ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIA Agriculture –
An authoritative study of pre-colonial Australia that dismantles and reframes popular narratives of First Nations land management and food production. Australians’ understanding of Aboriginal society prior to the British invasion from 1788 has been transformed since the publication of Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu in 2014. It argued that classical Aboriginal society was more sophisticated than Australians had been led to believe because it resembled more closely the farming communities of Europe. In Farmers or Hunter-gatherers? Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe ask why Australians have been so receptive to the notion that farming represents an advance from hunting and gathering. Drawing on the knowledge of Aboriginal elders, previously not included within this discussion, and decades of anthropological scholarship, Sutton and Walshe provide extensive evidence to support their argument that classical Aboriginal society was a hunter-gatherer society and as sophisticated as the traditional European farming methods. ‘Farmers or Hunter-gatherers?’ asks Australians to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal society and culture.
Full contents:
- 1. The Dark Emu debate
- 2. Spiritual propogation
- 3. The language question
- 4. Ecological agents and ‘firestick farming’
- 5. Social evolutionism rebirthed
- 6. The agriculture debate
- 7. Patterns of apparel
- “Aquaculture’ or fishing and trapping?
- 9. Dwellings
- 10. Mobility
- 11. The explorers’ records
- ‘Agricultural’ implements and antiquity
- 13. Stone circles and ‘smoking’ trees
- Conclusion.
- 288 pages, 4 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, illustrations (some colour), maps, forms ; 24 cm
Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
First Nations (AIATSIS) Subject:
- Fishing – Fish traps
- Sites – Stone arrangements
- Sites – Middens
- Indigenous knowledge – Botany
- Indigenous knowledge – Ecology
- Housing – Shelters
- Costume and clothing
- Costume and clothing – Cloaks and coats
- Technology – Stone
- Technology – Tools – Topology / classification
- Environment – Land management – Fire
- Environment – Land management
- Environment – Land management – Clearing
- Environment – Climate and weather – Seasons
- Religion – Rites – Increase
- Language – Vocabulary
- Anthropology – Theory and criticism
- Archaeology – Settlement patterns
- Settlement and contacts – Explorers – European
- Hunting, gathering and fishing
- Demography – Population mobility
- Habitation – Nomadism
- Mer / Murray Island (Qld TSI SC55-05)
- Hopkins River (W Vic SJ54-12)
- Tae Rak / Lake Condah (W Vic SJ54-11)
- Tasmania (Tas)
Subject:
- Pascoe, Bruce, 1947-
- Pascoe, Bruce, 1947- Dark emu
- Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies
- Agricultural management & economy (Australia)
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures — ACARA Australian Education Vocabularies
- Australian literature — Criticism and interpretation
- Aboriginal Australians — Antiquities
- Aboriginal Australians — History
- Land use, Rural — Australia
- Aboriginal Australians — Social life and customs
- Aboriginal Australians — Agriculture
- Hunting and gathering societies — Australia
- Australia — Social conditions
- Australia — History
- Australian
- History (Australia)