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In this work the author explores issues of the origin of agriculture in Australia such as the "failure" of agriculture to develop indigenously, and its "failure" to diffuse into Australia, despite contact with Indonesian (Macassan) agriculturalists or New Guinean horticulturalists. Although not always explicitly stated or recognised, significant differences probably exist in the factors and dynamics that led to the pristine development of agriculture, as opposed to agriculture that arose as a result of outside influences, as a result of cultural transfers. In addition, a further question is investigated relating to the concept of Complex Hunter-Gatherers and the validity of some of the frameworks, key arguments, and critical evidence, that have been put forward concerning the development of agriculture, animal husbandry and Complex Hunter-Gatherer economies. A corollary of certain additional factors also explored, such as British colonisation, is the recognition that particular geographic, environmental, climatic, demographic and cultural factors, either singly or in concert, must have affected development in this continent.
For centuries before the arrival in Australia of Captain Cook and the so-called First Fleet in 1788, intrepid seafaring explorers had been searching, with varied results, for the fabled “Great Southland.” In this enthralling history of early discovery, Graham Seal offers breathtaking tales of shipwrecks, perilous landings, and Aboriginal encounters with the more than three hundred Europeans who washed up on these distant shores long before the land was claimed by Cook for England. The author relates dramatic, previously untold legends of survival gleaned from the centuries of Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Indonesian voyages to Australia, and debunks commonly held misconceptions about the earliest European settlements: ships of the Dutch East Indies Company were already active in the region by the early seventeenth century, and the Dutch, rather than the English, were probably the first European settlers on the continent.
Meticulously examining ethnographic sources, Christophe Darmangeat argues that warfare among Australian Aborigines was mostly an extension of their judicial systems. He demonstrates how violent conflict occurred when circumstances prohibited regulated proceedings.
"I, Jeronimus, am a man of phials, a measurer of powders on bronze scales, a potion brewer, an opium and arsenic merchant. The primped and perfumed Amsterdam burghers came to me in droves requiring cures for fevers, love balms, the miscarriage of a bastard child and, of course, poisons. Ah, poisons..." The Company is based on the true story of a Dutch East India flagship, the Batavia, which foundered off the coast of Western Australia in 1629. Jeronimus Cornelisz, a thirty-year-old apothecary with murder, mutiny, rape and torture on his mind, assumes command of the survivors, who all thought they were lucky to be alive. With Cornelisz in control, however, an extraordinary reign of terror begins, leaving those who survived wishing they had gone down with the ship. 'Elegant and hypnotically malevolent' Kate Grenville, winner of the Orange Prize 2001 'A compelling and utterly original story of shipwreck, madness and evil. It is written in gorgeous prose . . . and features a splendidly ruthless villain. A fine, dark novel' Patrick McGrath
"Contacts between Indigenous Australians and outsiders - Macassans, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, Americans and others - are known to have occurred for 400 years. This book explores these diverse, subtle, dynamic and volatile first encounters from Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives. It also looks at the myriad elements of these cross-cultural exchanges, which resulted in profound outcomes for the First Australians. Strangers on the Shore: A Conference on Early Coastal Contacts with Australia was a landmark conference held at the National Museum of Australia on 30-31 March 2006"--Provided by publisher
"The conference explores past and future approaches to managing and designing for growth, development and decline. This goes beyond debates over density, frontier development and renewal. It includes new fields of historical, policy and social research which inform discussion of heritage, growth, environmental, economic and other issues of urban life and urban form."--Page iii
The Murray cod is Australia’s largest and most iconic freshwater fish. Tales of the species have long been part of Australian folklore and this book describes its history, biology, cultural significance and conservation. The Life and Times of the Murray Cod reveals the many roles the species has played throughout the history of the continent, from its place at the heart of the Aboriginal creation story of the Murray River, its role as a food source for explorers surveying inland Australia in the early 1800s, to it forming the basis of a commercial fishing industry up to the early 2000s. Living for upwards of half a century and growing to astonishing sizes, today the Murray cod is a hugely ...
*Longlisted for the CBCA 2020 Eve Pownall Award for Information Books* *Winner of the Booksellers' Choice 2020 Children's Book of the Year Award* *Shortlisted for the 2020 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature* *Shortlisted for the ABIA Book of the Year for Younger Children (ages 7-12)* *Shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards 2020: Children's* Age range 10+. The highly-anticipated junior version of Bruce Pascoe’s multi award-winning book. Bruce Pascoe has collected a swathe of literary awards for Dark Emu and now he has brought together the research and compelling first person accounts in a book for younger readers. Using the accounts of early Eu...
Terra Australis - the southern land - was one of the most widespread concepts in European geography from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, although the notion of a land mass in the southern seas had been prevalent since classical antiquity. Despite this fact, there has been relatively little sustained scholarly work on European concepts of Terra Australis or the intellectual background to European voyages of discovery and exploration to Australia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Through interdisciplinary scholarly contributions, ranging across history, the visual arts, literature and popular culture, this volume considers the continuities and discontinuities between the imagined space of Terra Australis and its subsequent manifestation. It will shed new light on familiar texts, people and events - such as the Dutch and French explorations of Australia, the Batavia shipwreck and the Baudin expedition - by setting them in unexpected contexts and alongside unfamiliar texts and people. The book will be of interest to, among others, intellectual and cultural historians, literary scholars, historians of cartography, the visual arts, women's and post-colonial studies.
Compelling, multifarious and essential.' - Don Watson 'Drink in its wisdom.' - Andrew Leigh, MP On this ancient continent, waves of people have made their mark on the landscape; in turn, it too has shaped them. If we look afresh at our history through the land we live on, might Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians find a path to a shared future? An epic exploration of our relationship with this country, Landscapes of Our Hearts takes us from the Great Barrier Reef to the Central Desert, the High Country to Canberra's Limestone Plains. It is a book of hope and offers the possibility that a renewed connection to the landscape and to each other could pave the way towards reconciliation. It will change the way you see this land.