How Aboriginal Australians Made Australia

Didgeridoos, boomerangs, and an ancient hunter-gatherer lifestyle. These tend to be the first thing to come to mind when we imagine Indigenous Australians. Only with the arrival of Europeans was agriculture introduced. But new research and old documents may reveal the secrets of native Australian agriculture. So were the Aboriginals hunter-gatherers, did they take part in a secret whale-human alliance and did they managed “the largest estate on Earth”. Well, Let’s Find Out!

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#Australia #AboriginalAustralians #Aboriginal #Indiginous #Australiahistory

[iammrbeat]

The parallels to American Indians is actually a bit surprising to me. They also dramatically altered the landscape.

[mostly.]

I'm Australian and they don't even give this stuff a passing mention in history class but hey great video 👍🏻

[staciehill]

I'm aboriginal and I knew some of this because of my grandma, idk why we don't learn about it in school we only know about dream time. Thanks bala

[sun.healinggoddexx]

I'm aborignal Australian & I am beyond grateful for this information, makes me feel proud.

[MrAlexkyra]

My experience as an Australian here. I remember reading an encyclopedia from the 1970s about Australia. It barely mentions the Aboriginals, mentioning them as a 'stone age people' who lived in Australia before the British arrived and then ignoring them. In high school history classes we only hear about Aboriginals in the context of colonization and modern times. In primary school we learned some things about Aborignal mythology (the Dreamtime) and art (dot painting). But their history before 1788 is a huge blindspot in our education system, and I guess this is how you still get people imagining Aboriginals as a 'stone age people' who acheived nothing before the British arrived. We definitely never learned anything about Aboriginal agriculture.

[KnowingBetter]

I can't help but snicker at the map at 3:31... do you think he knew what he drew? He knew.

[iammrbeat]

I mean, who ISN'T glistening with moth fat these days?

[hiddenhist]

Interesting presentation. Aboriginals are definitely among the most ignored groups in history! I was passingly aware of some agricultural practices, but no where near to this extent! Might aboriginals have been the oldest agriculturalists on the planet?

[god]

"They knew all along what these structures were, but had never been asked". Literally every interactions between natives & colonists.

[SPITFIREH]

I'm aboriginal and highly APPRECIATE and RESPECT this video for being created as it is information like this that helps to protect and prolong the cultures survival within this day and age.
Everything is precise in this video and you have done a tremendous job to represent just how in tune with the land our ancestors were and still are.
Thanks bruz [-o-]

[wt_m]

I'm Australian and thank you for making this video man. I am not Indigenous myself but so many old and young people know next to nothing of indigenous cultures, their history and our history with them. When I was growing up we had a Labor government in power, Labor has always tried to teach the history of Indigenous people's in public schools as a mandatory part of the curriculum, so I learnt about them.

Shortly after I left school, however, a Liberal government came in (they're actually a conservative party despite the name) and they removed the subject from the curriculum entirely, mainly because their party were/still continue to be the architects of the vast majority of atrocities committed against Indigenous Australians, and our history of institutionalised racism vis a vis the White Australia Policy and the Stolen generation, etc.

To this day our Indigenous communities in Australia have never recovered from these atrocities and white Australians beliefs are still heavily shaped by the societal conditioning that they were subjected to throughout the time these policies were being implemented, and they still hold on to their beliefs of Indigenous Australians being drunken layabouts, even my own parents do, and unfortunately many of those older people have passed those beliefs onto their children, many of whom don't know better because we are no longer educated about their history and our "interaction" with them.

I hope more young Australians watch this video and realise that indigenous Australians were far more sophisticated than they had ever realised. A proud culture that has barely survived numerous attempts at genocide, whether by outright massacre, genetic replacement or cultural destruction. We put the original custodians of this land into the situation they're currently in, we need to take responsibility and actually allow indigenous Australians a platform to actually tell us what would help them. THAT is one thing any country with a downtrodden native population should do to help, just listen to them.

Edit: if you want evidence of how shamelessly and unabashedly racist some of my fellow Aussies are then read the replies.

[djitidjiti]

I'm an Australian history major and knew exactly where you sourced all of this from as I watched it. I'm impressed - most Youtubers pull their videos from their arses. You got an instant sub from me.

[desifish]

As an Australian, you never learn stuff like this, I have a new found love for both your channel and the native culture if Australia

[richardjidee]

A huge rewrite of history, I was expecting the magical serpent to appear

[EpimetheusHistory]

Very interesting, I learned a lot, did not know 85-90% of this. Loved the animations. This video, the Hatshepsut and the chocolate video are my 3 favorites you have made :)

[OGWildcard]

G'day mate, I just wanted to say I love your work and this video was so interesting to learn about my home country and our rich history of our sacred people. Keep up the good work mate.

[kimbo]

If they had significant agricultural prosperity their population would have risen to many thousands as in African tribes. But they didnt. Where were the 30, 000 strong indigenous tribes ?

[--Paws--]

Reminds me of the "legend" of how the Amazon Rainforest was actually a garden. The trees and plants were planted by an extinct tribe that once were regarded for building massive structures made of branches and sticks. The jungle that the Amazon has become was due to this garden being left unattended by those who planted it, like the ruins of a lost civilization.

[owenb]

It's actually messed up how History education here in Australia didnt teach us about this and its always making Aboriginals as stone age people and the lost generation

[jha]

I love your snobby accents when quoting the colonizers. Brilliant.