Dark emu : Aboriginal Australia and the birth of agriculture /
Bruce Pascoe.
- Melbourne : Scribe, 2018.
- 278 p. : ill. ; 21 cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Chapter 1. Agriculture -- Chapter 2. Aquaculture -- Chapter 3. Population and housing -- Chapter 4. Storage and preservation -- Chapter 5. Fire -- Chapter 6. The heavens, language and the law -- Chapter 7. Australian agricultural revolution -- Chapter 8. Accepting history and creating the future.
Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for precolonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing - behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Gerritsen and Gammage in their latest books support this premise but Pascoe takes this further and challenges the hunter-gatherer tag as a convenient lie. Almost all the evidence comes from the records and diaries of the Australian explorers, impeccable sources.
9781911344780 : (pbk)
GBB848323 bnb
018786647 Uk
Aboriginal Australians--History. Aboriginal Australians--Agriculture--History. Agriculture--History.--Australia Land use, Rural --Australia Aboriginal Australians--Social life and customs.