Understanding the history of Aboriginal Australians, their origins and how their population changed over some 50,000-plus years has always been an enormous challenge.Many Aboriginal people have their own origin stories. Gudjugudju, a Gimuy Yidinji Elder from the rainforest people around Cairns, says:
The story which has been passed down from generations tells of three migrations that have occurred over many thousands of years, one of us coming to this ancient land first, then another at a period after the last Ice age which saw the formation of the Great Barrier Reef, the other is of a migration out of Cairns that went back through the Cape into the Torres Strait to PNG and further.
Equally, scientific narratives of Aboriginal origins have presented different accounts. But these have been difficult to establish in part due to the difficulty and limitations of the science involved.
It’s also because of the social context that both science and archaeology work in within Australia.
The first few decades of modern archaeological research into Australia’s ancient past was conducted with very little to no involvement of Aboriginal Australian people.
This was […]
