Talk:History of Indigenous Australians

Domesticated eels

Our article talks about eels being domesticated and farmed. This has to be nonsense. Eels migrate to the ocean as elvers and return to fresh water as adults. They may be trapped and harvested but any permanent captivity would necessarily involve interrupting the life cycle. It is ridiculous to suggest that animals which spend years living independently at sea are domesticated. --Pete (talk) 21:18, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

A straw man objection? The article doesn't mention eels being domesticated. HiLo48 (talk) 03:57, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I think saying it was a straw man is a bit harsh - I just assume confusion with a different article.

The interruption in the life cycle of the eel is not a reason to disbelieve in eel farming "The short-finned eel has a typical regeneration time of 15 to 30 years for females and it reaches a maximum size of about 1.1 m and 3 kg. Males tend to be slower growing and reach a smaller adult size"|. There death rate seems huge on the way back to spawn and die, so a few more eaten wouldn't have mattered.

I am not certain though whether the eel trap systems exactly meet the definition of aquaculture "Aquaculture can also be defined as the breeding, growing, and harvesting of fish and other aquatic plants, also known as farming in water.", but it's close enough as modern eel farms care [https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fishing/aquaculture/publications/species-freshwater/eels-aquaculture-prospects referred to by governments as aquaculture Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 13:25, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

I think we need more information - unlikely centuries on - about whether eel traps were used simply to catch eels or retain them for extended periods. Eels can travel considerable distances overland, usually at night or in rainy weather, so I'm not sure how well the locals could have kept their beasts confined and healthy for any great period of time.

However, that's by the by. My objection is to describing eels as domesticated animals. That doesn't stand up to scrutiny. --Pete (talk) 20:29, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

The article doesn't describe eels as domesticated animals. HiLo48 (talk) 00:22, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Mmm. It did. See discussion above and article history. It seemed that you were disputing the fact. I don't mind if you do so personally, just don't insert untruths into Wikipedia, okay? --Pete (talk) 23:24, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

My comment is about now. Yours is about the past, so it's not a useful response to mine. HiLo48 (talk) 00:28, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I was responding to Wakelamp above. Honestly, I don't know why you chimed in. And what was that straw man crap? This article once described eels as domesticated. It doesn't now. Surely you don't have an issue with this? We can at least agree that eels are not domestic animals and this article should not say they are? --Pete (talk) 10:19, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Why are you objecting to something the article doesn't say? HiLo48 (talk) 21:35, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

This discussion started when it did. Check the dates. Why don't you go and harass someone else? Please. --Pete (talk) 23:33, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

"Farmed" doesn't imply domestication. There are (for instance) bison and catfish farms in my home country (the USA), but those animals are not domesticated. IAmNitpicking (talk) 14:18, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

See discussion above beginning last year. The link shows the following wording - "On mainland Australia no animal other than the dingo and the Short-finned eel were domesticated." - which I removed and inserted a note here explaining why.

I think I would have to say that farming animals implies more than capturing them and storing them until eaten. Point taken, farmed animals aren't necessarily domesticated. Or vice versa, for that matter. --Pete (talk) 10:05, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2011.09.007Get says "Large-scale freshwater fishtrapping complexes and associated aquaculture developed by Aboriginal peoples of southwest Victoria prior to European contact in the late 18th century confound orthodox representations of Aboriginal Australians as hunter-gatherers and not farmers...characterization of the fishery as aquaculture and fish farming, especially in relation to the Short-Finned Eel (Anguilla australis)". Also, fish farming doesn't mean the fish are domesticated Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 18:08, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Interesting facts about eels :-) @Skyring /comment led me to this awesome ABC article about the Wikipedia and Eel life history n 1876, as a young student in Austria, Sigmund Freud dissected hundreds of eels in search of the male sex organs. He had to concede failure in his first major published research paper, and turned to other issues in frustration." Totally irrelevant - Domesticated eels made me laugh at the thought of Mega Fauna Eels being ridden into battle Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 13:28, 19 May 2023 (UTC).

The 1,6 Billion Cumulative figure - Has anyone access to the reference?

The reference is collected papers from a conference and I think the relevant paper in the book may be "Difficult to found an opinion': 1788 Aboriginal population estimates" J Mulvaney - The Aboriginal population revisited, 2002

The figure doesn't match the cumulatives on World population and it is believed that But 8 K years ago there were only [5 million]. Homo Sapiens in the world. I did a rough back of the envelope calc to check as the 1,6 billion seems very high. I think it assumes a constant population from the beginning.

• 50 years average live span, (but hunter gatherer median is less than 40 Hunter-gatherer 1 Million population
• so 2 million people every century,
• so 20 million every millennium
• so 70 millennium = 1400 billion Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 12:51, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

New Children section

This new contribution seems to begin in the middle of a conversation, as if it's referring to something already said.

It is also unbelievably (and I mean that word literally) brutal and negative. It is sourced exclusively to books from the 1970s, both difficult to check, and from a time I personally no longer trust. HiLo48 (talk) 23:45, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

One of my prominent sources is 2002. You are right in saying that from today's perspective, human history is excessively brutal. It was once so in Europe and every other continent also. All these are important historical records. There are hundreds of records regarding pre-colonisation Aboriginal culture that describe these practices. The colonial era observers were not as much shocked by these as we are today, again because the world then was very different. The horrors of WWI and II were yet to come, etc. Confuciussx (talk) 00:19, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

I should say the significant sources are from 1996 and 2002. There is more contemporary literature also, but I think the topic is sufficiently covered - expanding it with further detail may seem excessive in comparison to the other sections of the article. I'm happy to consider suggestions. Confuciussx (talk) 00:23, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

If there ARE better sources, please provide them. Don't try to argue the case for what you believe by discussing other societies and the hypothetical personalities of the writers. That's original research, and unacceptable here. I wrote more than just about the sources. HiLo48 (talk) 00:25, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Valid points, however the text I added consists solely of facts supported by a broad variety of sources. I've added one more recent one, and renamed the section to "Childhood and adolescence" as a more appropriate title. There are other topics to be added here, such as passing down teaching and tradition - though these have been covered in other sections. Leaving at that and up to the community. Thank you for your comments. Confuciussx (talk) 00:50, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

I'll just repeat one more thing before I leave this for others to comment, The section is entirely negative. Did the children (and women) never have any fun? HiLo48 (talk) 01:34, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

You are free to add onto the section with reliable sources Dunkleosteus77 (talk) 06:16, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

New Warfare section

This really discusses two things, homicide and warfare. They don't really belong together. As with the Children section discussed above, we have one book from the 1970s as a source. The other source is a more recent book. It draws the conclusion that because art scenes of apparent fighting are common (and they are), fighting was common. I am not convinced by such logic. HiLo48 (talk) 23:52, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

I have removed the two sections; excessive quotations as well as outright copyright violation from https://psychohistory.com/books/the-origins-of-war-in-child-abuse/chapter-7-child-abuse-homicide-and-raids-in-tribes/ which is a Wordpress document, which we can't consider to be a reliable source. I find the content farfetched at best. Much better sourcing is needed for such outrageous extraordinary claims. — Diannaa (talk) 20:21, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

All sources are facts - just because we fine cannibalism, infanticide and rape outrageous in 2023 it doesn't mean it didn't happen in the past, on large scale, and practically everywhere in the world, including pre-colonial Australia. I didn't reference a Wordpress site, but numerous academic journals and books, from broad range of sources dated from 1800s to 2000s. Confuciussx (talk) 20:50, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

I will rewrite the section without copy&pasting, which is the only valid reason out of those you mentioned. Nevertheless, this should have been done as a note to me to correct something, not deleting new content wholesale - that's seems like just editing history not convenient to your world view - there's no place on Wikipedia for this. Confuciussx (talk) 20:52, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Something lost in rewrite? Ecology section

The History of Indigenous Australians#Ecology section currently ([5]) has a paragraph

Most scientists presently believe that it was the arrival of the Australian Aboriginal people on the continent and their introduction of fire-stick farming that was responsible for these extinctions. Fossil research published in 2017 indicates that Aboriginal people and megafauna coexisted for "at least 17,000 years". Aboriginal Australians used fire for a variety of purposes: to encourage the growth of edible plants and fodder for prey; to reduce the risk of catastrophic bushfires; to make travel easier; to eliminate pests; for ceremonial purposes; for warfare and just to "clean up country." There is disagreement, however, about the extent to which this burning led to large-scale changes in vegetation patterns.

The first part in particular is very weird. "these extinctions" seems to be referring to megafauna extinctions but "these" makes it sound like this is something discussed just prior yet the previous paragraph is on dingoes and SEA contact with zero mention of megafauna. Further, in the geography section 3 paragraphs back there is this unsourced text

The Aboriginal Australians lived through great climatic changes and adapted successfully to their changing physical environment. There is much ongoing debate about the degree to which they modified the environment. One controversy revolves around the role of indigenous people in the extinction of the marsupial megafauna (also see Australian megafauna). Some argue that natural climate change killed the megafauna. Others claim that, because the megafauna were large and slow, they were easy prey for human hunters. A third possibility is that human modification of the environment, particularly through the use of fire, indirectly led to their extinction.

which seems to partly contradicts what the ecology section says suggesting it's unclear rather than something most scientist accept. In fact even that earlier section is fairly unclear as it suggests that the introduction of fire-stick farming was responsible for the extinctions but then says they co-existed for 17,000 years, so does this mean that they only introduced fire-stick farming after living there for 17,000 years or that fire-stick farming caused the extinction of megafauna but it took 17,000 years?

Nil Einne (talk) 14:57, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the article is clumsily worded in places, probably as a result of text referred in one part being later modified or deleted. I also agree that there is a philosophical problem with the claims that Aboriginal people "caused" extinctions, etc. These events were longer ago than almost anything else this encyclopaedia tries to write about with certainty. The scientists' views vary a lot. I believe our emphasis should be on that fact, and not write anything in Wikipedia's voice suggesting we actually know what happened with any certainty. HiLo48 (talk) 01:58, 16 October 2023 (UTC)