51. The Aborigines
The Australians
by George Weber
WORK IN PROGRESS
1. Theories and Controversies: a general
overview
The oldest dated archaeological human finds in Australia are all
younger than 50,000 years. There have been plenty of claims of older
finds but they are all controversial and none has stood up to closer
scientific scrutiny so far.
The earliest human arrivals are likely to have been few in
numbers. To build up a general population covering most of the
continent and numerous enough to seriously affect the Australian
environment (even with the help of deliberately-laid fires), would
have taken many thousands of years from the earliest arrivals. A very
small early population would also explain why early remains are so
few that none have been found yet.
Ecological evidence has now been presented (Johnson Ch. N., 2005;
Miller G.H.et al. 2005) that indicates a major and unusual ecological
change in Australia around 50,000 years ago. It is argued
convincingly that this may well have been caused by human activities.
If so, this would help date the human arrival without need for
dateable human remains.
We would like to make an additional and more speculative point
here: Toba volcano on Sumatra erupted around 73,000 years ago. It
devastated huge areas of SEAsia and the Indian subcontinent (ash
layers in central India of up to 6 m) and also at least adversely
affected the world's climate for some time afterwards. It is not
impossible that this eruption encouraged early humans then living on
islands of the Indonesian archipelago and in Papua-Newguinea to the
east of the eruption to move out of harm's way - to Australia.
Populations living to the north and northwest of the volcano were
exterminated by the eruption and would mostly not have had time to
escape. Those to the east and southeast of Toba were not nearly so
badly affected. Were human refugees driven to crossing the sea or
using landbridges then existing to Australia in the aftermath of
Toba? It is and intriguing speculation but unproven as yet. However,
the limited available archaeological evidence and the discoveries of
Miller G.H. 2005 2005 discussed here would fit such a scenario.
For a detailed discussion of the Toba eruption of 73,000 years ago
refer to the article Toba
Volcano on this web site. For more details on the people that
could have been "in transit" to Australia during prehistoric times
see our Chapter 25 "Prehistory and
Theories".
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The earliest populating of Australia and one of its
possible causes.
red dot: Toba volcano
blue dots: location of measured ash layers from Toba
volcano eruption
red line: estimated area of Toba ashfall and probable
extent of its "death zone"
brown area: hypothetical movement away from the Toba area
after the eruption by early humans then living to the east
of the volcano. The arrows also mark the direction of
migration into Australia quite irrespective of whether those
population movements into Australia were connected with
Toba.
Coastlines shown are those of today.
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Dark green: land areas from the time of the Toba eruption
73,000 until around 10,000 years ago (with some
fluctuations, warmer periods have higher sea levels and less
land area)
Light green: land areas today
red dot: Toba volcano
black dots:
sites of analysed eggshells (Miller et al. 2005):
1. Lake Eyre
2. Port Augusta
3 . Darling-Murray Lakes
For a more detailed map of Wallacia with Wallace's
biodiversity line (and other biodiversity lines) see
Chapter 25 "Prehistory and
Theories"
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A new attempt to date the arrival of Homo sapiens in
Australia has become possible through the analysis of ancient egg
shells left by the two ostrich-like birds Dromaius
novahollandiae (the still living emu) and the extinct
Genyornis newtoni.
Two types of plants eaten by the birds have left traces in their
egg shells:
- plants with photosynthetic pathway C3 (most shrubs, trees and
non-grass herbs)
- plants with photosynthetic pathway C4 (tropical and dry-adapted
grasses)
Miller et al, 2005, have found a large change in emu diet between
50,000 and 45,000 years ago. Before that time, the emus had a varied
diet with a strong contribution from C4 plants. After 45,000 years
ago they lived mostly off C3 plants. Genyornis at that time also
lived on a mixture of C4 and C3 plants but its diet was much less
varied than that of the emu, suggesting that it was a more
specialized feeder. While the emu adapted successfully and survived
until today, Genyornis did not and died out 45,000 years ago.
These results point to a sudden change in vegetation. Possibly
mixed woodlands and grasslands grass were converted into monotonous
shrubland, or nutritious grasses were replaced by poor-quality
species, forcing the emus to increase their feeding on non-grass
species. Wombat teeth tell the same story: today, wombats are mostly
grazers but around the time when emus changed their feeding and
Genyornis went extinct, the wombats also changed from C4 grass to C3
shrubs.
The cause behind this sudden change in diet was more than a change
of climate. The record of eggshells analysed by Miller et al 2005
goes back to 140,000 years. During that time, the climate changed
several times, from cool and dry to warm and moist and back again.
Despite the climate changes, both emu and Genyornis diets remained
unchanged. There must be an additional factor and that was almost
certainly the arrival of Homo sapiens.
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As Johnson C.N. 2005 notes
Human impact is the only factor that can account for this
change. ... The fact that the distributions and feeding habits of
both species changed so little in response to climate extremes,
but so much when people arrived, tells us that the impact of human
arrival far exceeded the effects of any of the climate changes of
the past 140,000 years. Human impact probably also included the
extinction of up to 50 species of giant marsupials. The date of
extinction of Australia's giant marsupials remains controversial,
but recent evidence points to between 50,000 and 45,000 years ago.
How did humans manage such an impact? Deliberately-lit fires (a
widespread practice among aborigines in Australia during historical
times) would be an obvious possibility. Fires can cause many
environmental changes and do not need a large human population. The
evidence of such fires should be there in the form of charcoal
layers. Oddly enough, such evidence is not there. No charcoal records
were found in the region where the eggshells studied have been found.
Indeed, sediment cores elsewhere in Australia between 70,000 and
40,000 years ago are fewer than before and after that time.
It is possible that the humans hunted the large marsupial
herbivores to extinction. African herbivores have a huge impact on
vegetation and it is likely that the Australian herbivores had a
similar influence. When the large herbivores suddenly vanished, the
plant mix changed dramatically.
As Miller et al 2005 notes
Neither overhunting nor human-introduced diseases, the
two most widely cited alternative agents for a human-caused
extinction event in Australia, would result in the dramatic
changes at the base of the food web documented by our data sets.
The reduction of plant diversity apparent in our data, however it
came about, would have led to the extinction of specialized
herbivores and indirectly to the extinction of their large
non-human predators. Dietary specialization, rather than feeding
strategy (browsing versus grazing) may be the critical extinction
predictor. Animals such as Dromaius, with wide dietary tolerances,
survived the extinction event, whereas more specialized feeders,
such as Genyornis, became extinct.
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References:
Johnson Ch. N., 2005. "The Remaking of Australia's
Ecology", Science 309:255-251, 8 July 2005
Miller G.H., Fogel M.L., Magee J.W., Gagan M.K., Clarke
S.J. and Johnson B.J. 2005. ""Ecosystem Collapse in
Pleistocene Australia and a Human Role in Megafaunal
Extinction." Science 309:287-290
Mulvaney J. and Kamminga J. 1999. Prehistory of
Australia. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and
London
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2. The Australian Pygmies Negrito
(Negrito?)
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J.B. Birdsell (mentioned in the text of the
Windshuttle-Gillin article - see link below) with an
Australian pygmy (Negrito?).
Joseph B. Birdsell, height 186 cms (6 ft 1 ) with a
twenty-four-year-old male of the Kongkandji tribe, height
ca. 140 cm (4 ft 6 in). The photograph was taken at Mona
Mona Mission, near Kuranda, North Queensland, in 1938.
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Aboriginal and other surviving "remnant populations" tend to be
badly treated and despised by the majority populations, virtually
everywhere. They are often pushed into a precarious fringe existence
and pressurised to "come into the mainstream of society" (an
expression widely used in India towards the Andamanese Negrito, for
example). The "mainstream of society" is not just in India regarded
(by the members of that self-appointed "mainstream", at least) as the
pinnacle of human development.
In practice, this attitude always produces the same result for the
ancient surviving minority populations: loss of original culture
without adequate acquisition of a new culture, coupled with an
existence on the fringes of the meainstream society in grinding
poverty with alcoholism, drugs, prostitution and other social evils.
Efforts to "acculturize" such populations are pracically never
adequate, sufficiently funded or even intelligently carried out - and
so hardly ever successful. Bureaucrats tend to make the decisions and
minority tribes are expected to be properly grateful if their
children get a little primary schooling. Of course, they should also
be keen and ready to accept all the values of the dominating
mainstream society. As in the Andamans, so in Australia.
The societies who treat their most ancient human groups in this
way are invariably proud of their own ancient past but such pride
rarely goes back further than the earliest mainstream written
records, temples or traditions. Rarely if ever are the miraculously
surviving representatives of a remoter past treated with any kind of
respect or allowed any dignity. Instead, it is utomatically assumed,
to be "civilized" and "joint the mainstream."
It is no coincidence that many of the tribal names given to such
ancient living groups by their new masters mean "slave" while the
ancient peoples' own names often mean "human beings". The widespread
present-day attitude towards aboriginal populations all over the
world rarely comes from ill-will or conscious racism. Much much more
common is a lack of respect and a cultural arrogancewhich comes from
a widespread ignorance about a country's prehistory. Such crass
ignorance in most countries is by no means limited to the less
educated classes.
Australia and Tasmania is the area we are concerned with here and
it must be said that the "Australians" (i.e. migrants from Europe and
elsewhere that have arrived only in the past 200 years) have made
serious efforts to make amends for the atrocities committed against
the aboriginal population in the past. The Australian aborigines have
recently received many rights long overdue to them, along with legal
possession of their ancestral lands. The trend is indeed good news,
but unfortunately there have been some dismaying side-effects in
Australia with overshooting "political correctness".
Scientific investigations (especially archaeology and DNA
analyses) in Australia have been hampered by the arrogant attitude of
past archaeologists. The pendulum has now swung to the other extreme
and the Australian tribes on whose land archaeological finds are made
can now insist that the finds be immediately reburied without
scientific investigation. This even if the remains are thought to be
50,000 year old and most unlikely to be connected with the
present-day local tribe. Some tribes do not insist, but others do. In
many cases it is not known what happens to the finds once they are
handed back - they simply vanish and are presumably reburied. A
Tasmanian group of activists collected Tasmanian human remains to
burn them (even though the genuine (and extinct) Tasmanians did not
practice the burning of their dead. Also, self-appointed aboriginal
political activists insist (without producing evidence) that all
Australian aborigines are one people and not (perhaps) several. The
result is that the Australian pygmies have vanished from literature
and the Tasmanians are just "ordinary" aborigines. Tje activists try
to block all and any research which they regard as hostile. Given the
aborigines' treatment in the past, such (over)reactions are
understandable. Not all aboriginal groups agree with this
self-damaging attitude, however, and some tribes have begun to
cooperate with scientists and to take an informed interested in their
own past.
As soon as the first aboriginal scientists graduate, they will
realise what an appalling disservice their patronizing "politically
correct" white advisors have done them. The present aborigines'
children and grandchildren are unlikely to be pleased.
In the meantime, one would have thought that the academic
establishment of Australia would make every effort to explain
patiently and respectfully the purpose of scientific research and try
to motivate the aborigines to participate in the great enterprise and
in the interpretation of any results. The aborigines should also be
told that their wonderful "dreamtime myths" do not clash with
scientific results but that the two complement each other. In fact,
there is no other place in the world where they complement each other
more spectacularly!
One would have thought so, but one would often have thought
wrongly. Some scientists do try to make these points but under the
dead hand of guilt-ridden "political correctness", too many do not.
The attitude is widespread that results which do not fit accepted
politically correct ideas must be false and cannot be published.
Older results from times when political correctness was unheard of
are airbrushed out of existence, denied or ignored. How very
reminiscent of the dear old Soviet Union!
Treating aboriginal populations correctly and with respect is not
a simple or an easy matter. Conflicting aims have to be somehow
reconciled. Difficult or not, it must be done and our hope is that
the information we present on this Web-site will go some way to
change popular attitudes towards aboriginal populations in those
countries that are lucky enough to still have such citizens. If it
annoys the politically correct, well, we will have to learn to live
with their wrath.
An article by two Australians has made a splendid case for the
"missing" Australian pygmies (Negritos?) and the inanities of
"political correctness". The existence of Australian pygmies was
general knowledge until the 1960s. Then the knowledge suddenly
vanished from the scientific radar, providing a fascinating study in
how even the most well-meaning science can turn into obscurantist
twaddle once there is a hidden political agenda:
One counter-argument against Windschuttle's and Gillin's case is
the claim that the short-stature of the Barrineans could have
developed in situ, i.e. the Barrineans are "normal" Australian
aborigines that adapted to their long-term jungle environment by
developing short stature. It is the same argument that claims the
various Negrito groups are not really related because each group
could have developed separately under similar environmental pressure.
This argument is a non-starter since Negritos have a great deal more
in common that short stature!
T.J. Gillin has this to say on the subject:
"Environment presumably plays some role in pygmyism, but
it would be a mistake to assume all examples evolved in situ in
their current homeland. Kalahari Bushmen are often classed as
pygmoid but live as far from the jungle as could be imagined.
These people may have had a 100,000 year tenure in Africa and have
inhabited diverse homelands from one end of the continent to the
other. ...
Besides, it is not clear that Atherton rainforest peoples (the
Australian pygmies - George Weber) actually developed their
short stature in North Queensland rainforests. For one thing,
those rainforests have not always been there. Djirbal stories from
the Atherton say it was open country when people arrived. Earth
scientists tell a similar story. During the last glaciation
rainfall levels fell 50%, eucalypt forest expanded and rainforest
retreated to a few "refuge areas". Only in the last 10,000 years
have rainforests re-expanded. If pygmyism developed locally, it
was presumably developed in this period. Is this enough time? Was
the local population isolated enough? Does anyone really know?
3. The Australian Aborigines
Last change 1 January 2008
