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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Time for a very special science show. Why is it now good to know how long ago people first arrived in Australia? Much earlier than once we thought. Well, it not only gives a finer, even exciting view of the wide brown land, such knowledge has even changed the law, monumentally with land rights, as with Wick and Mabo at the High Court.
And as for knowing about our glorious animals, they're not leftovers at the arse end of the globe. They are unique, special. Wait till you hear about the big surprising brain of the echidna in next week's science show. Meet my country.
MUSIC
Poet Dorothea McKellar was right about the sunburnt country 100 years ago. And this week, in that spirit of recognition, another work, the first inventors, a book, How People Shaped a Continent, is published summarising the new discoveries, showing again that Australia is so very special.
The authors are Billy Griffiths of Deakin University, Larissa Berent presenting Speaking Out on ABC Radio National, and Distinguished Professor Sean Alm at James Cook University in Cairns. But we begin at Cambridge with Professor Jack Ashby and Richard Feidler. Was, is Australia really maligned?
A large part of your book is about this odd disdain for Australia's wildlife. It's historic, really. You hear it from Americans, you hear it from the British, you hear it from Europeans as well, where Australia's wildlife is seen as kind of primitive. It's a really kind of an irritating thing I find every time I've gone to America. Americans will say, I can't possibly go to Australia.
I'll get killed in five seconds. Everything in Australia is trying to kill you. What do you make of all that, this culture of Australia is like the junkyard of God's mistakes?
So I think absolutely. I think those two things you just described, the kind of everything is trying to kill you and the primitive idea are both very much intertwined. So these are both ways of writing off Australian mammals. But it's a hangover from a colonial mindset. If you read any 19th century description or 18th century description of Australian mammals,
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Chapter 2: What new evidence suggests about the arrival of Indigenous people in Australia?
It helped justify the invasion. And as I say, every single scientific description is saying these are strange, weird, primitive, inferior animals. And where that, the kind of everything is trying to kill you comes in, I think it's absolutely bonkers.
I always say to Americans, you've got bears in your country, man. They're like sharks that can walk on land.
Exactly that.
And they come into your backyard and eat your trash. I mean, no sharks. It's like, are you crazy? It's really weird.
Other than Europe... or at least parts of Europe. Australia is the only continent that doesn't have any large land predators. It is the safest place. I've spent the last couple of weeks in Tasmania on field work and I'd be out every night on my own in the forest spotlighting for animals with absolutely no fear that I'm going to get eaten by a tiger or a bear or a wolf at any point.
Your toe won't get nibbled off by a Tasmanian devil?
It's pretty unlikely, unfortunately. And then Richard Feidler reads Professor Ashby a poem about a roo, and it's another blatant insult.
There are others like Baron Field who wrote this poem called Kangaroo. I'm just going to quote the first stanza of it for you. It might be the only stanza, actually. He came here in 1816 to serve as a judge. He wrote, Kangaroo, kangaroo, thou spirit of Australia that redeems from utter failure, from perfect desolation,
and warrants the creation of this fifth part of the earth, which would seem an afterbirth, not conceived in the beginning, for God blessed his work at first, and saw that it was good, but emerged at the first sinning, when the ground was therefore cursed, and hence this barren wood. Imagine coming arriving in Australia and just going, well, this is God's junkyard like this.
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Chapter 3: How has the understanding of Australia's wildlife been historically misconstrued?
It's not the sort of science I'm looking for. Or do you?
No, no. I mean, I wouldn't say I personally think that. Yeah, those stories are just so central to being able to interpret the archaeological record because we're so limited. At the end of the day, these communities have been in these places for thousands of years and have these tremendous stories and knowledge and have so much to share. And I'm all the richer for being able to hear those stories.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Arianna Limbreed is with the Centre of Excellence up in Cairns, Northern Queensland. And so, what have they found? What is the big new story? Here's Distinguished Professor Sean Alm, who leads the Centre of Excellence and helped write The First Inventors. Well, I think it's a brilliant book. I've read it more than once.
And one of the things that really startled me in the first few pages is the discussion of human beings being here for 65,000 years and the cave in the Northern Territory called Majabibi. And you ask the question, where was this cave 65,000 years ago? And the answer is 350 kilometres inland. What was the implication of that?
This speaks to a bigger story, and one of the reasons we wrote the book, actually, is to get the public more engaged with our own history of the continent. And one of the most astounding things, when I do public speaking and training and things... Getting people to envisage a continent when the sea levels are 130 metres lower than they are today.
And the reality is that for the majority of the human history of our continent, it didn't look anything like it does today. So if you lower the sea level by 130 metres, it exposes all of the continental shelves around Australia and connects what we now know as Australia to both Tasmania and New Guinea to form the supercontinent of Sahul.
And that's how we find Majabibi, 350 kilometres inland at the time it was first occupied, maybe before 65,000 years ago.
You're being very gentle. It's clearly more than 65,000 years ago, I would have thought.
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Chapter 4: What insights do Indigenous knowledge systems provide about sustainability?
What would you do if you had the sole decision to make officer commanding culture in the new government system? And you had to make the decision about that sort of unbelievably precious relic. Because it turned the view, you know, 40,000 years ago, there was the evidence. Not 4,000, as they told me when I first arrived in Australia for human health occupation. And so it went.
And what would you do to make a gradual diplomatic decision as to what people would wear?
I would throw money. there that way and I would throw support and I would throw recognition in that way. I think I would value the history that is there for what it is and value it on equal terms with other things we support, we fund and celebrate.
I think if you look at somewhere like Budge Bim in Western Victoria, which has got World Heritage status now and has just benefited from having the tourism, sustainable tourism associated with World Heritage status. is strengthening people to tell stories about this country and inviting more international tourists to understand these incredible eel systems. That is what money can do.
And we've got Lake Mungo, which is World Heritage recognised for its cultural values and its natural values. And I think both natural and cultural values need to be taken into account in a management of the area. And I believe it could have greater, much greater government support. how that would manifest on the ground. I'm not sure.
I would leave that to the boards that are in place, to the people who have a stake in this place. But there's certainly a tendency to avoid difficult subject matters, avoid doing difficult things. It's easy to rename a place. It's easy to make a token gesture about... Indigenous history or culture.
It's hard to get in the thick of these individual contexts and bring money, bring time, patiently listen and build on plans that have been in process for decades.
Billy Griffiths from Deakin University, where he's a senior research fellow and lead author with Sean Ulm and Larissa Berent of the book The First Inventors, launched this week. Next week, we celebrate another unique Australian icon, the echidna. And yes, again, much more complex and surprising than we thought.
A big brain built for thinking and physically strong enough to move your fridge, would you believe?
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