Australia: The Land Where Time Began |
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The First Boat People
See
First Boat People-First Footprints
The dreamtime stories of a number of Aboriginal
tribes tell of canoe crossings made by their dreamtime ancestors from
islands to the north of Australia, which agrees with the thoughts of
scientists about the arrival in Australia of the first Aboriginal People, based
on archaeological evidence.
The
Riratjingu people of the east coast of
Arnhem Land, believe they are descended from
Djankawa who crossed
from the island of Baralku with his 2 sisters in a canoe, led by
the morning star to the shore at Yelangbara, on the east coast of
Arnhem Land. They followed the rain clouds across the country. When they
needed water they plunged their sticks into the ground and water flowed
out. They gave their descendants their laws and taught them the names of
the animals.
The arrival of Aboriginal People in Australia was certainly
before 50,000 and probably more than 60,000 years ago, the most widely
accepted date for the peopling of Australia. At that time the sea level
was much lower than present because a lot of water was locked up in
glaciers during the
Ica Age. Even with lower sea levels there was still about
70 km of ocean that needed to be crossed from Southeast Asian islands to
the closest parts of the Australian continent,
Arnhem Land,
Kimberley,
and
Cape York. It would have been possible to walk from New
Guinea across a wide plain, but they would still have to travel across
the seas to get to New Guinea.
It is believed they probably arrived in canoes or
maybe bamboo rafts, possibly from Indonesian islands such as
Flores,
possibly via Timor, either intentionally or by accident. If they
drifted to one of the islands near the Australian mainland they probably
wouldn't have been able to return because the currents and winds
wouldn't take them in the right direction.
At the time of the low sea levels there would have
been a chain of islands near the Australian mainland that ran parallel
to some of the more easterly small Indonesian islands that would have
been visible from the Indonesian islands. As long as they had some sort
of craft that could have made the short crossings between islands they
could have island hopped to the Australian mainland.
As if to back up the theories of the crossing to
Australia, dreamtime stories across to the top of Australia have various
dreamtime ancestors travelling by canoe from the northwest, the
direction of Indonesia.
The oldest known occupation sites in Australia are
found in Arnhem Land in the northern part of Western Australia. The 2
oldest known sites are
Malakunanja II and
Nauwalabila
rock shelters. These sites have very similar cultural sequences that
have been dated by radiocarbon and luminescence techniques to 53,000 and
60,000 BP. Sites dating to more than 40,000 BP have also been found in
the southeast and far southwest of the continent.
It has been suggested that the colonisation of the
continent probably started by spreading along the coast and up river
valleys, having an assured food supply in the form of fish and shellfish
from the rivers, and small animals around the rivers. From there they
spread out until they inhabited the entire continent.
During the lacustral phase, a time when the inland
lakes like
Lake Frome and
Lake Mungo,
etc., were filled, though they were surrounded by arid areas. By 60,000
BP they had reached the Willandra Lakes region. By 30,000 BP arid
central Australia had been occupied. Evidence for this occupation comes
from
Puritjarra Rockshelter, west of Alice Springs,
and
Allen's Cave
and
Koonalda Cave on the
Nullarbor
Plain.
The area they populated extended from New Guinea to the glaciers of
south-western Tasmania.
The first Australians were among the earliest Homo
sapiens. No evidence has been found that Homo erectus had ever reached
the Australian continent, including the continental shelf. The remains
found at Lake Mungo in New South Wales are of a gracile people, with
slender build. The site was dated to 60,000 BP.
This is a problem; all younger remains are of a more
robust type of human, appearing more archaic. It is not known if the
Mungo people are a continuum of the same population or a distinct
population. It seems unlikely that the robust people are descended from
the more gracile population. But according to the dates, if one
population is descended from the other, the robust type did indeed
descend from the gracile type. Was it an adaptation to the much harsher
conditions?
There are now in excess of 120
Pleistocene
sites known in Australia. It is now known that these ancient
hunter-gatherer people had all the hallmarks of advanced humans
elsewhere. They used
fire
for hunting and managing their environment to maximise the food source
for the animals they hunted, and used ground ochre for decoration, wore
ornaments and honoured their dead. The earliest burial known from
Australia dates to 60,000 BP. The corpse was covered with powdered
ochre.
By 20,000 BP they were
mining flint
in underground mines like
Koonalda Cave on the
Nullarbor
Plain.
In north Queensland at that time they were hafting handles to
ground-edge axes. The only rival for this level of sophistication of
stone tool manufacture at this time was in Japan at a similar early
time.
Industries in Australia were distinctive, having
some special tools such as large waisted axes and the horsehoof core, a
single-platform core, which was sometimes used as a chopping tool. They
are similar to the Mousterian industries in Europe and the Middle East,
and the Middle Stone Age in Africa. They also used the Levallois
technique of flake production.
Once they arrived in Australia they were relatively
isolated from the rest of the prehistoric world. They didn't undergo the
'creative explosion' that occurred in western Europe. It has been
suggested that this 'creative explosion' occurred because of the
necessity to adapt to the freezing conditions of the Ice Age. In
Australia the Ice Age had the effect of increasing the dryness of the
already arid continent even more. The Aboriginal People adapted to the
increased aridity by moving to areas with reliable water sources, then
moving back when wetter times returned. The result of this reaction to
the Ice Age in Australia meant that there was no urgent need to innovate
to survive, so technology and art underwent a gradual development.
When Aboriginal People arrived in Australia the
megafauna
had not yet gone extinct. There has been some debate as to whether the
arrival of humans was connected with the
extinction of the megafauna. Now that a number of
dating techniques have been developed and more archaeological and
palaeontological sites have been discovered it is becoming apparent that
as the humans moved into an area the megafauna went extinct in that area
soon after. The debate is, at least partially, changing to whether it
was caused by overhunting or the use of the fire-stick destroying the
original environment, making it more suitable for their preferred prey.
Their use of fire to change an environment was so successful that the
present vegetation type over much of Australia has been referred to as
an Aboriginal artefact. The debate is becoming was it by overkill,
gradual attrition of populations, or by environment change.
They adapted so well to the arid conditions that
they maintained healthy populations in some of the harshest environments
on Earth. Some of the European explorers died of starvation and thirst
in the same areas in which the Aboriginal People flourished. And European
agriculture failed miserably where the firestick agriculture was a
brilliant success. Some of the early Europeans, presumably not those who
were busy trying to exterminate them to get their land, thought of them
as poor, starving savages who needed saving, physically and spiritually.
The opposite was in fact the case, they ate a healthier diet than most
of Europe, even today, and they were so successful at surviving that
they had plenty of time for a spiritual, cultural life. They might not
have had operas and symphony orchestras, but they had seasons of
Corroborees and didgeridoos and music sticks. A corroboree for every
occasion, and different ones for men and women, and some for everyone,
men, women and children. It might be seen as more primitive, but it
fulfilled the same function. They actually had more time to devote to
matters of the mind - art, dance, music, festivals and ceremonies, than
most Europeans until recent times.
By about 35,000-25,000 years ago they had occupied
all major environmental zones in Australia. Possible exceptions have
been suggested to be the north Queensland rainforest, the dunefield
deserts and possibly small offshore islands.
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Author: M.H.Monroe Email: admin@austhrutime.com Sources & Further reading |