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Random sidenote: the article's use of "First Australians" for Aboriginal/Indigenous Australians is an odd Canadianism (cf. "First Nations"), any Australian hearing the term would assume it's referring to the First Fleet [of English convicts] and there's even a well-known documentary that uses the name: https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/first-australians
As an Australian I've only ever heard and understood the term "First Australians" to mean the aboriginal / indigenous population, and don't recall ever associating it with "the first fleet".
Two potential reasons for this:
- Sensitivity to the way the aboriginals were treated by the british colonists (which is using overly 'polite' terminology)
- Sensitivity to the 'populated by criminals' stereotype of Australia.
> Sensitivity to the 'populated by criminals' stereotype of Australia.
Or the supposed threat from Sicilians when death is on the line.
We still make the most potent iocane powder.
In fact, a good friend of mine works there: https://iocane.com.au
One of those sentences is true.
> any Australian hearing the term would assume it's referring to the First Fleet [of English convicts] and there's even a well-known documentary that uses the name: https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/first-australians
But isn't that documentary using First Australians to refer to the Aboriginals, rather than those on the First Fleet:
> The 1788 arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney results in cautious friendships being formed between the First Australians and the British Empire. Yet within three years, relations sour as settlers spread out across the land.
That’s not correct and your link disagrees with you.
I'd agree it's odd - it wasn't called Australia until (well) after the Europeans arrived.
But it does make sense. In the place we now call Australia, they were here First. We could even use First Nations as the Canadians do; there were things we would (now, belatedly, apologetically) recognise as nations here before we butchered them all and made a mess of their civilisation.
Sidenote to your sidenote: I like the thing that we're doing now of calling Perth by it's Noongar name: Boorloo. More of this, please, Australia.
It used to be called "New Holland" (and Vandimans land for tasmania).
Sadly, I feel most of name change is simply virtue signaling, but not all. Perth itself likely has multiple names due to its size, although I guess you need to settle one one. There are factors of multiple tribes, multiple timelines, appeasing one group likely pisses off another, but thats a different problem.
Agree on the virtue signalling, but whatever works shrug. It makes no sense that it's called Perth, because that's already a place on the other side of the planet. They didn't even bother with "New Perth".
And yeah, I suspect that Boorloo is one choice of many. But I think we let the Elders work that one out.
"First" is very hard to demonstrate. Maybe, even probably, but it seems unwise to make this a definite ideological truth.
We've traced Aboriginal settlement of Australia back 60,000 years. It's possible there were humans here before them, I guess, but we haven't discovered any sign of them so far.
The fact we haven't discovered clear evidence yet is not at all surprising. Even the evidence of Aboriginal settlement that far back is very, very limited.
It also of course depends on what you mean buy "we"; given the presence of other ancient hominids we could interbreed with in the region, it's not impossible others were there first by many millennia with nothing to show for it. We've got to keep in mind how incredible sparse the archeological record is for anything that far back - we didn't know a single thing about the existence of Homo floresiensis (itself very, very close to the ancient Sahul continent) and still wouldn't if it weren't for the discovery of a single site in 2003.
Unfortunately, the importance of accepting the Aboriginals as "first" has likely politicized the science here and is so important as a fundamental tenet of some political claims that it will tinge future evidence one way or another.
I'm not sure that finding some ancient hominid remains here will actually invalidate their claims of being First. At what point do we stop classing ancestor hominids as "people"? I mean, Homo Floriensis was only 50K years ago. If we found evidence for a similar hominid in Australia, would we really class them as the First Australians?
Agree about the politics, though. It would be nice if we could get past all the virtue signaling and agree that everyone has the best motives, etc, and just look at the evidence.
> any Australian hearing the term would assume it's referring to the First Fleet
Nope.
I've been here for 60 years, my father's still kicking and he's been here since 1935, we're both agreed you're talking out of your rear end.
Some Australians might, most would not.
Your own documentary link disagrees with you and explicitly refers to the indigenous people as the First Australians
Furthermore why would a thoroughly American 72 year old journalist be using an "odd Canadianism" in The New York Times ?
He's talking out of his arse mate.
That, or he's takin' the piss.
I don't know if the dingo was born to be wild, but I know the steppen wolf is.
I hoped for insight about dingoes but instead it's just a pedantic jerk about things that aren't to do with dingoes.
can't really credit archaeo-guesswork that ignores the significant factor of their far superior intelligence compared to pet dogs.
Can you site a reference for this, I have yet to see a dingo or dingo pack hunt wild pigs, but I do see domestic dogs do this instinctually.
I'm not saying hunting is smarter, but "dingos breakfast" is a common saying in Australia because they often are starving.
Less to do with starving, more to do with not carrying a packed meal and simply eating whatever you see.
Whether or not a dingo or swaggie starves rests more on the season and their ability to see and exploit food resources.
I'm comparing them to domestic wild dogs that I see. I dont believe they can carry a packed meal. If they can, I don't see why they are killing so many sheep.
Swaggies are absolutely 100% capable of carrying a packed meal.
That ability notwithstanding Waltzing Matilda remains the unofficial national anthem for many reasons not least an abundance of sheep.
It's a transnational sentiment: https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-culture/first-marines-...
Yeah, I'm talking about the canines though.