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First Nations, Science and Politics

Quote from: DJC – on
Care to name any of those First Nations folk who were actually second?
By definition 1st Nations were the 1st, but the problem arises with the claim of being 1st.

Just 15000 years ago Northern Australia was connected to PNG, no water in between, and there seems to be regular discoveries that throw doubt over the received wisdom, but debate and further investigation get suppressed.

My problem is the debate getting suppressed, threats regarding loss of funding, not on any scientific basis but on politics, it makes anyone who genuinely follows the scientific process very very uncomfortable. Follow the science, if it supports a hypothesis great if it contradicts it accept it and review.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #1 –
Quote from: LP – on
Quote from: DJC – on
Care to name any of those First Nations folk who were actually second?
By definition 1st Nations were the 1st, but the problem arises with the claim of being 1st.

Just 15000 years ago Northern Australia was connected to PNG, no water in between, and there seems to be regular discoveries that throw doubt over the received wisdom, but debate and further investigation get suppressed.

My problem is the debate getting suppressed, threats regarding loss of funding, not on any scientific basis but on politics, it makes anyone who genuinely follows the scientific process very very uncomfortable. Follow the science, if it supports a hypothesis great if it contradicts it accept it and review.

There is overwhelming archaeological, paleoanthropological and DNA evidence that all Aboriginal Australians are descended from a single founding population that left Africa around 70,000 years ago.

In the mid-20th century an American anthropologist, Joseph Birdsell, proposed a "tri-hybrid" model of human migrations into Australia, by three distinct waves of racially distinct populations.  This was based on his perception of physical characteristics of Aboriginal populations in different parts of Australia. 

Birdsell’s theory was disproved by the scientific evidence mentioned above.  However, it is still held up as fact by folk who ignore the evidence and wish to pursue an agenda opposing recognition of the First Australians.
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #2 –
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/unprecedented-study-of-aboriginal-australians-points-to-one-shared-out-of-africa-migration-for

A small selection of quotes from this article :

The first major genomic study of Aboriginal Australians ever undertaken has confirmed that all present-day non-African populations are descended from the same single wave of migrants, who left Africa around 72,000 years ago.

Compelling evidence that Aboriginal Australians are descended directly from the first people to inhabit Australia – which is still the subject of periodic political dispute.

Anatomically modern humans are known to have left Africa approximately 72,000 years ago, eventually spreading across Asia and Europe. Outside Africa, Australia has one of the longest histories of continuous human occupation, dating back about 50,000 years.

Dr Manjinder Sandhu, a senior author from the Sanger Institute and University of Cambridge, said: “Our results suggest that, rather than having left in a separate wave, most of the genomes of Papuans and Aboriginal Australians can be traced back to a single ‘Out of Africa’ event which led to modern worldwide populations. There may have been other migrations, but the evidence so far points to one exit event.”

The Papuan and Australian ancestors did, however, diverge early from the rest, around 58,000 years ago. By comparison, European and Asian ancestral groups only become distinct in the genetic record around 42,000 years ago.

The study then traces the Papuan and Australian groups’ progress. Around 50,000 years ago they reached “Sahul” – a prehistoric supercontinent that originally united New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania, until these regions were separated by rising sea levels approximately 10,000 years ago.

The researchers charted several further “divergences” in which various parts of the population broke off and became genetically isolated from others. Interestingly, Papuans and Aboriginal Australians appear to have diverged about 37,000 years ago – long before they became physically separated by water. The cause is unclear, but one reason may be the early flooding of the Carpentaria basin, which left Australia connected to New Guinea by a strip of land that may have been unfavourable for human habitation.

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #3 –
We've drifted well off topic so I split the thread.

Quote from: LP – on
My problem is the debate getting suppressed, threats regarding loss of funding, not on any scientific basis but on politics, it makes anyone who genuinely follows the scientific process very very uncomfortable. Follow the science, if it supports a hypothesis great if it contradicts it accept it and review.

Although I'm retired, I am an honorary research associate at La Trobe University and I have just co-authored a chapter in Tim Murray's Festschrift.  Murray was Professor of Archaeology at La Trobe University for many years.  Those carrying out research into Australia's past are a fairly small group and I know many of them and have corresponded with others.  I also had a role in assessing applications for research grants some time ago.  I can guarantee that anyone who does not follow the scientific process will not get a grant and there is absolutely no pressure on researchers to tailor their results to suit a political narrative.
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #4 –
If my reading of the Cambridge article is correct, the research cited essentially strengthens the case for First Nations Indigeneity.

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #5 –
Quote from: PaulP – on
If my reading of the Cambridge article is correct, the research cited essentially strengthens the case for First Nations Indigeneity.

The DNA evidence confirms what decades of archaeological, physical anthropological, material culture and other research in Australia, Melanesia, and Southeast Asia has shown; one migration out of Africa with groups dropping off and staying put along the journey.

It also puts the kybosh on the claimed 120K human occupation site at Pt Ritchie-Moyjil

Of course, there have been other migrations, the Polynesians for example, but not to Australia until the First Fleet.
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #6 –
Imho there's a population issue with the claim of length of time indigenous people claim to be here.

They should have much larger populations than they do.  The world populations exploded around 1800.  By contrast the population here is so much smaller.

It doesn't quite marry up the way you would expect from a growth rate nor rate of change perspective.
"everything you know is wrong"

Paul Hewson

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Thryleon – on
Imho there's a population issue with the claim of length of time indigenous people claim to be here.

They should have much larger populations than they do.  The world populations exploded around 1800.  By contrast the population here is so much smaller.

It doesn't quite marry up the way you would expect from a growth rate nor rate of change perspective.

Where do you get your population figures from Thry?

The archaeological evidence indicates a significant increase in the Aboriginal population around 5,000 years ago.

I know most about southeastern Australia so I’ll focus on that.

The Aboriginal population of Victoria in the 1830s is estimated to have been somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 and that population had been ravaged by smallpox that preceded the colonists spreading out from Sydney.  By the late 19th century, the Aboriginal population had dropped to less than 1,000.

The population can’t exceed the carrying capacity of the environment and that is determined by both the resources in the environment and the technology available to that population.  A population increase in industrial England does not mean that the populations of nomadic African cattle herders, slash and burn Melanesian farmers or Amazonian hunter-gatherers will increase.


It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Thryleon – on
Imho there's a population issue with the claim of length of time indigenous people claim to be here.

They should have much larger populations than they do.  The world populations exploded around 1800.  By contrast the population here is so much smaller.

It doesn't quite marry up the way you would expect from a growth rate nor rate of change perspective.

World population exploded because of the Industrial Revolution, I don’t understand why you think Australian black fellas would have benefited…  ?
Let’s go BIG !

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #10 –
Look at the timelines being listed, 15000, 40000, 70000 years, much of it with a trafficable corridor between Australia and PNG, and beyond, yet little effort is made to explain the apparent lack of egress. Walked here from Africa, stopped, propped and did feck all for 40000 years. God's country!

You might feel the need to split this from a Trump thread, but it the politics of these issues that drive his agenda, scientists best get comfortable with being uncomfortable if the details remain so diffuse.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #11 –
We probably don’t need to go back tens of thousands of years to work out that the real issue for indigenous Australians was not occupation by a different people, but the fact that it took so long to happen.

For the vast majority of the last 3000 years the country was inhabited solely by indigenous people with little contact with other folks….
In the rest of the world-Europe, Asia, Africa and even central and North America, empires were rising and falling.
With the rise and fall of these nations, and the subsequent movement and displacement of populations…. ideas, inventions, communication were swapped and traded. There was a mingling of people and cultures which added to and enhanced the previous inhabitants of an area. There were of course areas where this contact had a negative effect with war and disease accompanying this spread of cultures. The end result though has been a positive one which has brought us to the modern world that exists today.

But even by the time of European settlement in Australia huge cities dotted the world. It was inevitable that there would eventually be contact and occupation of this area. If it hadn’t been the British , it would have been the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese, the Spanish or the Germans (once established)…and if not one of these colonial powers it would have come from somewhere at later date. In some respects, it is probably better that the majority of early settlement came from one country rather than the hotch-potch of colonialism that was Africa, with multiple European powers claiming territory.

It was always going to happen, if not in the 18th century, almost certainly in the 19th…and definitely by modern times. A world where this vast continent remained untouched just isn’t logical. So Indigenous Australians were always going to confront this occupation and displacement, and they were never going to be able to resist it happening.
Would there have been better ‘invaders’?
Possibly,
There certainly could have been worse
The rest of the world mixed and mingled for centuries.
By not having access to that and the associated advancements in a whole range of areas, it meant that Indigenous Australians were always disadvantaged in comparison.

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #12 –
Quote from: LP – on
Look at the timelines being listed, 15000, 40000, 70000 years, much of it with a trafficable corridor between Australia and PNG, and beyond, yet little effort is made to explain the apparent lack of egress. Walked here from Africa, stopped, propped and did feck all for 40000 years. God's country!

Showing your ignorance there i think LP.

There wasn't really anywhere else to go once the reached here. It was the end of the line.
Only place to go that was nearby were islands.

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #13 –
Quote from: LP – on
Look at the timelines being listed, 15000, 40000, 70000 years, much of it with a trafficable corridor between Australia and PNG, and beyond, yet little effort is made to explain the apparent lack of egress. Walked here from Africa, stopped, propped and did feck all for 40000 years. God's country!

You might feel the need to split this from a Trump thread, but it the politics of these issues that drive his agenda, scientists best get comfortable with being uncomfortable if the details remain so diffuse.

Follow the science LP.

It has been laid out for you but you choose to pursue a conspiracy theory.

Of course there was contact between Aboriginal Australians and Melanesians, Torres Strait Islanders are Indigenous Australians too.  Interestingly, the bow was the preferred weapon of the Melanesians but its only use in Australia was as children’s toys among the Aboriginal people of Cape York.  As I’m sure you know, the pig is a very important animal in Melanesian culture and is widespread both as domestic and feral animals.  There is evidence of pigs being present on Cape York before white settlement; a parasite not present in European pig breeds, depiction of pigs in rock art and known trading of pigs by Torres Strait Islanders.

The Makassan visits to northwestern Australia are well-documented, both from archaeological evidence and historical observations … and they continue today, much to the consternation of Border Force.  Aboriginal Australians travelled back to Sulawesi with Makassans and there are historical photographs of Aboriginal people living in Sulawesi.

Finally, there is archaeological evidence of a Polynesian presence along the eastern seaboard.  This seems to indicate fleeting visits, generally to offshore islands, within the last few hundred years.

These are examples of contact between Aboriginal Australians and others and, in the case of Melanesians and Makassans, there is evidence of limited gene flow.  However, there is incontrovertible evidence that the Aboriginal people who arrived in Australia around 60,000 years ago and those who saw the First Fleet arrive are one and the same people.  DNA doesn’t lie!
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: First Nations, Science and Politics

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Lods – on
We probably don’t need to go back tens of thousands of years to work out that the real issue for indigenous Australians was not occupation by a different people, but the fact that it took so long to happen.

For the vast majority of the last 3000 years the country was inhabited solely by indigenous people with little contact with other folks….
In the rest of the world-Europe, Asia, Africa and even central and North America, empires were rising and falling.
With the rise and fall of these nations, and the subsequent movement and displacement of populations…. ideas, inventions, communication were swapped and traded. There was a mingling of people and cultures which added to and enhanced the previous inhabitants of an area. There were of course areas where this contact had a negative effect with war and disease accompanying this spread of cultures. The end result though has been a positive one which has brought us to the modern world that exists today.

But even by the time of European settlement in Australia huge cities dotted the world. It was inevitable that there would eventually be contact and occupation of this area. If it hadn’t been the British , it would have been the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese, the Spanish or the Germans (once established)…and if not one of these colonial powers it would have come from somewhere at later date. In some respects, it is probably better that the majority of early settlement came from one country rather than the hotch-potch of colonialism that was Africa, with multiple European powers claiming territory.

It was always going to happen, if not in the 18th century, almost certainly in the 19th…and definitely by modern times. A world where this vast continent remained untouched just isn’t logical. So Indigenous Australians were always going to confront this occupation and displacement, and they were never going to be able to resist it happening.
Would there have been better ‘invaders’?
Possibly,
There certainly could have been worse
The rest of the world mixed and mingled for centuries.
By not having access to that and the associated advancements in a whole range of areas, it meant that Indigenous Australians were always disadvantaged in comparison.

To a certain extent Lods. 

The Native Americans were isolated for up to 20,000 years, apart from the odd Irish monk, exploring Vikings and probably Basque fishermen.

A significant difference is the available resources.  The Americas have potatoes, tomatoes, squash, corn, chilli, avocado, maple trees, cacao, quinoa, pineapple and beans, as well as pre-Columbus domesticated turkeys, Muscovy ducks, guinea pigs, llamas and alpacas.  Of course, even the complex, sophisticated and highly organised South American cultures couldn't withstand relatively few Spaniards with horses, steel blades and firearms (and contagious diseases).

Over 200 years after European settlement, our only widespread native commercial crop is the Macadamia nut (grown mostly outside of Australia) and only essentially wild emus, crocodiles and marron are farmed in modest numbers.

The Dingo, which arrived in Australia between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago, most likely came via New Guinea (it's close relative is the New Guinea Singing Dog/Highland Wild Dog that first appeared in New Guinea around 11,000 years ago).  The absence of the Dingo (and fossil or sub-fossil Dingo remains) from Tasmania supports the archaeological and DNA evidence that Dingoes arrived after the formation of Torres Strait.  In other words, through human agency.  While Dingoes reverted to their wild state, as did the New Guinea Dogs, they were tamed/domesticated and used for hunting, security and companionship by Aboriginal Australians.  Domestication was part of the toolkit but there weren't suitable candidates apart from Dingoes and the odd Cape York feral pig.
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!