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Australian Aboriginals: Origins, Arrival & Culture

The Incredible Human Journey
BBC 2
Australia

Alice Roberts follows the trail of mankind's ancestors to Australia, questioning how they were able to cross the sea and reach the Outback thousands of years before they made it to Europe. Along the way, she finds revealing evidence of this journey in the debris of a volcano in India, examines the DNA of Malaysian tribes and travels deep into the Asian rainforests in search of the first cavemen of Borneo

Today on BBC 2 from 9:30pm to 10:30pm

http://www.itv.com/listings/
 
Australian Aborigines Initially Arrived Via South Asia
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 214628.htm

ScienceDaily (July 23, 2009) — Genetic research indicates that Australian Aborigines initially arrived via south Asia. Researchers have found telltale mutations in modern-day Indian populations that are exclusively shared by Aborigines.

Dr Raghavendra Rao worked with a team of researchers from the Anthropological Survey of India to sequence 966 complete mitochondrial DNA genomes from Indian 'relic populations'. He said, "Mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from the mother and so allows us to accurately trace ancestry. We found certain mutations in the DNA sequences of the Indian tribes we sampled that are specific to Australian Aborigines. This shared ancestry suggests that the Aborigine population migrated to Australia via the so-called 'Southern Route'".

The 'Southern Route' dispersal of modern humans suggests movement of a group of hunter-gatherers from the Horn of Africa, across the mouth of the Red Sea into Arabia and southern Asia at least 50 thousand years ago. Subsequently, the modern human populations expanded rapidly along the coastlines of southern Asia, southeastern Asia and Indonesia to arrive in Australia at least 45 thousand years ago. The genetic evidence of this dispersal from the work of Rao and his colleagues is supported by archeological evidence of human occupation in the Lake Mungo area of Australia dated to approximately the same time period.

Discussing the implications of the research, Rao said, "Human evolution is usually understood in terms of millions of years. This direct DNA evidence indicates that the emergence of 'anatomically modern' humans in Africa and the spread of these humans to other parts of the world happened only fifty thousand or so years ago. In this respect, populations in the Indian subcontinent harbor DNA footprints of the earliest expansion out of Africa. Understanding human evolution helps us to understand the biological and cultural expressions of these people, with far reaching implications for human welfare."
 
wow I'm shocked to see the amount of discussions on race concerning Australian Aboriginals.

My first experience with them was Croc Dundee :D But later watching interviews and documentaries concerning actual cave art and didgeridoo playing, following a modern day Aboriginal boy that was schooled at UN and then returned to practice with his father their old ways.

They made me think about our very own Native American indians and how much similar they looked.

When I think of differences of skin color and race I am more drawn to their environment in which they live. If you consider any animal whom has been placed into a different environment it was born to, they will adapt and sometimes even evolve over reproduction things that can help them live better in the environment that they live. Some animals also change colors according to their food balance and intake.

I feel that anyone that looks at another person and says your different than myself, is sadly mistaken. We are all born with the same genetic make up and carry the same working parts. The only difference is our personalities which make us unique.

:D

Perhaps race and color has nothing to do with anything other then the environment in which they live.

Perhaps aboriginals have a slightly different skin color because of the red dirt landscapes, where native americans are more light skinned because of for the most part the tree cover where they live. If they lived on the plains you would also find them more darker skinned.

I always pondered to myself that what if this human experiment really was a vast amount of slaves created from aliens and put on this planet to help the alien races construct great structures. Later when the aliens left this planet, they also left its created slaves behind to breed and reproduce. Over the thousands and Thousands of years perhaps we've lost and forgotten our true purpose.

This would be interesting indeed but kind of border lines star gate. In which this opinion was formed and constructed
 
Aboriginals

Hello Jubecrew,

Australia is an ancient land, some land being prior to fossils... I learnt this when staying there with a friend, Felicity.
As to the similarity or dis-similarity of the people on this amazing planet, I have been taught, and it sits very well with me ethically as well as spiritually, that we all are one entity... this is the mystery teaching of Kabbalah which until the last decade or so was kept secret... it is strongly opposed by many mainstream religions which focus on difference...
The original 'man', Adam Ha Rishon and Eden, which was prior to the existence of this material world, existed in spirit... it comprises two spiritual aspects- the will to bestow and the will to receive- thought of as masculine and feminine- which I believe Felicity spoke of is response to one of your other postings...
So what we do to others thinking it won't impact on us- like exploitation of the third world, all prejudice, reflects the base Ego and it's desires for itself, and nothing to do with spirituality.
Now is the time to recognise the interconnection between all and most importantly Nature...
Good luck and keep thinking outside the square...if you want to know more about the Free No obligation Kabbalah Course, check out http://www.kabbalah.info

Ava :idea: [/url]
 
From memory Australia Dreaming, 40,000 Years Of Australian History documents some of the Aboriginal stories about where they came from and how they came, told by the people themselves. Its a very interesting book and was regarded as the first real Aboriginal history book.

http://www.amazon.com/Australian-Dreami ... 1741102588
 
Re: Aboriginals

avakana said:
Hello Jubecrew,

Australia is an ancient land, some land being prior to fossils... I learnt this when staying there with a friend, Felicity.
As to the similarity or dis-similarity of the people on this amazing planet, I have been taught, and it sits very well with me ethically as well as spiritually, that we all are one entity... this is the mystery teaching of Kabbalah which until the last decade or so was kept secret... it is strongly opposed by many mainstream religions which focus on difference...
The original 'man', Adam Ha Rishon and Eden, which was prior to the existence of this material world, existed in spirit... it comprises two spiritual aspects- the will to bestow and the will to receive- thought of as masculine and feminine- which I believe Felicity spoke of is response to one of your other postings...
So what we do to others thinking it won't impact on us- like exploitation of the third world, all prejudice, reflects the base Ego and it's desires for itself, and nothing to do with spirituality.
Now is the time to recognise the interconnection between all and most importantly Nature...
Good luck and keep thinking outside the square...if you want to know more about the Free No obligation Kabbalah Course, check out http://www.kabbalah.info

Ava :idea: [/url]

I really like this train of thought plain and try daily to eminent it from the core of my being. Yes it's easy to get caught up on the thoughts of the ego, especially when you all of a sudden find yourself after some time identifying with them.

I will especially be enjoying the link and will read up as much as I can regarding the Kabbalah. Thanks for taking the time to read my post as well as respond to it :D
 
Hello All,

As a matter of interest my family had a property which had a sacred site in the Arid lands of Australia... though I am not aboriginal... sadly it passed from our hands due to a tragic series of events after 150 years...

The site predated the Aboriginal Community that occupied this territory at the period of white settlement, so making it very hard to get it protected- I finally succeeded though only getting an ugly cage over the most vulnerable area... the problem being that it was another dreaming... the petroglyphs on the rock faces are some of the oldest known, being dated at approximately 44,000 years old and form a trail joining several springs over many kilometres...

The site was removed from the "Tourist Trail" due to the increased damage through vandalism and scavenging. You can walk for days following ancient emu tracks carved in the rock, there are men's and women's places, where you can feel the energy buzzing. Our family station was called Ketchowla and the petroglyphs are to be found through the area, others are carvings of Kangaroos, hands, etc.

Hoping this is of some interest.... though all things exist and continue to exist and there are portals through which we travel.

Felicity
 
I watched a program on the tele that had to do with the cave art you speak of and how there are drawings of what looked to me like Aliens and UFO's coming from above !

It was very interesting
 
Felicity said:
Hello All,

As a matter of interest my family had a property which had a sacred site in the Arid lands of Australia... though I am not aboriginal... sadly it passed from our hands due to a tragic series of events after 150 years...

The site predated the Aboriginal Community that occupied this territory at the period of white settlement, so making it very hard to get it protected- I finally succeeded though only getting an ugly cage over the most vulnerable area... the problem being that it was another dreaming... the petroglyphs on the rock faces are some of the oldest known, being dated at approximately 44,000 years old and form a trail joining several springs over many kilometres...

The site was removed from the "Tourist Trail" due to the increased damage through vandalism and scavenging. You can walk for days following ancient emu tracks carved in the rock, there are men's and women's places, where you can feel the energy buzzing. Our family station was called Ketchowla and the petroglyphs are to be found through the area, others are carvings of Kangaroos, hands, etc.

Hoping this is of some interest.... though all things exist and continue to exist and there are portals through which we travel.

Felicity
Here's a link to the site. Amazing what you can find online these days with just a single obscure term to go on. I'll be rolling out there this long weekend to check the site out. Apparently I was born at Hallett. Be a kind of homecoming. There's a line of these petroglyph sites that starts down in the Mt Lofty Ranges south of Adelaide and peters out somewhere out the north-east of Alice. That's one hell of a dreaming line. Fascinating places to be near. The one at Chambers Gorge always draws me back. Lots of Adnyamathanha lore in the area. I had always thought them to be at least 10,000 years old, and the locals at Nepabunna claim the original significance of them, even who created them, is long lost, beyond it being a youth initiation site. I asked a 'dowser' who was claiming to be able to gain information by swinging a pendulum above the image to date the photo - and he said about 1000 years old. Which is completely wrong. I took the picture only 6 months before. ;)
 
There are far too many South Australians here! Hi Neighbors! 8) 8)
 
Before Galileo: Indigenous perspectives on Astronomy in the Australian skies

Well worth a look. I was up at a place called Wilkawillina Gorge last week. The spread of the skies is immense out there. I try to get the cosmic perspective every few months. This program impresses me because it avails newcomers of the depth of Aboriginal understanding of the natural world within and beneath the myths of their cultures. I've half a mind to take a degree in Astronomy combining with my current work in Indigenous education. Fascinating stuff.

There's also an Aboriginal Astronomy group on Facebook, called "Aboriginal Skies"

BTW, Felicity, I never did find Ketchowla, though not through lack of effort. My wife's Hyundai Excel just couldn't hack the tracks. I had to turn around but I had some interesting Fortean experiences during the trip anyway.
 
sunsplash said:
There are far too many South Australians here! Hi Neighbors! 8) 8)
I quite agree.

Statistically, at least one of you must be a serial killer.
 
Aboriginal Stonehenge: Stargazing in ancient Australia
By Stephanie Hegarty, BBC World Service

An egg-shaped ring of standing stones in Australia could prove to be older than Britain's Stonehenge - and it may show that ancient Aboriginal cultures had a deep understanding of the movements of the stars.
Fifty metres wide and containing more than 100 basalt boulders, the site of Wurdi Youang in Victoria was noted by European settlers two centuries ago, and charted by archaeologists in 1977, but only now is its purpose being rediscovered.

It is thought the site was built by the Wadda Wurrung people - the traditional inhabitants of the area. All understanding of the rocks' significance was lost, however, when traditional language and practices were banned at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Now a team of archaeologists, astronomers and Aboriginal advisers is reclaiming that knowledge.

They have discovered that waist-high boulders at the tip of the egg-shaped point along the ring to the position on the horizon where the sun sets at the summer and winter solstice - the longest and shortest day of the year.

The axis from top to bottom points towards the equinox - when the length of day equals night.
At Stonehenge, the sun aligns instead with gaps in the stones on these key dates in the solar calendar.

The probability that layout of Wurdi Youang is a coincidence is miniscule, argues Ray Norris, a British astrophysicist at Australia's national science agency, who is leading the investigation.
Prof Norris and his Aboriginal partners used Nasa technology to measure the position of each rock in relation to the sun, and to demonstrate the connection with the solstices and equinox.
"It's truly special because a lot of people don't take account of Aboriginal science," says Reg Abrahams, an Aboriginal adviser working with Prof Norris.

As happened with Stonehenge, the discovery could change the way people view early societies. It is only recently that it has been demonstrated that Aboriginal societies could count beyond five or six.

"This is the first time we have been able to show that, as well as being interested in the position of the sun, they were making astronomical measurements," says Prof Norris, who is also a faculty member at the School of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney.

Other studies by Prof Norris, of Aboriginal songs and stories, have also indicated a clear understanding of the movements of the sun, moon and stars.
Indigenous customs vary among groups across Australia, but one story that appears in many local traditions is the tale of a great emu that sits in the sky.
The emu, which can be seen in the southern hemisphere during April and May, is a shape made by the dark patches of the Milky Way.
Its appearance coincides with laying season of the wild emu and for the storytellers it is a sign to start collecting eggs.

Prompted by historian Hugh Cairns, Prof Norris examined and photographed an emu-shaped rock carving in Kuring-Gai Chase National Park, near Sydney, which cleverly mirrors the celestial animal-like shape.
During the southern autumn, the constellation is positioned above the rock with the bird shape almost perfectly reflected by the engraving.

Other stories show more complex, intellectual understanding of the universe.
In the case of the solar eclipse, the Walpiri people in the Northern Territory tell the story of a sun-woman who pursues a moon-man. When she catches him the two become husband and wife together causing a solar eclipse.
The idea that the solar eclipse is caused by the moon moving in front of the sun is something only widely accepted by western scientists in the 16th Century.
"This is not about balls of flames going out, it's about one body moving in front of the other," says Prof Norris. "That is a giant intellectual leap."
Since solar eclipses are rare, the survival of this story, passed down through generations, also shows a remarkable continuity of learning.

These discoveries play a crucial role in helping Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians understand just how intellectually advanced their ancient society was.
"This discovery has huge significance for understanding the amazing ability of this culture that is maligned," says Janet Mooney, head of Indigenous Australian Studies at Sydney University.
"It makes not only me, as an Aboriginal person, but a lot of Aboriginal people around Australia very proud."
She hopes to be able to tell her students of an aboriginal site more ancient than Stonehenge.

Until it is dated however, Wurdi Youang could be anywhere from 200 to 20,000 years old.
Aboriginal stone structures in the region have a vast age range and are very difficult to date. Many of the smaller rock sites that have been found, such as shelters and cooking areas, have been moved over time by natural and human forces.

But given the size of the stones at Wurdi Youang and how deeply they are entrenched in the ground it is more likely they have been there for thousands of years, archaeologists say.
Dating requires archaeologists to test the soil under the rocks to see when it was last exposed to sunlight and the team hope to be able to do this in the next few months.

But Prof Norris believes he has already proven the real value of the stone circle.
"It is interesting to know how far back people were doing astronomy, if it is 5,000 years old it would predate Stonehenge," he says.
"But it is not quite as interesting to my mind as whether the Aboriginal people were doing real astronomy before British contact. That really tells us a lot about what kind of culture it is."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15098959
 
Australia ghost gum trees in Alice Springs 'arson attack'
[Video: The BBC's Phil Mercer looks at the ghost gum trees, whose white bark glows in the moonlight]

Two ghost gum trees made famous by the work of Australian Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira have been found burnt.
Officials in the town of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory say they believe the fire was started deliberately.
The trees had been due to be added to a national heritage register.

Indigenous leaders say that the burning of the trees is a desecration - they are regarded as living spirits in indigenous culture.
Tribal elder Baydon Williams said the loss of such a revered site was "heartbreaking".
"Those two trees symbolised a lot of sacred areas and songlines and marking of boundaries of different skin groups and different clans," Mr Williams said.
Songlines are pathways that cross Australia's interior recording details of the landscape and stories told by indigenous people about creation.
"To see the trees and the way it was burned, I could feel the land, the soil around it, the area is angry and it is sad," Mr Williams added.

Officials say that work had recently been carried out to protect the trees from fire and to allow moisture to get to their roots.
The Northern Territory's Minister for Indigenous Advancement Alison Anderson called the discovery "really, really sad".
"It's the two trees that brought this man to prominence and brought the Northern Territory and Central Australia to prominence and put us on the world map," Ms Anderson said.

The trees feature in many of Namatjira's paintings, such as Twin Ghosts.
Art writer Susan McCulloch told the Sydney Morning Herald that the destruction of the trees was "appalling and a tragic act of cultural vandalism".

-----------------
Albert Namatjira

Born at Hermannsburg in Australia's Northern Territory in 1902
Introduced to Western-style painting by artists such as Rex Battarbee
Held first solo exhibition in 1938
Famous for his depictions of the central Australian landscape
Died in 1959
------------------

(More on Albert Namatjira and his work on page.)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20907588
 
Study shows 'gene flow' from India to Australia 4000 years ago
Indian people may have arrived on Australian shores about 4000 years before Europeans colonised the continent, scientists report.

Modern humans are thought to have arrived down under about 40,000 years ago, having made their way out of Africa around the coast of the Arabian Peninsula and India to Australia.

Most scientists believed these ancestors of modern Aborigines remained isolated from other populations until Europeans appeared in the late 18th century.

But a genetic analysis of more than 300 Aborigines, Indians and people from Papua New Guinea and islands of south-east Asia has found a "significant gene flow" from India to Australia about 4230 years, or 141 generations, ago.
Advertisement

The study's lead researcher, Irina Pugach, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, said the arrival of these people during the Holocene coincided with many changes in Australia's archaeological record.

"[There was] a sudden change in plant processing and stone tool technologies, with microliths appearing for the first time, and the first appearance of the dingo in the fossil record," said Dr Pugach.

"Since we detect inflow of genes from India into Australia at around the same time, it is likely that these changes were related to this migration," she said.

The researchers said it was possible Indian ancestry came to Australia indirectly, through south-east Asian populations who had trade links with northern Australia and Indonesia.

But the analysis found no evidence of this scenario in the genes of the south-east Asian populations.

The study also found a common origin between Aboriginal Australians, New Guinea populations and the Mamanwa – a Negrito group from the Philippines. The researchers estimate these groups split from each other about 36,000 years ago.

A study co-author, Mark Stoneking, said this finding supported the view that these populations were the descendants of an early "southern route" migration out of Africa.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-te ... z2I0uyrA7g
 
The Bradshaw Figures from NW Australia are interesting because they are co-located with the famous Wandjina style, yet the local Luritjari inhabitants disclaim them as "rubbish art" not of their people's making. They've been dated to at around 2000yo. Who made them? Is there conspiracy among the Luritjari to cover secret sacred knowledge, or are they sincere and either know and don't want to say or don't know and don't care? The Wandjina figures are endemic to the area, and significant to the occupant culture. The layers of occupation of Australian land is far more complex, I suspect, than anybody currently knows. Zilch5's above Indian visitation is telling in this respect. This excites me as an amateur archeologist and Fortean speculator. It sparks the imagination. Possibilities for future research are rife.
Where-are-you-Cobber-199x300.jpg



Off-topic, at this link Les Hiddins gives us a bit of insight into the art and then has a funny anecdote about a camping experience near the site.

Source: http://bushtuckerman.com.au/where-are-you-cobber/
 
The connection of these paintings to the Boab tree is most interesting:

Endemic to Australia, boab occurs in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and east into the Northern Territory. It is the only baobab to occur in Australia, the others being native to Madagascar (six species) and mainland Africa and the Arabian Peninsula (two species).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adansonia_gregorii

...and from my earlier post:

Modern humans are thought to have arrived down under about 40,000 years ago, having made their way out of Africa around the coast of the Arabian Peninsula and India to Australia.

So it is entirely possible that the earliest settlers here brought both this style of rock art and the boab tree with them!
 
I seem to recall Les mentioning the boab and the Bradshaws on one of his Bush Tucker Man programmes.

The other curious thing, as I recall, is that the Aboriginal creation myth for the boab is rather similar to the one from Africa.
 
Long article:

The day the Pintupi Nine entered the modern world
By Alana Mahony Kiwirrkura
_79899864_rexfeatures_raod_4325345a.jpg


In 1984 a group of Australian Aboriginal people living a traditional nomadic life were encountered in the heart of the Gibson desert in Western Australia. They had been unaware of the arrival of Europeans on the continent, let alone cars - or even clothes.
If you want to know how Australian Aboriginal peoples lived for 40,000 years, just ask Yukultji. She stepped into the 20th Century just 30 years ago. She is the youngest member of the Pintupi Nine, the last family of nomads to roam the territory around Lake Mackay, a vast glistening salt lake spanning 3,500 sq km (1,350 sq miles) between the Gibson and Great Sandy deserts of Western Australia.

"When I was young I would play on the sand dune and when we saw the old people returning to camp we would go back and see what food they had brought with them. After we ate we'd go to sleep. No blanket, we would sleep on the ground," says Yukultji.
"Then we would go to another waterhole and make another camp."

Before 1984, the Pintupi Nine lived just as their ancestors had done. Waterholes in this area are often 40km (25 miles) apart or more, and every day was spent walking in the relentless heat from one to another. "Sometimes there was no water, so we would hunt for goanna," says Yukultji. The blood of these monitor lizards provided vital moisture when a water soak was dry.

_79828671_624xyukultji,-takeria-and-y.jpg

The three sisters Yukultji, Takariya and Yalti

The discovery of the group caused a media sensation, but headlines referring to the "lost tribe" annoyed them - they weren't lost, they insist, just separated from their relatives, and other members of the Pintupi clan.
The Nine consisted of two sisters and their seven teenage children - four brothers and three sisters, who shared one father. So how had they become so isolated?

In the 1950s the British began conducting Blue Streak Missile tests over the Western Desert region, and the Australian government decided to "round up" the desert nomads and move them into settlements. All of the Pintupi were taken away apart from this one family, which was overlooked. From then on, suddenly alone in the desert, they saw very few signs of anyone else's existence.
Yukultji remembers seeing aircraft when she was very young. "The plane would fly over and we would hide in the tree. We would see the wings of the plane and we would get frightened. We thought it was the devil and so we kept hiding under the tree. When the plane had passed we would climb down from the tree."
Her older sister, Takariya, remembers coming across a plane that had crashed. "We found some rope in it and we tied it around our waist. We didn't know it was rope. We would tie it around our waist so that we could hang our goannas from it," she says.

Their father may have been aware of the settlements - the children remember him describing what must have been a sheep, but when they asked to be taken to see such a strange thing, he refused.
In the 60s and 70s Aboriginal people were allowed to move back to their land, but Kiwirrkurra community, where the Pintupi live, was only built in 1984, when a borehole was sunk there for the first time. It is the most remote community in Australia - a two-day, 700km (440-mile) drive from Alice Springs along a bright red sand track lined by Spinifex grasses, with an occasional cluster of Mulga trees.

etc...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30500591
 
When I was in high school (a very academic public high school in a wealthy small town that saw itself competing with the best private prep schools) we were taught that the Australian Aborigines "are the very darkest members of the White race."

I understand that that view is highly frowned upon today.


Archaic Caucasoid was the term.
 
Indigenous Australians most ancient civilisation on Earth, extensive DNA study confirms
Chiara Palazzo Press Association
23 September 2016 • 11:39pm

The first extensive study of Indigenous Australians' DNA dates their origin to more than 50,000 years ago, backing the claim that they are the most ancient continuous civilisation on Earth.
Scientists used the genetic traces of the mysterious early humans that are left in the DNA of modern populations in Papua New Guinea and Australia to recontruct their journey from Africa around 72,000 years ago.
Experts disagree on whether present-day non-African people are descended from explorers who left Africa in a single exodus or a series of distinct waves of travelling migrants.

The new study supports the single migration hypothesis. It indicates that Australian aboriginal and Papuan people both originated from the same out-of Africa migration event some 72,000 years ago, along with ancestors of all other non-African populations alive today.
Tracing the Papuan and Australian groups' progress showed that around 50,000 years ago they reached Sahul - a prehistoric supercontinent that once united New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania before they were separated by rising sea levels.

According to the study, the findings of which feature in one of four major human origins papers published in Nature this week, Aboriginal Australians and Papuans met and interbred with the unknown race of humans, who may have had links with Siberian Denisovans, as they migrated out of Africa.

Like the Neanderthals, the Denisovans were a distinct sub-species of the human family that has been extinct for many thousands of years.

According to the study the unknown extinct relative would have contributed about four per cent to the Indigenous Australian genome. Previously, scientists found that pre-historic interbreeding left non-Africans with a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA (ranging somewhere between one and six per cent).

Study leader Professor Eske Willerslev, from Cambridge University, said: "We don't know who these people were, but they were a distant relative of Denisovans, and the Papuan/Australian ancestors probably encountered them close to Sahul."

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...ns-most-ancient-civilisation-on-earth-extens/

Map on page shows sea level changes around Australia after the ice ages.
 
Aboriginal Stonehenge: Stargazing in ancient Australia
By Stephanie Hegarty, BBC World Service

An egg-shaped ring of standing stones in Australia could prove to be older than Britain's Stonehenge - and it may show that ancient Aboriginal cultures had a deep understanding of the movements of the stars.
Fifty metres wide and containing more than 100 basalt boulders, the site of Wurdi Youang in Victoria was noted by European settlers two centuries ago, and charted by archaeologists in 1977, but only now is its purpose being rediscovered.

It is thought the site was built by the Wadda Wurrung people - the traditional inhabitants of the area. All understanding of the rocks' significance was lost, however, when traditional language and practices were banned at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Now a team of archaeologists, astronomers and Aboriginal advisers is reclaiming that knowledge.

They have discovered that waist-high boulders at the tip of the egg-shaped point along the ring to the position on the horizon where the sun sets at the summer and winter solstice - the longest and shortest day of the year.

The axis from top to bottom points towards the equinox - when the length of day equals night.
At Stonehenge, the sun aligns instead with gaps in the stones on these key dates in the solar calendar.

The probability that layout of Wurdi Youang is a coincidence is miniscule, argues Ray Norris, a British astrophysicist at Australia's national science agency, who is leading the investigation.
Prof Norris and his Aboriginal partners used Nasa technology to measure the position of each rock in relation to the sun, and to demonstrate the connection with the solstices and equinox.
"It's truly special because a lot of people don't take account of Aboriginal science," says Reg Abrahams, an Aboriginal adviser working with Prof Norris.

As happened with Stonehenge, the discovery could change the way people view early societies. It is only recently that it has been demonstrated that Aboriginal societies could count beyond five or six.

"This is the first time we have been able to show that, as well as being interested in the position of the sun, they were making astronomical measurements," says Prof Norris, who is also a faculty member at the School of Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney.

Other studies by Prof Norris, of Aboriginal songs and stories, have also indicated a clear understanding of the movements of the sun, moon and stars.
Indigenous customs vary among groups across Australia, but one story that appears in many local traditions is the tale of a great emu that sits in the sky.
The emu, which can be seen in the southern hemisphere during April and May, is a shape made by the dark patches of the Milky Way.
Its appearance coincides with laying season of the wild emu and for the storytellers it is a sign to start collecting eggs.

Prompted by historian Hugh Cairns, Prof Norris examined and photographed an emu-shaped rock carving in Kuring-Gai Chase National Park, near Sydney, which cleverly mirrors the celestial animal-like shape.
During the southern autumn, the constellation is positioned above the rock with the bird shape almost perfectly reflected by the engraving.

Other stories show more complex, intellectual understanding of the universe.
In the case of the solar eclipse, the Walpiri people in the Northern Territory tell the story of a sun-woman who pursues a moon-man. When she catches him the two become husband and wife together causing a solar eclipse.
The idea that the solar eclipse is caused by the moon moving in front of the sun is something only widely accepted by western scientists in the 16th Century.
"This is not about balls of flames going out, it's about one body moving in front of the other," says Prof Norris. "That is a giant intellectual leap."
Since solar eclipses are rare, the survival of this story, passed down through generations, also shows a remarkable continuity of learning.

These discoveries play a crucial role in helping Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians understand just how intellectually advanced their ancient society was.
"This discovery has huge significance for understanding the amazing ability of this culture that is maligned," says Janet Mooney, head of Indigenous Australian Studies at Sydney University.
"It makes not only me, as an Aboriginal person, but a lot of Aboriginal people around Australia very proud."
She hopes to be able to tell her students of an aboriginal site more ancient than Stonehenge.

Until it is dated however, Wurdi Youang could be anywhere from 200 to 20,000 years old.
Aboriginal stone structures in the region have a vast age range and are very difficult to date. Many of the smaller rock sites that have been found, such as shelters and cooking areas, have been moved over time by natural and human forces.

But given the size of the stones at Wurdi Youang and how deeply they are entrenched in the ground it is more likely they have been there for thousands of years, archaeologists say.
Dating requires archaeologists to test the soil under the rocks to see when it was last exposed to sunlight and the team hope to be able to do this in the next few months.

But Prof Norris believes he has already proven the real value of the stone circle.
"It is interesting to know how far back people were doing astronomy, if it is 5,000 years old it would predate Stonehenge," he says.
"But it is not quite as interesting to my mind as whether the Aboriginal people were doing real astronomy before British contact. That really tells us a lot about what kind of culture it is."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15098959
11,000 years of age now suggested.

The world's oldest observatory? How Aboriginal astronomy provides clues to ancient life
Lateline
By Hamish Fitzsimmons
Updated about 9 hours ago

Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek.


Video: Dreamtime astronomy and the ancient observatory that could rewrite history (Lateline)
Map: VIC
An ancient Aboriginal site at a secret location in the Victorian bush could be the oldest astronomical observatory in the world, pre-dating Stonehenge and even the Great Pyramids of Giza.

Key points:
  • Researchers say site could date back more than 11,000 years
  • Believe stone arrangement mapped out the movements of the sun
  • Site could also disprove notion that first Australians were uniformly nomadic hunter-gatherers


Scientists studying the Wurdi Youang stone arrangement say it could date back more than 11,000 years and provide clues into the origins of agriculture.

Duane Hamacher, a leader in the study of Indigenous astronomy, has been working with Aboriginal elders at the site to reconstruct their knowledge of the stars and planets.

"Some academics have referred to this stone arrangement here as Australia's version of Stonehenge," Dr Hamacher said.

"I think the question we might have to ask is: is Stonehenge Britain's version of Wurdi Youang? Because this could be much, much older."

If the site is more than 7,000 years old, it will rewrite history and further disprove the notion that first Australians were uniformly nomadic hunter-gatherers.

Photo: These rocks are thought to have once marked the sun's journey throughout the year. (ABC: Hamish Fitzsimmons)


Scientists believe the arrangement of stones was able to map out the movements of the sun throughout the year.

Custodian Reg Abrahams said the region around the observatory seemed to have once had semi-permanent villages with evidence of early fishing and farming practices.

"If you're going to have a stone arrangement where you mark off the seasons throughout the year with the solstices and equinoxes, it kind of makes sense if you're at least most of the year in one specific location to do that," he said.

"So if that's the case, it would make sense if you're near permanent food and water sources."

He said there were areas where eel traps would have been set up and even signs of "gilgies", or terraces used in farming.

"You see a lot of agricultural and aquacultural practices, so evidence of this agriculture may go back tens of thousands of years, pre-dating what anthropologists commonly think of as the dawn of agriculture which is about 11,000 years ago in Mesopotamia," he said.

Photo: Tchingal is the emu that can be seen in the Milky Way. (Supplied: Barnaby Norris)


Dr Hamacher said early first Australians had complex knowledge systems.

"They understand very well the motions of the sun, the moon, the planets and the stars throughout the year and over longer periods of time," he said.

"White Australians don't generally recognise that the history of colonialism has erased that, so what we're doing is helping the communities piece that information back together by working with communities."

Traditional owners like Judy Dalton-Walsh say research into the site and Aboriginal astronomy means that the knowledge can continue to be passed on.

"We learnt at school the European names for the stars and the Milky Way and it's also good to know that we traditionally had a name for them as well. Our gods were up there in the stars," she said.
 
Good stuff Skinny!

As a kid living at Bondi, a lot of the slabs of sandstone near the points had very large petroglyphs worked into them, especially the South head between Bondi and Tamaramma. There were, predictably, plenty of fish - shark, dolphin &c.,with an occasional seal. I do remember an emu carving, layed out much like this though, which at the time I thought unusual because the emu then was more an outback animal. The only evidence that I'd seen of an emu was an emu's egg on a meat ants nest out Dural way, when Dural was still bush.

Fortunately, nearly all those rock carvings at Bondi are covered over with tough Kikuyu grass, preserving them for a later generation of people - who'd've thought that the old diggers chucking their garden scraps on what they considered wasteland would do posterity a favour.
 
Hi Mungo. I stayed at Dural caravan park back in 2001. It was the only area in Sydney I could afford at the time. Long way out, but lovely surrounds.

The evidence of the old society is everywhere. It is one of life's delights to stumble across something ancient and important you'd passed a dozen times in complete ignorance of its existence. A campground called Dingley Dell in the FRNP is the very first place I set foot on that venerated Outback landscape as an 11 year old.

The Old People were long gone from the plains and hills, although none of us knew that we were sharing classrooms with their descendants. Even then, I sensed strongly the prior occupancy, imagining large bands of unclothed people meandering across the hills, spears and coolamons in hand. Imagination still plays a role in drawing me back about 3 times a year. So last year I went back to that campground, now well-developed for tourists with caravan sites and fire pits numbered and neatly ordered. The bullrushes are no longer there - I don't know why. We got into trouble with Mum for getting the seed fibres all through our clothes playing hide and seek through those creekbeds.

Anyway, last year I'd noticed that an archaic petroglyph site had been marked out on a map I found, right next to the campground. I went in scouting for about ten minutes and found some of the most unique carvings I've ever seen.

This info board claims tens of thousands of years of existence, which is possible, and dating I'd trusted from TL samples of the layers of sheen. However, an associate on another website dowsed my photographs and said the markings were about 1000 years old, so I'm open to that interpretation too. Tbh, I don't need distance (timewise) to impress me about their significance. There's more to life than superlatives. The glyphs I encountered at DD spoke of something more personal to their creator. They were small, yet the detail was astonishing - little paw prints of some long gone species, emboldened by the late winter lichen. I'll upload some of my photos later.

The massive glyph gallery out at Marlawadhana (Chambers Gorge) is impressive, but more ceremonial in its symbology - like these. Witness this variety of symbols, perhaps 1000 years old, perhaps far older designating the site of the Adnyamathanha teenage boys' initiation stage - smoking ceremonies were carried on right in the creek bed, then the boys were left to their own devices for another few years dreading the subincision ceremonies to come, further out near Leigh Creek where the red ochre oozes and wells from the underworld and the Law is hard and strong and deadly. Where the boys become men through painful and terrifying rites of passage that startle their very consciousness into an awakening of responsibility beyond family and totems into Tjukurrpa - secret/sacred knowledge - deep dreaming. The ceremonies are ended, the songs a mere whisper from behind the mountain, somewhere else now. It used to sadden me, but I now accept that all migrations are mere waves of occupation. Our own society is transient too. We all pass. Inevitability imposes itself onto our paradigm, some of us anyway.



Travel back with me from the present
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...to the colonial times
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...to the pre-colonial times
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... to the first people's times
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and the ediacharan times.
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Milky-Way-Australia.jpg



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What will we leave behind? How will future generations relate to our relatively meager material traces? What do those meager material possessions mean to us in the here and now anyway? Much less, I suspect, than the material impressions the Old People left behind meant to them.
 
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I'm sorry you had a negative impression of Australia, but when I hear the words "extreme racism", I think of Apartheid and Nazism, and that is just not a fair comparison.
Yes, it is, from a historical context our prior generations were up to their necks in exactly the same activities as those other bullies, with the goal of complete racial extermination. And you forgot Slavery. Those elements of Australian social polity are now thankfully mitigated, but the effects linger in dreadful ways in the lives of the remnant communities. You'd need to ask them about it though - about their impression of Australia.
 
Man stumbles on 49,000-year-old aboriginal shelter after getting caught sho[r]t in the outback
Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney
3 November 2016 • 7:18pm

An ancient rock shelter in outback Australia which shows the Aborigines settled the continent’s interior about 49,000 years ago – far earlier than previously thought - was accidentally discovered by a local elder who stopped his car to go to the toilet in a remote gorge.

The room-like shelter, which housed remnants of animal bones, egg shells and stone axes and blades, has been heralded by archaeologists as a ground-breaking discovery which contained some of the clearest evidence that humans lived alongside and hunted megafauna, the giant animals which roamed the planet after the dinosaurs.

Dating of the 4,300 artefacts and 200 bone fragments indicated that the Aboriginal population inhabited the country’s dry interior up to 46,000 to 49,000 years ago, some 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Giles Hamm, a researcher from La Trobe University, said the shelter was discovered by Aboriginal elder Clifford Coulthard when “nature called” while the pair were surveying gorges in the Flinders Rangers, about 350 miles north of the city of Adelaide.
"A man getting out of the car to go to the toilet led to the discovery of one of the most important sites in Australian pre-history," Mr Hamm said.
"Nature called and Cliff walked up this creek bed into this gorge and found this amazing spring surrounded by rock art.”

Mr Coulthard, from the local Adnyamathanha people, said he believed "the spirits showed me the road" to the shelter, called Warratyi.
“A lot of the old people said that our people were here a long time,” he said.

Mr Hamm said the pair entered the shelter and immediately noticed a blackened roof which indicated human activity.
"Immediately when we saw that we thought, 'Wow, that's people lighting fires inside that rock shelter, that's human activity'," he said.
The animal remnants included bones from the Diprotodon optatum, an extinct giant wombat-like marsupial, and egg shells from a large ancient flightless bird.

Professor Gavin Prideaux, from Flinders University, said there was a steep climb to the rock shelter which indicated that humans must have brought the bones and shells from megafauna to eat there.
“None of us can imagine a way a Diprotodon could have scaled the cliff up to that cave,” he said.
“Humans evidently lived alongside these animals and hunted them, so the idea that there wasn’t any interaction between people and these animals is put to bed now by the laboratory evidence.”

The shelter, first excavated from 2011 to 2014, is believed to be the oldest occupied site in inland Australia, though other sites near the coast are also believed to have been settled more than 40,000 years ago.

The findings were published in the journal Nature.

"The idea there was no interaction between humans and megafauna has really been put to bed by the Warratyi evidence," Lee Arnold, an author from Adelaide University, told Fairfax Media.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...00-year-old-aboriginal-shelter-after-getting/

 
New techniques may improve dating of aboriginal rock art

http://phys.org/news/2016-12-techniques-date-australian-aboriginal-art.html

more at link above
----------------------------
A new technique, developed at ANSTO's Centre for Accelerator Science, has made it possible to produce some of the first reliable radiocarbon dates for Australian rock art in a study just published online in The Journal of Archaeological Science Reports.

The approach involved extracting calcium oxalate from a mineral crust growing on the surface of rock art from sites in western Arnhem Land, according to paper co-author research scientist Dr Vladimir Levchenko, an authority on radiocarbon dating using accelerator mass spectrometry.
 
This is Clinton Pryor. He has been walking for 5 months from Perth to Canberra to sit down and talk directly to the politicians about the plight of his people and the impact their uninformed and unjust laws are having on the communities in WA and across the country.
Author: Clintonswalkforjustice
I’m a Wajuk, Balardung, Kija and a Yulparitja man from the West of Australia. I will be walking across country from Matagarup/Heirrison Island in Perth to Parliament House in Canberra, following songlines and visiting communities along the way, where I will eventually be seeking audience with the Prime Minister and address the many injustices against the First Nations people of this land. View all posts by Clintonswalkforjustice

I've followed him since Mutitjulu. He's about to make Adelaide. I will try to meet him if I can find out where he'll be.

His blog covers the trek so far. This is is the most recent page, but he is well south of Port Augusta now.

Days 200 & 201: Port Augusta – Officially!
Day 200: 12.30pm

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They say when you doing a big walk it call walkabout. There meaning to why people do a walkabout is in our culture the day or a time in life that when think are hard in your life or think are hard in life for your people something need to be done to make it right and save the people.

The spirit of the land and our old people come down from the sky an land to seek someone to lead the way of a new began for his people and culture. When I walk this great land, when I talk with elders in the desert community they told me your dreaming and old people visit you when you was on the island sitting around the spirit fire and the dreaming spirit told you to get up and go on a journey across this great land to find the truth and find a new way.

(I say yes to the elders, when I was setting around the spirit fire on the island and look into the fire, thinking how can I help my people, how can we save our culture my old people please show me the way of making a change in this time of age. So I sat there thinking steering at the spirit fire thinking and thinking than a visions was showing in the mind and in the spirit fire. It show me walking across this country, a new way of something new that I did not know why it was showing. That when i realise to my self to chance it and make it happen or just let it pass by, I made the choose to chance it and than on would I started to tell everyone that i’m going to walk across this great land to make a stand for everyone I told the elders in desert community)

They told me that you and those who are with you have been choose for reason. But they choose you, this why your here today walking now. Your doing a big walk about not just for the people but to find your self to. Your not just know as Clinton Pryor put also know as a spirit walker, i said a spirit walk the elders said yes your a spirit walker who out to find the truth and to save the people in this hard time right now.

That when i realise why i when on this walk I’m a spirit walker, but i hope not to be the last spirit walker. A spirit walker who follow the song line that been walk on since traditional time.

Day 200: 7.30pm

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When I walk this great land, when I talk with elders in the desert community they told me your dreaming and old people visit you when i was on the island sitting around the spirit fire and the dreaming spirit told you to get up and go on a journey across this great land to find the truth and find a new way.

Day 201: 8am

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Good morning, it reads 8 degree, it feels like 8, the last two morning my feet and hands have been cold, not a cloud in the sky today at the moment, good sun rise, magpies singing and a trail from a plane that shows up quit well with the sun shining under it. Starting to feel the warm sun now. I quit enjoy the warmth of the sun on a cool morning, the sounds of the birds singing around me, I guess they are welcoming the sun as well. It is a good start to the day. – Noonie

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Day 201: 11.30am

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The drop off point heading in, the range on our left some hills to our right, good landscape still on the way to Canberra. – Noonie



Day 201: 2pm

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Just setting here enjoying the last bit of desert landscape. It been 4 month we walk this desert land scape thought summer and I’m going to miss it because after Port Augusta on would we going start seeing the land changing again where there going to be more tree, more water, more civilization and less wild life. But now it time we make our way towards our first big city after 5 month of walking.

Day 201: 3.30pm

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Finely the walk has made it into Port Augusta yyyyeeeee
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We be leaving Port Augusta tomorrow from the foreshore at 9:00am. It well take us two days walk to get to the next town. People are welcome to join us tomorrow if you like to say fair well or do a bit of walking with me. Adelaide mob the walk for justice is on it way. I be going live tonight to give everyone a update cheer
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Day 201: 7pm

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Lots to see along this stretch of the road to lunch. – Noonie

Day 201: 7.30pm

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Port Augusta – Noonie
 
A lot of this thread is dedicated to the past. Here's a taste of things happening with some of the underprivileged Indigenous youth studying in the big city at Wiltja at Woodville High School (Wiltja means 'shelter' in Pitjantjatjarra). I found the doco moving. I used to teach youngsters like these last century out on their Lands, and an experience of overseas travel would have blown their paradigm into a new hairdo. They all were born and grew up out in the red sand of central Oz. In this video, they are pioneers for their people. The intercultural interface is interesting. We so often lock down the problems of reconciliation to the white Australian / non-Indigenous interface, but this film shows that contact with an entirely other culture and landscape works to transcend that old frontier by flying right over the top of it. It doesn't fix the social issues here, but it is positive in their lives. Good.

It also reminds me that Indigenous Australian cultures are Asian cultures. Indigenous Australian people are Asian people.

I think this trip was in 2013. Enjoy.
 
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