Oldest Continuous Culture??

[old man emu]

A current catch cry in the debate on things Aboriginal is that Aboriginal culture is the oldest continuous culture in the World, therefore worthy of preservation at all costs.

 

I fully accept that there has been human occupation of this continent for at least 40,000 years and further research might well increase that time. Why do I accept that? Because it can be proven by analyses made by people in a number of fields of science that are applied to the study of the past. However, who can prove the longevity of a "culture"?

 

Let's se what the word "culture" means. Culture can be defined as all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation. The elements that define a culture are - language, social norms, religion, ethics, socio economics, mores, traditions, societal regulations, nationalism, aesthetics, material culture, attitudes, values, social organisation. There are several characteristics of culture. Culture is learned, shared, symbolic, integrated, adaptive, and dynamic.

 

I'm happy to accept that prior to the Europeans call the year 1800, amongst Aboriginal peoples the elements and characteristics existed, therefore meeting the criteria of the definition of culture for the most part, although one has to wonder if it was at all "dynamic" (of a process or system - characterized by constant change, activity, or progress).

 

My concern is with the use of the adjective, "continuous", which means  marked by uninterrupted extension in space, time, or sequence, or as written in Hebrews 13:8 "the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever". While the physical continuum of occupation can be proved, not so the cultural continuum. It is well known that there are examples of clearly cultural constructs in parts of the country that the present "traditional owners" do not recognise as part of their culture, and attribute them to people living there before them. Along the Illawarra coast off Wollongong is an island with a resemblance to an upturned canoe. The local Aboriginal tradition has it that it is a canoe that some young warriors arrived in from the East after stealing it from an Elder. From what we know scientifically of the rise of sea levels after the last Ice Age, that story appears to have its basis in a migration of displaced peoples who had been living on the extended coastal plain prior to the sea level rise. Since the story reflects knowledge of way in which the warriors obtained the canoe, it suggests that the warrior were not of the same group as the storytellers.

 

I believe that "oldest" is possibly also incorrect. Consider the Kalahari Bushmen, called "San" (pronounced "Saan") as a collective name, but their preference is for the use of such individual group names where possible over the use of the collective term San. The hunter-gatherer San are among the oldest cultures on Earth. A set of tools almost identical to that used by the modern San and dating to 42,000 BC was discovered at Border Cave in KwaZulu-Natal in 2012. Various Y chromosome studies show that the San carry some of the most divergent (oldest) human Y-chromosome haplogroups. These haplogroups are specific sub-groups of haplogroups A and B, the two earliest branches on the human Y-chromosome tree. A DNA study of fully sequenced genomes, published in September 2016, showed that the ancestors of today's San hunter-gatherers began to diverge from other human populations in Africa about 200,000 years ago and were fully isolated by 100,000 years ago.

 

My argument is that the use of "continuous", further enhanced by the adjective "oldest" creates a falsehood in advertising, since the implied fact cannot be substantiated.

[red750]

I acknowledge the original custodians of the land on which this post was written.

 

What about the tribes in the Amazon who have not yet been exposed to white man, or even other coloured races in South America?

[Old Koreelah]

Good post, OME. You’re right (and brave) to challenge the fashionable narrative. 

 

Science has always had to battle against current prejudices and today’s political correctness works against us finding the truth. A thorough DNA study of indigenous peoples across our continent is sure to show fascinating patterns, but I wouldn’t blame our Aboriginal people for refusing to co-operate; they’ve been subjected to plenty of abuse by science since white fellas arrived.

There is rock art that current indigenous groups don’t know the origin of and that is very different to more recent styles of art. Did these cultures die out or were they replaced by newer arrivals? I bet there is a wealth of rock art and other archaeology drowned just off our coast.

[Bruce Tuncks]

The fact that in 40,000 years they didn't invent anything like writing or the wheel speaks volumes. The Tasmanian aborigine were unique in the world for not progressing at all in thousands of years.

They actually went backwards and lost the ability to join skins and make stone tools. ( It is thought that at one time their adults died out and didn't pass their skills on.)

The Incas were easy pickings for the Spanish because they lacked writing....  there were no instructions on how to deal with those lying cheating Spanish.

Anyway, I reckon that the 40,000 years makes them less worthy not more.
For most of my life,, I thought that the current abos were actually a second wave who killed off all of the first wave except that Bass straight was now flooded and they couldn't reach them.

Alas, more evidence has shown this not to be true... Apparently DNA shows the tasmanian abos were just like the mainland ones.

And as for culture, I reckon the abos have the worst culture in the world. The best thing they demonstrate is a great tolerance for bad behaviour, well as long as they have not been drinking.

I like their artworks but not the way they bash their women. Unbelievably, certain "woke" ( mainly white) ladies wish to blame us whitefellers for this...  what rot.

[nomadpete]

OME Said....

"the oldest continuous culture in the World,"

 

Maybe it was the oldest CONTINUOUSLY DEVELOPED culture in the world....

 

CULTURE

 

All cultures are in a continual development PROCESS (change).

 

The old Australian Indigenous culture has gone. Tis two hundred years too late to look for blame. NOW there are no actual peoples practicing the comprehensive old culture which lasted so long. Bits and pieces don't cut it. The newer 'whitefella' culture has not been accepted either.

 

The Indigenous Culture of 2023 encompasses a large number of participants who accept alcohol abuse, child abuse, domestic violence, as being normalised. Ask anyone who works around these places.

 

I suggest that their present culture is disfunctional. Over two centuries it has morphed away from the strengths they once had. Further, we know external restrictions (government controls, etc) have been repeatedly shown as counterproductive (USA proved it with alcohol prohibition).

 

Basically, government cannot 'fix' everything.

 

Any true improvement in life of a majority that is doing it tough, can only come from a ccommitmentby the majority to change from within.

 

So far, Voices at the top have not improved the suffering of the majority.

 

Sometimes, new culture must evolve for the benefit of the majority to live well, when an old culture becomes destructive.

 

This (IMHO) is where many indigenous and many 'low socioeconomic' whities are, right now.

 

Time for a cultural shift.

Edited May 30, 2023 by nomadpete

[facthunter]

WE are pretty dysfunctional also at times.  Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

We sure are dysfunctional at times. Our inequalities are the worst aspect I reckon. At least the abos didn't have the old guys own everything.... whoops, I forgot how the old guys in abo society had the power to declare all wanted things, like young lubras, taboo till you got to be an old man.

Well we are not much better I am sure. ( try to entice a young woman if you have a millionaire competing and see )

One of the things which made me into a skeptic was why the young lubras, stolen from the tribes by the early squatters, did not run back to their tribes at the first opportunity.

I reckon that in Alice Springs in the 1950's, your ideas of how tribal society really worked were not 200 years behind the times at all.

When I was in about grade 6, the last tribal family decided to retire to Santa Theresa mission. Sure, they had known about whitefellers for many years, but they found it easy to evade them.

They had lived according to their ancient tribal laws until then.

The fact was that the whitefeller treated his "captive" better than the tribe did.

 

[old man emu]

6 hours ago, Old Koreelah said:

Good post, OME. You’re right (and brave) to challenge the fashionable narrative. 

I wanted to challenge the "oldest continuous" bit in the way that our Courts would challenge the veracity of statements like "Brand X kills the COVID virus", since viruses are in that Limbo world between living and non-living things.

 

If we use the year 1800 as a timestamp, then I agree that since then, the traditions which governed life for Aborigines have ceased to be practised. If you read what I wrote, you will see that my argument is that "continuous" cannot be proved. Old K and I referenced the rock art that the contemporary Aborigines cannot explain. Further, if there are upwards of 500 separate groups (which we can call Nations for convenience) then it is difficult to believe that there is only one culture. There are 44 sovereign states which make up Europe. We might say that there is a common thread running through European culture, but each of those sovereign states has its own main culture and many sub-cultures. A non-PC way of saying things, but I will anyway. With 500 Nations, you can't say that the Aborigines are all tarred with the same cultural brush. So neither can you say that their cultures are continuous from time immemorial. 

 

I think that referring to the Saan of the Kalahari rebuts the "oldest" claim.

[Jerry_Atrick]

It is an interesting contention, and one that should be examined. If we are going to an almost forensic definition of culture to measure, then it probably requires more extensive treatment than these pages could yield, because even within these pages there is a contention of what the term, "culture" means. And then we hhave to take it in the conext of the phrase, "continuous culture", and if there are any definitional changes to the meaning of culture as a result. Of in this context, dxoes it mean simply passing down blood lines?

 

An example of why we would need a treatment beyond these pages is that before colonial settlement, it is understood there were over 250 (or 270) different ATSI nations, tribes, mobs or what have you. Each spoke different languages, had different customs (e.g. many had welcome to country type customs and many didn't). Each of these is a separate culture, yet when we refer to the contionuous Aboriginal culture, we are referring to the collective Aboritinal culture - or a more generioc or higher/level, abstract, etc. So which is it we are referring to. These cultures probably spawned from a mmore mono-culture, but there has been history of others arriving pre-colonial days. Apparently, today, less than 10 of these tribes, nations, etc, exist in terms of herediatay lines (I may be wrong, but but it is a tiny fraction of the original number as I recall).

 

This may well go to explain why contemporary Aboriginals cannot explain some rock drawings - they may have been created by a long lost Aboriginal nation, for example.. Of, they may have simply been lost in the oral lessons of successive generation - maybe they weren't deemed important enough, or maybe they were some expression of rebelliousness that had to be kept under wraps.. whatever. The fact that they can't be explained today doesn't prove that they aren't from a continuous culture.

 

In the conext of the collective Aboriginals being a cutlure in itself doesn't lend itself to the strictest definition of culture. So, it has to be of a more generic sense, in terms of common cultural attributes as a starting point that have morphed over time (until colonisation). On that basis, the San have lived for at least 20,000 years and Aboriginals have lived for at least 60,000 years (is the current thinking, and up to 80,000 years). That would make Aboriginals the longest continual culture. On a strict definitioon of the term culture, up until the ealy 1800s, Aboriginals were the longest continual culture, and the San now own it...

 

It begs the question - how did we get it to utterly wrong that not even one Aboriginal tribe, nation, mob, etc, was allowed to continue their truly traditional methods?

 

 

 

[onetrack]

I don't believe for one minute that the Europeans "didn't allow the Aboriginal tribes to continue their truly traditional methods". The Aboriginals simply saw the European systems and supplies as being a way of life that was a lot easier than a traditional life, so they took the easy way out. They grabbed European livestock at every opportunity, because it was easier to catch and possibly tastier than 'roo or goanna.

 

They didn't take long to learn that European clothing (even cast-off clothing) was a great idea that was much better than smearing yourself with animal fat to try and ward off the cold.

They didn't take long to figure out that motorised transport was far easier than traipsing 100kms to find food. And they didn't take long to learn that firearms were much better than spears!

 

The last traditional Aboriginal tribes were the Pintubi Nine, and the Richter family of the Gibson and Great Victoria Desert country, who came in to "civilisation" in 1984 and 1986 respectively.

They were encouraged to come in from the desert by other relatives, because the relatives were concerned about their long-term survival chances in the region.

Remember that a lot of Aboriginals died from simple diseases carried by the Europeans, as the Aboriginals had no resistance to these diseases - and no medical systems or regimes to deal with them, in their native state.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-27/last-desert-nomads-richter-pintupi-remembered-david-scrimgeour/101688182

 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2023 by onetrack

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Each of these is a separate culture, yet when we refer to the continuous Aboriginal culture, we are referring to the collective Aboriginal culture

Europe has 40-odd sovereign Nations, yet we agree that they all add bits and pieces to create a European culture. Likewise for India and most of Asia. If you look at Europe and Asia, you could say that it is religious philosophies that are the foundation stone of a widespread culture.

[facthunter]

I don't see any EUROPEAN Culture Per se. The EEC was an economic CARTEL. Nev

[spacesailor]

The " EEC " was Hitler's Dream ! .

Spacesailor

[facthunter]

So you keep saying. the 3rd REICH would work differently I would imagine. Not all Europeans speak German and no one's forced to buy their stuff (which is good quality).  Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

Jerry, what if they were "allowed" to continue with their traditional culture but they didn't want to? I agree with onetrack in this regard. What evidence can you bring to prove that they were "not allowed" to continue their traditional ways?

[spacesailor]

" no one's forced to " .

Except ALL the world now has to understand the French S !.  " System de International Paris France " .

Am I being forced , against my will , to learn S I.

Germany ( D I N ) or Japan's metric.  Are Not allowed. 

spacesailor

P S just like the changing of the constitution.  ' Don't say anything or get jumped on ! .

But how many $  millions have the government spent , persuading  Australians to vote yes ?.

 

[onetrack]

Europe was full of warring tribes, and still is. The only reason there's some agreement between some of the tribes there today is the level of infiltration, interbreeding and economic pressure within many of them.

 

Germany still rules most of Europe, but it's an economic strength rule, a plan they had all along, it just got altered a little in how it was to be carried out, when they didn't win WW2. They didn't take long to regain the economic upper hand after WW2.

[Marty_d]

I think the point is that they lived in balance with the landscape for tens of thousands of years, not polluting the air, ground or ocean, not wrecking the topsoil and rivers by monoculture or planting thirsty crops like cotton. 

By the very act of arriving here the Europeans destroyed that balance. Even if the settlement/invasion had happened with zero blood spilled, the diseases which OT mentioned, alcohol,  notions of private land ownership and domesticated animals, not to mention all kinds of advanced technology and weapons, would have led to exactly the same outcome. 

Now obviously life is hugely better for most people with modern medicine, tech and comfort. You just have to watch Alone to realise that. But there's a tradeoff. You want plastics, you pollute the ocean.  You want industrialization,  you get climate change.  You want agriculture, you get overpopulation. 

So saying individuals are better off under modern conditions if arguably true, although I bet without sugar, alcohol and junk food the pre-18th century indigenous people didn't have kidney disease, diabetes, addiction and all the other obesity problems.

But is their society in general better off?

[nomadpete]

All true, Marty.

But one might also say about the rest of us ........

8 hours ago, Marty_d said:

But is their society in general better off?

For it is hard to see social fabric or equality gettin very wonderful anywhere.

 

Further, we acknowledge that the Australian indigenous are the longest continuous peoples dwelling on the same island. But although they didn't damage the place with the listed modern environmental crimes....

8 hours ago, Marty_d said:

for tens of thousands of years, not polluting the air, ground or ocean, not wrecking the topsoil and rivers by monoculture or planting thirsty crops like cotton. 

Are we at all sure their fire 'management' didn't have major repercussions on the landscape? Their arrival coincides with a period of mass extinctions and the loss of vegetation. It was basic survival by any means available and I can't blame them for that. But it mostly left fire tolerant species that we see today. True, that period also had significant climate change as well. But the question remains.

 

I doubt that the first arrivals had a environmental plan for the future - their only thought would have been 'What's for lunch?'. Same as me, had I been there.

 

Most iimportantly like the mistakes made by 'early' whiter settlers, it is no longer relevant to the present issue, which is 'what can we do today to improve equality?'

Edited May 31, 2023 by nomadpete

[Old Koreelah]

7 hours ago, nomadpete said:

Are we at all sure their fire 'management' didn't have major repercussions on the landscape? Their arrival coincides with a period of mass extinctions and the loss of vegetation…

I quite agree, NP.

Decades ago one researcher found evidence in parts of Australia of a relatively sudden change in the dominant tree species from fire-tender Casuarinas to Eucalypts, which proliferate when the frequency of fires increases.

Were people the cause of those more frequent fires? This was about 125,000 years ago.

 

Near Glen Innes, spear points have been found in the same stratum as extinct megafauna.

 

Our first peoples’ low impact on the land was largely due to their very low numbers and nomadic lifestyle.

It is still part of Aboriginal culture to toss aside anything they no longer want; I’ve been disappointed to see Indig friends do just that. As a result of that practice, many First Peoples settlements are bluddy untidy, so that aspects of their traditional culture has to change, if they are to be a viable part of modern Australian society.

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

20 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

Jerry, what if they were "allowed" to continue with their traditional culture but they didn't want to? I agree with onetrack in this regard. What evidence can you bring to prove that they were "not allowed" to continue their traditional ways?

Here is one: https://healingfoundation.org.au/who-are-the-stolen-generations/#:~:text=The Stolen Generations refers to,mid-1800s to the 1970s.

 

And another which goes on that Aboriginals were in fact involved in more traditional farming which was hidden and covered up - wonder why that could be? https://www.utas.edu.au/about/news-and-stories/articles/2020/1043-the-enduring-myth-of-the-hunter-gatherer

 

And I am sure some cursory research will unveil plenty others... 

 

When you force people force people from productive and traditional lands, you steal their generations, imprison or beat them, at critical mass, they will eventuallyi succumb... I believe Putin is deploying a very similar style at the moment - he just doesn't have the resources. In fact, there is a stolen generation of Ukranian kids right now. 

 

In the early days, as each colony was a separate colony in administration, practices tended to be within those colonies, but, as per the stolen generation, there was coordinated approachs across Terras Australis. 

 

One can't underestimate the impact on the remainder of the population, either.

 

It is also a furphy to say because modern means are adopted, they have abandoned a traditional way of living. Or that if they decided to go after a cow or sheep rather than a croc as it is easier, they have abandoned all what it is to be Aboriginal. 

 

 

[old man emu]

19 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

the stolen generation, there was coordinated approachs across Terras Australis. 

I don't want to raise the ire of those who follow a Christian faith, but I think that diligent research might show that the idea of removing children from their families was pushed onto Colonial Governments by the several Christian missionary orders who saw it as their duty to save the souls of the Noble Savage by enacting the words of Aristotle,  “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.” In the 19th Century, the Churches had much greater influence on Government policy that they do today. So what the Churches proposed as being of benefit to these "pagan savages" was adopted by the Governments.  Obviously the Churches had given it up as an impossibility to turn the conviction-stained White population to their philosophy.

[Marty_d]

I think the Jesuits appropriated that saying too, as horrifying as it is to think of any child being given to the church. 

[facthunter]

The Jesuits are the ones allowed to think. You can have a discussion with THEM.  Nev

[Marty_d]

3 hours ago, facthunter said:

The Jesuits are the ones allowed to think. You can have a discussion with THEM.  Nev

But obviously not too hard, or they wouldn't be Catholics.