Aboriginal Australians: The First Explorers

[uslad7]

It'd be awesome if they cloned them.

 

[pat grimshaw]

I've read the link but it doesn't explain the misleading title "The First Explorers".

 

[uslad7]

I've read the link but it doesn't explain the misleading title "The First Explorers".

I believe he's referring to Australia. The article says Aboriginal Australians therefore descend directly from the earliest modern explorers, people who migrated into Asia before finally reaching Australia about 50,000 years ago. In showing this, the study establishes Aboriginal Australians as the population with the longest association with the land on which they live today.

I'm not sure though.

 

[pat grimshaw]

I don't think you can say they were the first to 'explore' unless you can compare the dates of their leaving Africa and the other who left Africa.

 

[LilBit]

^^Darlene, maybe I misread the article, but I think that's exactly what this study did.

 

[pat grimshaw]

^
OK, I have re-read it.

But the wording does seems to imply they had some special initiative that the other lacked… whereas the sad fact is they came to this isolated island and stayed pretty much as they were.

 

[pat grimshaw]

…go squat behind that bush…

No. They smeared their excrement —as well as dirt, animal fat and ash from the fire— on their skin to keep their bodies warm.


(This was observed in Sydney c.1788 by Watkin Tench, John Hunter etc)

 

[Ram]

Professor Eske Willerslev from the University of Copenhagen, who headed the study, explains: "Aboriginal Australians descend from the first human explorers. While the ancestors of Europeans and Asians were sitting somewhere in Africa or the Middle East, yet to explore their world further, the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians spread rapidly; the first modern humans traversing unknown territory in Asia and finally crossing the sea into Australia. It was a truly amazing journey that must have demanded exceptional survival skills and bravery."

...............

 

[HoodedRat]

"Quiet back there or by the gods, I'm turning this travois around"

'travois' .. what an utterly fabulous word!

 

[Taz]

I have aboriginal blood, and I'm an explorer

 

[palbert]

"Travois." Great word. We still use them in the winter to bring moose in.

How did they get to Australia? (The travois, not the moose.)

 

[HoodedRat]

^
Riding on the camels?

 

[LilBit]

I have aboriginal blood, and I'm an explorer

Exploring inside my pants doesn't count.

 

[pat grimshaw]

...............

 

[pat grimshaw]

The "explorers" (so called) were in the newspapers this week:


1. A court case where a "prominent actor has been found guilty of aggravated assault for breaking his wife's arm …throwing a broom at his wife"

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-22/gulpilils-wife-pleads-for-his-freedom/2911936

2. A heavily-taxpayer-funded public relations exercise with a peculiar name~
http://www.vibe.com.au/photos.html?folder=The+Deadly+Awards/2011+Deadlys

 

[LilBit]

Goodness, Petunia, you never can pass up an opportunity to bash minority groups, can you?

 

[Telstra]

pat grimshaw, Aborigines own this land. They should be billionaires by now but they are not.

 

[Taz]

Exploring inside my pants doesn't count.

Does so count! I've discovered a few things down there that science has never seen before

*plays didgeridoo*

 

[Sam Blum]

Aside from developing complex grammatical structures and obviously highly successful social orders with story telling to rival that of Europe in the 17C, many Aboriginal peoples have also jointly changed the Australian landscape with a lifestyle of hunting and controlling flora that has seen us become much more Eucalypt dominated than fossils indicate the landscape was 40-50 thousand years ago, if my high school biology lesson serve me correctly.

And for Pete's sake, ease up on the "smearing crap" crap... For fuck's sake, when we were kids we threw horse apples at each other and cow frisbies too! I would still throw them at you if I were on a farm and you were in front of me right now! (And for your information, a bit of roo poo on your shoulder (It is only grass, after all) is better than a mouthful of flies when you're trying to eat or talk!) It doesn't mean you're any smarter than I am, or any more advanced or worthy of respect for your culture. Next thing there'll be suggestions that because some of my Franco and Teutonic ancestors were at each other's throats for a few hundred years, we were un-evolved and savage, unworthy of respect as equals to White Australians... Oh, wait, we are those White Australians.

 

[LilBit]

Does so count! I've discovered a few things down there that science has never seen before

*plays didgeridoo*

That's not my didgeridoo...