3rd March 2008, 07:04 AM
The earliest (totally reliable) dated desposits are 40,000 year from Riwi and Carpenters Gap (pierce off painted cave wall fallen into datable deposite)in WA but since the coast was over 300 km further out at that time it is hypothesised that they came earlier, 50 - 60,000 years ago but that the sites are now underwater.
That people kept coming is seen by the Dingo which only arrived about 5000 years ago and (I with others think)evolved from the Indian Wolf (others think dog from Thailand), it is suspected that many people came via India but maybe some came direct from Africa or down from China via Island hoping.
The Aboriginal people Dreaming religion claims they were there forever but all the Aboriginal people I have talked to have considered 60,000 years as a good enough 'forever'.
The Dreaming is incredibly interesting and complex, good book to read 'White Man Got No Dreaming' by Stanner an Ox/or Cambridge trained philosopher who recognised how amazing the religion/philosophy actually was/is and evolving still.
Not linear time but in the past, future and in the 'here-and-now'.
..... Quite attractive, who believes in linear time when waiting for something horrible to finish....
Everything about present day and ethnographically recorded Aboriginal cultures (very varied with some similarities a bit like saying European culture and including Turkey and Finland)shows that the previous habbit of talking about 'Primitive' cultures was ridiculas.
The earliest sites have art in the form of pierced sea-shells (Riwi) and the earliest art is as old or older than the European stuff (and just as beautiful).
What interests me is the similarities in early art, hand stencils and shapes virtually the same everywhere.
Cup and groove stuff looks Aboriginal...
So the earliest people must have been virtually the same as us in terms of speach and cognitive abilities just like their Upper Palaeolithic cousins.
Because art= symbolic communication = also had to have speech.
And there was always at least 90km of sea to cross, so never could anyone walk here and you need communication to sail the oceans.
I suspect that soon we will realise that vast numbers of people were purposely sailing vast distances very quickly as they left Africa about 50,000 years ago and I recogn soner or later we will find very large sea going boats.
The thing about racism is that its origin are easy to see and only logic or 'free will' can over come it. I think it goes like this:-
Many babies get told they are the "best baby in the World" (some people never really stop believing this)and so our whole being is based on us looking out..... thus our family (even if cruel) is 'normal' and so is 'our' [never trust a person who talks of "our" boys etc] village "our" football team and others in the next village are strange because they arn't "our" for they are the "other".
Ethno-centralism, even hunter-gatherers have this, ethnographically some Aboriginal groups got on with their neighbours and some didn't.
I always imagine two villages in England one basically Anglo-saxon and one Viking. For hundreds of years many people were hardly on speaking terms with the next village but a minority of people would have been interested and not repelled by the differences and attracted by the different unknown memebers of the oposite sex (and actually you don't need to go back any time at all... anyone know the huge difference between Ormskirk and Burscough in Lancashire....
But of course the more we mix with our neighbours the better for humans, any doubt look at pedigree dogs horses or the Royal family!
I think education is part of it but like you say plenty of 'clever' people are racists. That is why I have a varied approach to racists depending on the situation.
That is why I some times consciously wind people up (but only using the truth 'rudely' put) by saying things like 'Perth is a racist hole' a statement that is easily supported (as it can be for parts of Bradford, Paris, Moscow etc, etc)but reveals a huge knee jerk reaction as University educated people rush to say 1. "It isn't" 2. "What right have you a migrant to say such things" and 3. (over and over again) a preachy "you know you will never get anywhere with such crude words and phrases", which I think is the most stupid comment of all since angry aggressive langauge always gets a bite and I've been doing it for about 30 years.
And I'm affraid the NF was not stoped by a nice turn of phrase and candle lit sinalongs!!
But the obvious common origins to us all should be more widely publised especially in West Australia.
I started these two lines of communication because 1. I wanted to point out to badly paid archaeologist in the UK that they could earn good money here (I think this will go in about 2 years since I believe we are already in the Great economic Crash of 2008 * this also not a popular opinion here!).
And 2. I wanted to see if anyone might run with a Time Team type concept here since the vast majority of West Australian do not know anything about Aboriginal culture past or present and there is also plenty of colonial stuff to work with.
I mean I've been to the Castle Museum in 'stroke city' Derry/London Derry and if they can manage to look at controversal different versions of Unionist or Republican history without geting blown up surely some TV producersw could have a go here...
It then turned nasty when Australian archaeologists became annoyed at a British migrant attacking the racism in the State, country and City he lives in and is a citizen of.
This also continued on the Australian discussion site, Aus-arch where one off-line comment asked if it was really true that I lived in Perth when I had hotmail address ending in '.co.uk' as an email address and one online WA archaeologist (supported by another one off line who continues to send me abusive emails) suggested that the cutting off of the head of the Bronze statue of Yagan was probably done by drunks not racists or even Aboriginal people themselves!!! (drunks with chainsaws.... self hating Indigenous people??)and suggested that all the Aboriginal names of places down south suggested good anti-racist policies by the WA government (these names ARE the names of places white farmers learnt them in about 1860!!!).
The frustrating thing is its very difficult to argue with these people because they grew up believing that Perth society is 'normal' and as an example do not consider that a holiday resort built on a site of a former concentration camp without proper recognition would be considered strange in many parts of the world.
I have had a fair amount of support but quite a lot of upset WA archaeologists who always claim to be anti-racist but then spend their whole time suggesting that 'things aint that bad' and 'you language is really rude'...
And these people went to Uni......
Please note (* for anyone getting hot under the collar again). No place is much better or worse than another, the UK is Not better than Australia, I am not proud to be English, British or Australian and I attack racism where ever I am. Since I live in Perth and the problem of racism is obviously worse here than much of Australia I attack the state of affairs here.
Arthus
That people kept coming is seen by the Dingo which only arrived about 5000 years ago and (I with others think)evolved from the Indian Wolf (others think dog from Thailand), it is suspected that many people came via India but maybe some came direct from Africa or down from China via Island hoping.
The Aboriginal people Dreaming religion claims they were there forever but all the Aboriginal people I have talked to have considered 60,000 years as a good enough 'forever'.
The Dreaming is incredibly interesting and complex, good book to read 'White Man Got No Dreaming' by Stanner an Ox/or Cambridge trained philosopher who recognised how amazing the religion/philosophy actually was/is and evolving still.
Not linear time but in the past, future and in the 'here-and-now'.
..... Quite attractive, who believes in linear time when waiting for something horrible to finish....
Everything about present day and ethnographically recorded Aboriginal cultures (very varied with some similarities a bit like saying European culture and including Turkey and Finland)shows that the previous habbit of talking about 'Primitive' cultures was ridiculas.
The earliest sites have art in the form of pierced sea-shells (Riwi) and the earliest art is as old or older than the European stuff (and just as beautiful).
What interests me is the similarities in early art, hand stencils and shapes virtually the same everywhere.
Cup and groove stuff looks Aboriginal...
So the earliest people must have been virtually the same as us in terms of speach and cognitive abilities just like their Upper Palaeolithic cousins.
Because art= symbolic communication = also had to have speech.
And there was always at least 90km of sea to cross, so never could anyone walk here and you need communication to sail the oceans.
I suspect that soon we will realise that vast numbers of people were purposely sailing vast distances very quickly as they left Africa about 50,000 years ago and I recogn soner or later we will find very large sea going boats.
The thing about racism is that its origin are easy to see and only logic or 'free will' can over come it. I think it goes like this:-
Many babies get told they are the "best baby in the World" (some people never really stop believing this)and so our whole being is based on us looking out..... thus our family (even if cruel) is 'normal' and so is 'our' [never trust a person who talks of "our" boys etc] village "our" football team and others in the next village are strange because they arn't "our" for they are the "other".
Ethno-centralism, even hunter-gatherers have this, ethnographically some Aboriginal groups got on with their neighbours and some didn't.
I always imagine two villages in England one basically Anglo-saxon and one Viking. For hundreds of years many people were hardly on speaking terms with the next village but a minority of people would have been interested and not repelled by the differences and attracted by the different unknown memebers of the oposite sex (and actually you don't need to go back any time at all... anyone know the huge difference between Ormskirk and Burscough in Lancashire....
But of course the more we mix with our neighbours the better for humans, any doubt look at pedigree dogs horses or the Royal family!
I think education is part of it but like you say plenty of 'clever' people are racists. That is why I have a varied approach to racists depending on the situation.
That is why I some times consciously wind people up (but only using the truth 'rudely' put) by saying things like 'Perth is a racist hole' a statement that is easily supported (as it can be for parts of Bradford, Paris, Moscow etc, etc)but reveals a huge knee jerk reaction as University educated people rush to say 1. "It isn't" 2. "What right have you a migrant to say such things" and 3. (over and over again) a preachy "you know you will never get anywhere with such crude words and phrases", which I think is the most stupid comment of all since angry aggressive langauge always gets a bite and I've been doing it for about 30 years.
And I'm affraid the NF was not stoped by a nice turn of phrase and candle lit sinalongs!!
But the obvious common origins to us all should be more widely publised especially in West Australia.
I started these two lines of communication because 1. I wanted to point out to badly paid archaeologist in the UK that they could earn good money here (I think this will go in about 2 years since I believe we are already in the Great economic Crash of 2008 * this also not a popular opinion here!).
And 2. I wanted to see if anyone might run with a Time Team type concept here since the vast majority of West Australian do not know anything about Aboriginal culture past or present and there is also plenty of colonial stuff to work with.
I mean I've been to the Castle Museum in 'stroke city' Derry/London Derry and if they can manage to look at controversal different versions of Unionist or Republican history without geting blown up surely some TV producersw could have a go here...
It then turned nasty when Australian archaeologists became annoyed at a British migrant attacking the racism in the State, country and City he lives in and is a citizen of.
This also continued on the Australian discussion site, Aus-arch where one off-line comment asked if it was really true that I lived in Perth when I had hotmail address ending in '.co.uk' as an email address and one online WA archaeologist (supported by another one off line who continues to send me abusive emails) suggested that the cutting off of the head of the Bronze statue of Yagan was probably done by drunks not racists or even Aboriginal people themselves!!! (drunks with chainsaws.... self hating Indigenous people??)and suggested that all the Aboriginal names of places down south suggested good anti-racist policies by the WA government (these names ARE the names of places white farmers learnt them in about 1860!!!).
The frustrating thing is its very difficult to argue with these people because they grew up believing that Perth society is 'normal' and as an example do not consider that a holiday resort built on a site of a former concentration camp without proper recognition would be considered strange in many parts of the world.
I have had a fair amount of support but quite a lot of upset WA archaeologists who always claim to be anti-racist but then spend their whole time suggesting that 'things aint that bad' and 'you language is really rude'...
And these people went to Uni......
Please note (* for anyone getting hot under the collar again). No place is much better or worse than another, the UK is Not better than Australia, I am not proud to be English, British or Australian and I attack racism where ever I am. Since I live in Perth and the problem of racism is obviously worse here than much of Australia I attack the state of affairs here.
Arthus