I'm not saying much different to other times really -------- some of it just reverberates with simple minds atm
Many Ozzies - non aboriginal - and aboriginals too just aren't aware of where Oz and aboriginals fit in the scale of humanity
Boofheads think that aboriginals aren't all that bright because they didn't 'advance' as did other human groups in the last 12000 years or so
well there's reason for that and there's also a huge question about what one values about such 'advancement' - is it really advancing or not?
firstly - the land of Oz was isolated. No chance of crosspollination of ideas.
Also - it was a very different land - many areas very dry, vastly different resources to places like Europe and Africa
there are questions as to why aboriginals didn't go big on agriculture - but, there's not a lot to go with in comparison to other places - the exception would be Millet - but, why didn't they settle and set up agriculture with Millet? ------- who knows.
The point is that we don't know why other humans DID settle and grow grains etc.
There is IMO, growing evidence that we did so because of beer - we knew about beer, and we knew what it took to make it - so, we stopped and set up barley farming etc - but, it's only theory - we don't actually know.
So, we can't know why aboriginals didn't begin agriculture in a large way.
Then to advancement ---------- well, as soon as we settled and created agricultural practice - we began large organised wars --- just coincidence? -- highly unlikely.
Not too many moons later - one can see that whilst beforehand, most tools were tools for survival, hunting, clothing, etc etc - but, after we began to 'advance' - we see weapons growing more popular - not tools that can hunt or cut wood - used as weapons - but, weapons that were made for one reason - to kill humans, to attack or defend from humans.
So, whilst the aboriginals in Oz just kept walking about mostly, hunting and gathering -
much of the planet began to band together - got kings etc, formed large armies, went and killed others, took their possessions and lands - then, moved to empires
then, we invented very soon after large organised wars - religious entanglement in war -
another 'advance' - meaning organised stupidity that engulfed entire societies from bottom to top
and we continue this to today --------------- to me - yeah, sure, we've done some great things technologically - but, now, we have the power to probably kill all of us in a world nuclear war - and perhaps we will
not a particularly grand kind of 'advancement' in my opinion ------ so much for leaving the hunter gatherer's life ----------- merely in several thousand years - to drive ourselves to extinction in a great big mushroom cloud
not a lot to be proud of really
Ozzies are lucky to live on a very old block of dirt - and be able to see the oldest rocks on earth - you can go up and sit on them - amazingly.
We are also lucky to have a very old living people - isolated from the rest of the place - the cost, was to not technologically advance - but, the benefit is that we see how they were and how they behaved - that's a plus, not a minus
but, whilst we get a look at a culture of humans - that might not have been the original groups - but, have been here an awful long time --
in Oz - compared to the rest of the place ------- humans are really, the new kid on the block.
Aboriginals - came to Sahul. They came early by boat. Amazing.
But, in the scale of other humans else where - they are new kids. On the scale of hominids - they are very very very new kids.
We - both aboriginals and white Oz - go about Oz and think that it's timeless and we are part of it -
well, it sure gives one a timeless feeling - that's not contested. But as far as us being old - including aboriginals ---------------- pffffffffffffffffft
give me your 75,000 years and I'll raise you 2 million - and more to come before that.
Old habitation sites in Oz pale into insignificance to the age of hominoid habitation sites in other places - that were visited, inhabited a long long long long long time before anyone got even close to Oz
we all came from somewhere else, a very long time ago. IMO, we do our ancestors a great injustice not to try to grasp some kind of understanding of the vastness of time that it has taken for us to get here - and to think that we are just so self important -
we are what we are - because we stand on the backs of billions of others who survived atrocious conditions and changes of a magnitude that are difficult to grasp
we are all on a journey - it always has been and it will be until the lights go out
