LibGuides: Ancient Australia: Australia's Ancient Past

Culture, Technology, & Ingenuity

In 2014, Bruce Pascoe wrote a book called Dark Emu that challenged the belief that the First Australians were hunter-gatherers. In researching his book, Bruce examined the journals of the early explorers and found evidence of a complex civilisation that was using sophisticated technologies to live, farm and manage the land.

In this digibook, we learn about the history of Aboriginal agriculture and technology and celebrate the ingenuity of the First Australians.

We walk with Bruce around his farm as he reflects on Aboriginal people’s relationship with plants, animals and technologies.

The biggest estate on earth: how Aborigines made Australia

The Kulin Nation
When Europeans first settled the Port Phillip region it was already occupied by five Aboriginal language groups. These groups spoke a related language and were part of the KULIN (Koolin) nation of peoples.
How Aborigines made Australia
Aboriginal people worked hard to make plants and animals abundant, convenient and predictable.
By distributing plants and associating them in mosaics, then using these to lure and locate animals, Aborigines made Australia as it was in 1788, when Europeans arrived.
Where it suited they worked with the country, accepting or consolidating its character, but if it didn’t suit they changed the country, sometimes dramatically, with fire or no fire.

Tasmanian Aboriginal People

Living Cultures
Drawing on the tradition of the oral transmission of knowledge, Tasmanian Aboriginal people reveal a range of contemporary cultural practices. Through these practices we see the ways in which people have continued, revived and shared their cultural knowledge. We understand that Tasmanian Aboriginal culture is a living culture that is deeply informed by the past.