were used to process native grasses and produce a form of bread. Axes scattered across the area also indicate trade with the Kalkadoon people from the Mount Isa quarries in the north.</p>
<p>It became clear from this first trip that this extraordinary landscape had enormous potential to investigate questions relating to Aboriginal trade and exchange, settlements systems and food production. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406042/original/file-20210613-77790-1rcnjbu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Excavating a quarry site known as the Ten Mile.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Westaway</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reconstructing the past</h2>
<p>When Europeans first stumbled across this landscape in the 1870s, as historian Ray Kerkhove discovered in the archives, they observed “civilised blacks” living in villages and maintaining intensive fishing industries. In 1871, for example, a sub inspector of the Queensland Native Police, James Gilmour, came across a “village” of 103 huts at the southern end of Thunderpurty lagoon while looking for evidence of the missing explorer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ludwig-Leichhardt">Ludwig Leichardt</a>.</p>
<p>History also records practices in the region including cultivation associated with ceremony, and fish trap and storage systems equating to aquaculture. </p>
<p>This landscape was very different to other areas in arid Australia well documented by historians and modern anthropologists. Unlike the more marginal desert environments in the centre, Channel Country could support large numbers of cattle. This indicated it was also able to support larger populations of Aboriginal people. </p>
<p>Higher population numbers and the economic value of Channel Country to European pastoralists resulted in significant conflict, devastating the traditional Mithaka economic system. Archaeology thus plays a prominent role in reconstructing the past here.</p>
<p>Some cultural stories from Mithaka country were documented from the early 1900s by amateur ethnographer Alice Duncan Kemp, who lived on Mooraberrie Station until the late 1920s. An innovative researcher, trusted and respected by senior Aboriginal informants, Alice provides an important account of the complexity of the Mithaka social system, tying it into the landscape.</p>
<p>We have started to document this through <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c33fd50ffb8c4656855afe8231661c59">cultural mapping</a>, with the Duncan Kemp family. The Mithaka have designed a framework to help guide researchers in <a href="https://mithaka.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/mithaka-aboriginal-corporation_research-framework_web-version-72dpi1.pdf">ethically telling the story of their landscape</a>.</p>
<p>We are now using drones to record in 3D enormous quarries, which appear to be on an industrial scale. Archaeologist Doug William’s excavations, supported by the work of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/1-4020-2656-0_12">dating</a> expert Justine Kemp, show quarrying at one site may have begun more than 2,000 years ago.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406039/original/file-20210613-25-1fh5y3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Josh Gorringe, a trained helicopter pilot, operates a small quadcopter drone over quarry sites at Glengyle. A range of fixed wing and smaller drones have enabled documentation of the cultural landscape .</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Westaway</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If this is the case, the transcontinental trade system referred to by pioneering Australian archaeologist John Mulvaney as the “<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Chain_of_Connection.html?id=6R89ngAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Chain of Connection</a>” (extending from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Flinders Ranges) may be at least twice as old as previously thought.</p>
<p>Could this trade system have played a role in the development of more intensified quarrying activity and more sedentary settlement systems? We are working on understanding the relationship between the archaeology and this remarkable social and economic network. </p>
<h2>Seasonal or permanent village sites?</h2>
<p>We have investigated eroding burial sites to see if the remains of the Mithaka ancestors themselves can provide clues to the past. </p>
<p>Limited analysis so far provides evidence of bio-mechanical stress to the upper limbs, likely a result of intense seed grinding. By studying geochemical signatures (isotopes) in human teeth we hope to establish if people maintained a large foraging range or were more sedentary, living in more restricted clan boundaries.</p>
<p>We have built a background <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-did-you-grow-up-how-strontium-in-your-teeth-can-help-answer-that-question-112705">isotopic map</a> to help us understand people’s mobility in the past. When people live in a landscape they ingest its isotope signature. Investigating the mobility of the Mithaka populations through isotopes will be an important test of whether documented village sites were seasonal or permanent. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/where-did-you-grow-up-how-strontium-in-your-teeth-can-help-answer-that-question-112705">Where did you grow up? How strontium in your teeth can help answer that question</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One logical place to start an investigation of past food production systems is to look where people once lived. Early historic accounts record large village sites, so we have developed a methodology to find these places. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406375/original/file-20210615-3808-q8u28h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kelsey Lowe identifies a series of magnetic anomalies during her geophysical survey of the Ten Mile quarry site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Westaway</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Geoarchaeologist Kelsey Lowe has used a magnetometer, designed to detect magnetic anomalies beneath the earth surface, to search for signs of ancient houses (gunyahs). By investigating standing gunyahs, dating back to the 19th century, we have detected distinct magnetic signatures for these dwellings. </p>
<h2>Fish and plants</h2>
<p>Archaeobotanists Nathan Wright and Andrew Fairbairn are carefully sifting through deposits to identify wood charcoal and evidence of plant use. Expertise in recovering not only ancient seeds and plant remains, but importantly, burnt plant remains in ancient fireplaces will play a key role in telling the past economic story. </p>
<p>Zooarchaeologist Tiina Manne has begun a study of recovered animal bones, which also include the inner ears (otoliths) of fish (yellowbelly). These may provide insights into past aquaculture systems hinted at in the historical record. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406014/original/file-20210613-64042-1p707h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Archaeologist Jason Kariwiga and archaeobotanist Nathan Wright discuss the excavation of the gunyah site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cemre Ustunkaya</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We have started to document fish traps in the landscape. And geoarchaeologist Mike Morley has taken molds of excavation pits to analyse microscopic evidence of hut floors and the areas in front of the gunyahs. </p>
<p>Botanist Jen Silcock is working with Mithaka Elders to understand more about plant use. Important food and medicinal plants such as native millet, sorghum and different species of desert shrubs will be investigated by plant geneticist Robert Henry. He will see if we can find evidence of people deliberately moving plants and identify traits of domestication within the genomes of important species. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/palynology">Palynologist</a> Patrick Moss has taken cores from lake sediments to recover ancient pollen sequences associated with known village site locations. He will examine how the environment changes over time and whether he can detect any shifts in pollen, which may represent more intensified use of plants.</p>
<p>Historian Tom Griffiths, meanwhile, has begun to <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c33fd50ffb8c4656855afe8231661c59">investigate the history of conflict in the landscape</a>, as Europeans and Native Police raged a war with the traditional owners of Mithaka country in the late 1800s. </p>
<p>This is important to understand because elsewhere in the country, archaeologists have suggested the development of village settlements may have been a response to colonial violence, rather than representing a traditional settlement system. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-unearthing-queenslands-native-police-camps-gives-us-a-window-onto-colonial-violence-100814">How unearthing Queensland's 'native police' camps gives us a window onto colonial violence</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>New, important stories</h2>
<p>For one of us (Michael), the ideas generated through Gerritsen’s research and Pascoe’s popularised account have inspired and stimulated a different way of thinking about Aboriginal food production systems, and how we might investigate an archaeological record for Aboriginal village settlements.</p>
<p>And for the other (Josh), Dark Emu provides a different account of the Aboriginal past, written by an Aboriginal person outside of the academy, which challenges us to think differently about how we might define Aboriginal people. Josh believes it is up to archaeologists now to test Pascoe’s hypothesis.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406022/original/file-20210613-73723-hudv6f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elder Betty Gorringe and archaeobotanist Andy Fairbairn survey a complex of eight mound sites and numerous earth ovens in a landscape rich with artefacts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Westaway</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hidden in the Mithaka landscape is a cultural narrative with great power to tell new and important stories. Multidisciplinary research involving traditional owner knowledge, even when fragmented by the ravages of past conflict and displacement, can re-energise landscapes.</p>
<p>It can provide a context for a richer, more nuanced and more comprehensive understanding of ancient Australia, creating a space for cultural learning, education and respect. </p>
<p><em>Participants in the Mithaka field research project include: Doug Williams (Austral Archaeology and Griffith University), Kelsey Lowe (University of Queensland), Nathan Wright (University of New England), Ray Kerkhove (University of Queensland), Andrew Fairbairn (University of Queensland), Tiina Manne (University of Queensland), Mike Morley (Flinders University), Tom Griffiths (Australian National University), Justyna Miszkiewicz (Queensland University of Technology), Justine Kemp (Griffith University), Patrick Moss (University of Queensland) and Robert Henry (University of Queensland).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146754/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Westaway receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Gorringe works for Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation (MAC) a registered native title body corporate. MAC has received funding from the QLD state government through the Looking after Country grant scheme to fund field research and conservation. </span></em></p>
We have found 140 quarry sites, where rock was excavated to make seed grinding stones, in the Channel Country of Central Australia. It’s part of a major project testing Bruce Pascoe’s hypothesis.
Michael Westaway, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Archaeology, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland
Joshua Gorringe, General Manager Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, Indigenous Knowledge
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/161877
2021-06-13T20:06:03Z
2021-06-13T20:06:03Z
Book review: Farmers or Hunter-gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate rigorously critiques Bruce Pascoe’s argument
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403712/original/file-20210601-15-1twxu96.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C22%2C1680%2C1202&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reconstruction of traditional dwelling, Lake Condah, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Peter Sutton</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Eminent Australian anthropologist Peter Sutton and respected field archaeologist Keryn Walshe have co-authored a meticulously researched new book, <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/farmers-or-hunter-gatherers-paperback-softback">Farmers or Hunter-gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate</a>. It’s set to become the definitive critique of Bruce Pascoe’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21401526-dark-emu">Dark Emu: Black Seeds — Agriculture or Accident?</a></p>
<p>First published in 2014, Pascoe’s Dark Emu has spawned numerous derivatives. Pascoe contends that in pre-contact times, Australian Aboriginal people weren’t “mere” hunter-gatherers, but agriculturalists. Descriptors like “simple” or “mere” are anathema to people like me who’ve lived long-term with hunter-gatherers.</p>
<p>For many Australians, Pascoe’s book is a “must-read”, speaking truth to power. For such readers, Dark Emu seems a breakthrough text. Not so, in Sutton and Walshe’s estimation. Nor mine.</p>
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<p>Underpinning Dark Emu is the author’s rhetorical purpose. This proselytising is partly achieved by painstaking “massaging” of his sources, a practice forensically examined by Walshe and Sutton. It has led to converts to Pascoe’s dubious proposition. But this willingness to accept Pascoe’s argument reveals a systemic area of failure in the Australian education system.</p>
<p>On the basis of long-term research and observation, Sutton and Walshe portray classical Australian Aboriginal people as highly successful hunter-gatherers and fishers. They strongly repudiate racist notions of Aboriginal hunter-gatherers as living in a primitive state. </p>
<p>In their book, they assert there was and is nothing “simple” or “primitive” about hunter-gatherer-fishers’ labour practices. This complexity was, and in many cases, still is, underpinned by high levels of spiritual/cultural belief. </p>
<h2>Not agriculturalists</h2>
<p>As Sutton attests, seeds were and are occasionally deliberately scattered. But in classical Aboriginal societies they were <em>never</em> planted nor watered for agricultural purposes. Such aforementioned rituals are collectively called “increase ceremonies”. Sutton’s alternative term, “maintenance ceremonies”, invokes <em>spiritual propagation</em> as opposed to oversupply.</p>
<p>Their objective was continuing subsistence. Australia’s hunter-gatherer-fishers left an extremely light carbon footprint — the diametric opposite of many contemporary agricultural/industrial practices. The photo below, taken in 1932 or earlier, shows Pilbara people throwing yelka (nutgrass) — not threshing or scattering seeds. </p>
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<span class="caption">The people in this photo are throwing pebbles and dust - not scattering or threshing seeds. It’s a maintenance ceremony for nutgrass (‘yelka’), to ensure spiritual reproduction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ralph Piddington, ‘Totemic system of the Karadjeri tribe’, Oceania 4, 1932, pp. 376–93, Plate II.</span></span>
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<h2>Pascoe’s sources and approach</h2>
<p>Pascoe draws on records of explorers and early colonists, also citing recent works, including Bill Gammage’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13041243-the-biggest-estate-on-earth?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=09BOiswTLF&rank=1">The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia</a>. Dark Emu leans most heavily on the work of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Gerritsen">late historian/ethnographer Rupert Gerritsen</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-dark-emu-and-the-blindness-of-australian-agriculture-97444">Friday essay: Dark Emu and the blindness of Australian agriculture</a>
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<p>Counter-intuitively, Pascoe mainly cites non-Aboriginal sources. There is no real “voice” given to the few remaining people who lived traditional lives as youngsters, or are cited in books or articles.</p>
<p>While some have described Dark Emu as fabrication, Sutton and Walshe are more measured. They methodically show that in Dark Emu, Pascoe has removed significant passages from publications that contradict his major objectives. This boosts his contention that all along Aboriginal people were farmers and/or aquaculturalists. </p>
<p>One example concerns Pascoe’s quoting of the journal entries of the explorer Charles Sturt. Sutton writes:</p>
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<p>Sturt is quoted [by Pascoe] on his party’s discovery of a large well and ‘village’ of 19 huts somewhere north of Lake Torrens in South Australia.</p>
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<p>This “village” concept arose from colonial records, and is still sometimes used in recent articles. </p>
<p>Pascoe’s edit of Sturt’s original 1849 text breathes oxygen into Dark Emu’s polemical edge. It’s misleading at best. For Sturt’s diary reveals Aboriginal people didn’t live in “houses” in any single site all year round. </p>
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<span class="caption">Page 153, Dark Emu Debate.</span>
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<p>Such accounts destabilise Pascoe’s argument, reinforced by ethnographic, colonial, and archaeological records. </p>
<p>Hunter-gatherers <em>did</em> alter the country in significant ways — most Australians know about the ancient practice of firing the country, recently discussed in depth owing to our increasingly devastating bush-fires. This involved ecological agency and prowess. But expert fire-burning isn’t an agricultural practice, as Pascoe avers.</p>
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<span class="caption">Wik people firing the country, middle Kirke River, Cape York Peninsula, 1977.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Peter Sutton</span></span>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-expertise-is-reducing-bushfires-in-northern-australia-its-time-to-consider-similar-approaches-for-other-disasters-155361">Indigenous expertise is reducing bushfires in northern Australia. It's time to consider similar approaches for other disasters</a>
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<h2>Misidentification of implements</h2>
<p>In a key chapter, Walshe homes in on Pascoe’s mis-interpretations of hunter-gatherer implements, which he labels “agricultural” tools. For instance, Pascoe misconstrues grooved “Bogan Picks” as heavy stones used for agricultural activity. </p>
<p>Walshe disputes Pascoe’s claim, stating that, “with their adze-shaped end and grooved midline for <a href="https://www.lexico.com/definition/haft">hafting</a>, they were likely used in a similar way to stone axes.” </p>
<p>Wooden digging sticks were also used for breaking up the earth to extract yams when in season, among various other purposes — not for “tilling” or “ploughing” the soil in preparation for planting seeds. </p>
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<span class="caption">Grooved (Bogan style) picks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Malcolm Davidson</span></span>
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<p>Language used by early colonists and explorers — words like “village” and “picks” — befuddles readers. British colonists’ monolingualism meant they used English words, often imposed arbitrarily, to name never-before-seen hunter-gatherer implements. For example, “Bogan Pick” references the nearby Bogan River. </p>
<h2>Hunter-gatherer mobility and stasis</h2>
<p>Sutton expertly summarises the experience of escaped convict, <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/buckley-william-1844/text2133">William Buckley</a>, who spent 32 years travelling around country with the Wathawurrung people in Central Victoria.</p>
<p>Over time, Buckley became fluent in the language of his Wathawurrung hosts. Later, his oral account of the hunter-gatherer group’s approximate lengths of mobility and stasis at numerous sites was transcribed. It’s a unique document covering a significant timespan. </p>
<p>This account reinforces earlier chapters in Dark Emu Debate. Sutton and Walshe make it crystal clear that Aboriginal people weren’t “simple nomads” wandering around randomly, opportunistically searching for food and water. They knew their country intimately. </p>
<p>Rather, hunter-gatherers engaged in purposeful travel to sites with which they familiar and able to source seasonally available food, water and shelter at variable times of year. </p>
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<span class="caption">Shelter Tree, Eden Valley 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Keryn Walshe</span></span>
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<p>Another conspicuous weakness in Dark Emu’s approach, pinpointed by Sutton and Walshe, is Pascoe’s penchant for choosing exceptions to the general rule, implying that these atypical practices were widespread or universal. It’s another strategy to consolidate his argument but involves eliding vital information.</p>
<h2>Pre-contact aquaculture</h2>
<p>Pascoe offers two examples of <a href="https://www.agriculture.gov.au/fisheries/aquaculture">“aquacultural”</a> practice, one in Brewarrina (NSW) in the bed streams of the Barwon River, and the other in Lake Condah, in south-western Victoria. </p>
<p>He seizes on rock use in the Brewarrina fishery and Lake Condah’s fish and seasonal eel trapping as “proof” of Aboriginal people’s aqua/agricultural prowess — giving the impression they created these complex hydrological systems from scratch. </p>
<p>But Sutton writes, “The fish traps of Brewarrina … were not claimed as the ingenious works of human beings, but … regarded as having been put there in the Dreaming, by Dreamings.” Both he and Walshe readily acknowledge the fact that Aboriginal people use/d their human agency to create modifications. It’s not an either/or matter.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404984/original/file-20210608-135198-vqouoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="File:FMIB 36637 Brewarrina Fishery.jpeg - Wikimedia Commons" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404984/original/file-20210608-135198-vqouoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404984/original/file-20210608-135198-vqouoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404984/original/file-20210608-135198-vqouoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404984/original/file-20210608-135198-vqouoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404984/original/file-20210608-135198-vqouoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404984/original/file-20210608-135198-vqouoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404984/original/file-20210608-135198-vqouoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Brewarrina Fishery (‘Baiames Ngunnhu’), photograph Lindsay G. Thompson, 1893.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Washington, Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>However, a chapter written by Walshe throws light on the seismic activity that forged Lake Condah’s unique terrain and waterways. This area, she writes, is part of </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a volcanic system … last active … 9,000 years ago, with a major eruption much earlier, about 37,000 thousand years ago, causing a massive lava flow across the pre-existing drainage system.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The natural tilt southwards, she explains, facilitated “naturally formed ancient river channels … to reach the Southern Ocean”. </p>
<p>This enabled migratory fish to spawn. Fish, and at certain times of year, eels, swam through both fresh and salty water — making for ease of catching. Local Aboriginal people moved the heavy stones into semi-circular formations to enable netting, spearing or grabbing by hand, possibly creating further semi-captivity of these food staples. </p>
<p>In this way, hunter-gatherers consistently and constantly “value-added” to, or enhanced, nature’s creation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405277/original/file-20210609-27-rc0n24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405277/original/file-20210609-27-rc0n24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405277/original/file-20210609-27-rc0n24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405277/original/file-20210609-27-rc0n24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405277/original/file-20210609-27-rc0n24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=222&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405277/original/file-20210609-27-rc0n24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405277/original/file-20210609-27-rc0n24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405277/original/file-20210609-27-rc0n24.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lake Condah in the Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Budj Bim/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-detective-work-behind-the-budj-bim-eel-traps-world-heritage-bid-71800">The detective work behind the Budj Bim eel traps World Heritage bid</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Not a bunfight</h2>
<p>Pascoe’s skilful editing of his sources involves conscious, deliberate intervention. Does he hope Dark Emu will convince people to change their belief in the noxious evolutionary ladder, once uniformly, but still sometimes, applied to different groups of homo sapiens? </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405281/original/file-20210609-8777-156vdo6.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1202&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Or was his book written to prove Aboriginal people were/are more like Europeans, which could perhaps lead to much needed progress on reconciliation? Perhaps that accounts for its rapturous reception by many Australians, especially the young.</p>
<p>Why not simply celebrate the long-term achievements of hunter-gatherers? </p>
<p>Hunter-gatherers worked in concert with the natural world, not against it as most humans do today, resulting in insoluble difficulties such as overcrowding, pandemics and toxic agricultural and aquacultural practices. Survival depends on this. For eons, it ensured the continuity and the continuing existence of Australia’s hunter-gatherer people and their culture.</p>
<p>Farmers or Hunter Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate needs to be read carefully, keeping an open mind. The book’s focus is on both material and spiritual economies and their misrepresentation. Despite racist commentary from some, this isn’t an exclusively right or left-wing issue or a bunfight. </p>
<p>Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu will continue to be granted recognition, if not immortality. But Sutton and Walshe’s Dark Emu Debate will undoubtedly be acclaimed. As a critique of Pascoe’s book, it’s just about perfect — a volume with the twin virtues of rigour and readability. </p>
<p><em>Farmers or Hunter Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate is <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/farmers-or-hunter-gatherers-paperback-softback">published by Melbourne University Press</a> and will be released 16 June 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161877/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Judith Nicholls does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A new book by an eminent anthropologist and archaeologist mounts a rigorous critique of Dark Emu, repudiating notions of ‘primitive’ hunter-gatherers.
Christine Judith Nicholls, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151571
2020-12-15T19:11:34Z
2020-12-15T19:11:34Z
Ancient stories and enduring spirit: Loving Country reminds us of the wonders right under our noses
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374690/original/file-20201214-19-ovjpk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Albany on the south coast of Western Australia, just under five hours’ drive from Perth.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photographer: © Vicky Shukuroglou taken from Loving Country</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Loving Country by Bruce Pascoe and Vicky Shukuroglou (Hardie Grant Travel)</em></p>
<p>Travelling through the Australian landscape is an often breathtaking experience raising many questions in the traveller’s mind — none of which can be answered by an online search engine when your internet connection fails. </p>
<p>What everyone needs is a travel companion like Loving Country, co-authored by Aboriginal Elder Bruce Pascoe and artist Vicky Shukuroglou. At first glance, it is a travel guide to some of Australia’s most beautiful Country but on closer inspection, it reveals honest, riveting yarns about the true stories of Country told by the people who know her best: the local Aboriginal people with ancestral connections.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374691/original/file-20201214-22-10g20r4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374691/original/file-20201214-22-10g20r4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374691/original/file-20201214-22-10g20r4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374691/original/file-20201214-22-10g20r4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374691/original/file-20201214-22-10g20r4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374691/original/file-20201214-22-10g20r4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374691/original/file-20201214-22-10g20r4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374691/original/file-20201214-22-10g20r4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bruce Pascoe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Linsey Rendell</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Loving Country, the pair travel across the continent visiting 19 locations including Bruny Island in Tasmania, the Western Desert region, Margaret River, Alice Springs, Broome and Kangaroo Island. </p>
<p>Connecting with local Aboriginal people sounds common sense but in so many instances, visitors will grab the closest Aboriginal person, even if they are not from the area, and with a “you’ll do” mentality, recklessly erase local knowledges.</p>
<p>Loving Country highlights the inadequacy and tokenism of this “tick-a-box” approach, as it tells the rich and complex stories of local Aboriginal peoples and their unique understanding of Country, born of thousands of generations connected to place. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.wiluna.wa.gov.au">Wiluna</a>, at the edge of the Western Desert, the local Martu ladies love a yarn, telling ancient stories as readily as they share the contemporary love story of Warri and Yatungka, a couple who fell in love despite their relationship being forbidden by tribal laws. In Queensland’s Laura Basin, local Indigenous rangers and Elders share their living culture, teaching the young ones how to catch cherabin (yabbie).</p>
<p>The generosity of custodians and storytellers at each location is what makes Loving Country unique. The book also provides invaluable information on how to connect with local people and knowledge: a necessity for meaningful experiences with Country and culture.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374689/original/file-20201214-20-estl2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374689/original/file-20201214-20-estl2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374689/original/file-20201214-20-estl2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374689/original/file-20201214-20-estl2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374689/original/file-20201214-20-estl2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374689/original/file-20201214-20-estl2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374689/original/file-20201214-20-estl2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374689/original/file-20201214-20-estl2o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mparntwe (Alice Springs) in the heart of Australia, roughly 1500 kilometres south of Darwin. Arrernte language group.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photographer: © Vicky Shukuroglou taken from Loving Country by Bruce Pascoe and Vicky Shukuroglou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Complex and nuanced</h2>
<p>Loving Country consistently reiterates that Aboriginal cultures are as complex and nuanced as the Country we call “Mother”. The subtext here is that there is no pan-Aboriginality. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374708/original/file-20201214-20-1h43g02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374708/original/file-20201214-20-1h43g02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374708/original/file-20201214-20-1h43g02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374708/original/file-20201214-20-1h43g02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374708/original/file-20201214-20-1h43g02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=774&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374708/original/file-20201214-20-1h43g02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374708/original/file-20201214-20-1h43g02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374708/original/file-20201214-20-1h43g02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In any given place it is not one people, one place, one language. Single ownership is founded in the Eurocentric possession of land and resources — a colonial imposition on the complex kinship systems of Indigenous cultures and their approaches to care and custodianship of Country.</p>
<p>Loving Country will be important for Aboriginal people connected to a common body of Country but who come from multiple nation and clan groups. For others, if you are hearing just one group name, please look beyond it and take the time to find out if there are others. You will find contradictions, ambiguities and inconsistencies but that’s OK. Embrace them all. Country means different things to different people but it will always be the one uniting force between us.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-this-grandmother-tree-connects-me-to-country-i-cried-when-i-saw-her-burned-129782">Friday essay: this grandmother tree connects me to Country. I cried when I saw her burned</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>My only disappointment in the book was that Country was not capitalised. For Aboriginal people, the word Country is a proper noun, a name for the spiritual entity we understand her to be. Country does not just describe the physical landscape as it would for others. Country is our mother, we do not own her, we belong to her. </p>
<h2>Rage and frustration</h2>
<p>In Australia, we collectively idolise overseas tourist destinations for their apparent “antiquity”. Loving Country points out that as a nation, we give heritage listing to fence wire and bronze memorials to genocidal murderers. We then <a href="https://theconversation.com/juukan-gorge-how-could-they-not-have-known-and-how-can-we-be-sure-they-will-in-future-151580">destroy sacred sites</a> containing evidence of Aboriginal culture tens of thousands of years old. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/juukan-gorge-how-could-they-not-have-known-and-how-can-we-be-sure-they-will-in-future-151580">Juukan Gorge: how could they not have known? (And how can we be sure they will in future?)</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Pascoe’s rage and frustration at Australia’s ambivalence towards the astounding Country and culture right under our noses is palpable.</p>
<p>He writes that <a href="http://www.moyjil.com.au/">Moyjil (Point Ritchie) in Warrnambool</a>, for instance, has memorials to colonial heritage and agriculture, the success of which relied heavily on the exquisitely fertile soils created and managed by Aboriginal communities for millennia prior. </p>
<p>The local Gunditjmara people have always spoken of an ancient site on the Hopkins River. Pascoe describes recent research undertaken on the blackened stones of an ancient hearth there providing evidence of human occupation for 80,000 years. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374688/original/file-20201214-15-k4of0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374688/original/file-20201214-15-k4of0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374688/original/file-20201214-15-k4of0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374688/original/file-20201214-15-k4of0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374688/original/file-20201214-15-k4of0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374688/original/file-20201214-15-k4of0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374688/original/file-20201214-15-k4of0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374688/original/file-20201214-15-k4of0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brewarrina on the banks of the Barwon River in north-west New South Wales. Ngemba, Murrawarri, Yuwaalaraay, Wayilwan Language groups.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photographer: © Vicky Shukuroglou taken from Loving Country by Bruce Pascoe and Vicky Shukuroglou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://www.visitnsw.com/things-to-do/tours/brewarrina-aboriginal-fish-traps-guided-tour">Brewarrina, north-west New South Wales</a>, 40,000-year-old stone fish traps are, he writes, “arguably the oldest human construction on earth”. </p>
<p>Just 80kms south-east, in Cuddie Springs, writes Pascoe, a stone dish was being used to grind grain for bread 35,000 years ago. Soon after this find, he notes, a seed-grinding stone was found in Arnhem Land, dated at 65,000 years old.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-dark-emu-and-the-blindness-of-australian-agriculture-97444">Friday essay: Dark Emu and the blindness of Australian agriculture</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Loving Country reveals page after page of both the ancient and contemporary knowledges of these magnificent places, leaving you feeling equal parts wonder and despair. It is a beautifully composed, riveting read scaffolded by Pascoe’s signature commitment to watertight research of the colonial archives. </p>
<p>Shukuroglou’s unpretentious photography showcases the raw, intrinsic beauty of Country. This book will leave you famished for red earth, rainforests, billabongs and big sky Country.</p>
<p>By all means, revel in these far off and dreamy locations but please keep in mind, Sacred Country is everywhere. It doesn’t matter how much concrete, glass or steel you lay down, Country is still here. Her ancient stories and enduring spirit live on in the hearts of local Aboriginal people across the continent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shannon Foster does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A travel guide to some of our most beautiful Country highlights the complexity of Aboriginal cultures and white Australia’s historic ambivalence towards them.
Shannon Foster, D'harawal Knowledge Keeper PhD Candidate and Lecturer UTS, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/133066
2020-08-02T19:54:51Z
2020-08-02T19:54:51Z
Secondary school textbooks teach our kids the myth that Aboriginal Australians were nomadic hunter-gatherers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350551/original/file-20200731-15-1t3dnq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aboriginal-australia-landscape-build-on-traditional-1384429946">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In his book Dark Emu, <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-dark-emu-and-the-blindness-of-australian-agriculture-97444">Bruce Pascoe</a> writes that settler Australians wilfully misunderstood, hid and destroyed evidence of Aboriginal Australians’ farming practices. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17405904.2019.1637760">My analysis</a> of secondary school textbooks shows this behaviour isn’t restricted to the past — it is ongoing. </p>
<p>In Australia, pre-invasion Aboriginal peoples tend to be portrayed as <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-our-kids-should-learn-aboriginal-history-24196">nomadic hunter-gatherers</a>. For example, a 1979 textbook titled <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9632898?selectedversion=NBD1665592">Australia’s frontiers: an atlas of Australian history</a> by J.R.J. Grigsby and T.F. Gurry said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The people of this distinctive race were hunters and gatherers […] They were constantly on the move, following game or seeking new sources of plant food. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, <a href="https://australianarchaeologicalassociation.com.au/journal/thesis-abstract-lake-condah-revisited/">physical evidence</a> as well as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-dark-emu-and-the-blindness-of-australian-agriculture-97444">journals of early colonists</a> show Aboriginal peoples farmed and built large villages, meaning many groups stayed in one place.</p>
<h2>Sophisticated farmers</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, evidence of Aboriginal farming in southwest Victoria recorded by white archaeologists confirmed what the local Gunditjmara people had always known: rather than living off whatever they came across, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-detective-work-behind-the-budj-bim-eel-traps-world-heritage-bid-71800">the Gunditjmara actively farmed the landscape</a>. As in other areas in the world, intensive farming was accompanied by permanent dwellings.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-detective-work-behind-the-budj-bim-eel-traps-world-heritage-bid-71800">The detective work behind the Budj Bim eel traps World Heritage bid</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Writings of early colonists show Aboriginal agriculture was practised Australia-wide. In 2011, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-biggest-estate-on-earth-how-aborigines-made-australia-3787">Bill Gammage</a> used historical writings to explain how Aboriginal peoples created the park-like landscape “discovered” by early colonists. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-biggest-estate-on-earth-how-aborigines-made-australia-3787">The biggest estate on earth: how Aborigines made Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Bruce Pascoe’s recent book Dark Emu extends Gammage’s research. Writing about the journals of the early colonists, Pascoe wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As I read these early journals I came across repeated references to people building dams and wells, planting, irrigating and harvesting seed, preserving the surplus and storing it in houses, sheds or secure vessels, creating elaborate cemeteries and manipulating the landscape – none of which fitted the definition of hunter-gatherers.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>What are school children taught?</h2>
<p>I analysed <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17405904.2019.1637760">Australian history narratives</a> in secondary school textbooks from 1950 to the present. Up until the 2000s, these textbooks repeated the myth that Aboriginal peoples were nomadic hunter-gatherers. For example, a <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Their_Ghosts_May_be_Heard.html?id=47vuAAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">1984 text</a> said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Aborigines were nomads or wanderers. The wandered from place to place as they searched for food and water. But each tribe has its own special territory and members of the tribe did not move outside this area […] The Aborigines knew the places where they would be most likely to find water and things to eat and they visited each place in turn […] The Aborigines did not farm the land. They didn’t plant and harvest crops or herd animals.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although factually incorrect, it’s likely the authors of these accounts believed them to be accurate. </p>
<p>Over time, the textbooks I studied gradually improved as various errors and omissions were corrected. However, it took until the early 2000s before the myth of hunter-gathering was corrected. In 2005, one <a href="http://www.jaconline.com.au/sosealive/sahistory2/toc.html">text</a> for middle school students openly refuted the traditional narrative: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It has generally long been accepted that Australia’s Indigenous people were traditionally all nomadic […] Archaeological evidence recently discovered in Victoria seems to suggest, however, that at least some Indigenous people might have had fixed settlements. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320671/original/file-20200316-53523-3ozkm9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320671/original/file-20200316-53523-3ozkm9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320671/original/file-20200316-53523-3ozkm9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320671/original/file-20200316-53523-3ozkm9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320671/original/file-20200316-53523-3ozkm9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320671/original/file-20200316-53523-3ozkm9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320671/original/file-20200316-53523-3ozkm9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">SOSE Alive History p10.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This change seems to reflect the impetus to correct misinformation. Remarkably however, this change was short-lived. The publisher reverted to the traditional narrative of Aborigines as hunter-gatherers the very next year. This is the only example I found where textbooks reverted to a previous account that was known to be incorrect. The publisher’s comparable <a href="http://www.jaconline.com.au/humanitiesalive/ha3/">2006</a> text stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Collecting food and the natural resources needed to provide shelter and weapons typically took up most of the day […] Indigenous people took only the resources they needed to live. When a particular territory became too pressured by over-use, the people moved camp, allowing landscapes and resource stocks to be restored. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This pattern continued in subsequent years. For example, the same publisher’s <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-au/Retroactive+9+Australian+Curriculum+for+History+eBookPLUS+%28Online+Purchase%29-p-9780730338765">2012</a> textbook claimed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The arrival of the British began the process that saw the Gadigal lose their lands and their self-sufficient, hunting and gathering way of life.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The most recent textbooks omit this topic entirely, which means the widely-held myth of hunter-gatherering persists. </p>
<h2>Why aren’t our kids taught about Aboriginal farming?</h2>
<p>In Dark Emu, Pascoe explains that denying Aboriginal farming practices enabled the colonisers to reject Aboriginal peoples’ rights to land, shoring up their own claims to legitimacy instead. The invasion and colonisation of Australia was based on the self-justifying legal doctrine <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1468796806061077">terra nullius</a> — land belonging to no one. A key aspect of this claim was that Aboriginal peoples supposedly didn’t farm. </p>
<p>European political thinking in the 1800s linked “industriousness” with rights to land. For example, in 1758, Swiss jurist <a href="https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p70821/html/Text/ch05.html?referer=&page=12">Emmerich de Vattel</a> argued societies based on the “fruits of the chase” (rather than agricultural production) “may not complain if more industrious Nations should come and occupy part of their lands”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/captain-cook-discovered-australia-and-other-myths-from-old-school-text-books-128926">Captain Cook 'discovered' Australia, and other myths from old school text books</a>
</strong>
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<hr>
<p>This line of thought allowed the British colonists to reassure themselves the continent was there for the taking and justify their dispossession of Aboriginal peoples. </p>
<p>It’s difficult to understand why a contemporary publisher of school textbooks would publish misleading or incorrect material. However, we do know changes to secondary school history textbooks have occurred in the context of the “history wars” in Australia. </p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2009/november/1270703045/robert-manne/comment">history wars</a>” refers to the conservative backlash to the increasing democratisation of Australian history. </p>
<p>From the 1970s, <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-history-wars-paperback-softback">complexity was introduced to Australian histories</a>. The traditional tale of heroic, elite, white men was moderated by including the perspectives and voices of Aboriginal peoples, non-white immigrants and white women and workers. The “history wars” is an attempt to marginalise these voices and return to traditional narratives.</p>
<p>Textbooks record the dominant understandings and values of the society in which they are published. The intrusion of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/western-civilisation-history-teaching-has-moved-on-and-so-should-those-who-champion-it-97697">history wars</a> into the school curriculum reveal a struggle to define these dominant understandings. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/western-civilisation-history-teaching-has-moved-on-and-so-should-those-who-champion-it-97697">'Western civilisation'? History teaching has moved on, and so should those who champion it</a>
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<p><a href="https://www.macmillanihe.com/page/detail/Why-History-Matters/?K=9781137604071">History textbooks</a> are crucial to students’ understanding of our nation. In colonised nations such as Australia, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Conquest.html?id=STlYGwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">foundational narratives</a> are fashioned to establish the legitimacy of the nation. In Australia, it seems as if this fashioning requires Aboriginal peoples to be portrayed as hunter-gatherers. </p>
<p>Most of us who’ve been educated in Australia hold racist stereotypes of Aboriginal society as <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-our-kids-should-learn-aboriginal-history-24196">primitive and savage</a>. We’ve imbibed these stereotypes as part of our education. Resistance and refusal to acknowledge Aboriginal agricultural practices supports these stereotypes and leads to discriminatory attitudes which continue to impact Aboriginal Australians. Shattering these stereotypes is crucial to improving the lives of Aboriginal Australians. Our textbooks need to do better.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-our-kids-should-learn-aboriginal-history-24196">Why our kids should learn Aboriginal history </a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133066/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robyn Moore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
An analysis of Australian history narratives in secondary school textbooks shows many still repeat the myth that Aboriginal peoples were nomadic hunter-gatherers.
Robyn Moore, Social Researcher, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.