The Ancients - The First Australians

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

Indigenous Australians have lived on the vast continent of Australia for thousands of years - but how have they survived isolation, extreme conditions, and caring for the land which serves them? This week Tristan is joined by Dave Johnston, Director of Aboriginal Archaeologists Australia Pty Ltd, an indigenous archaeological company based in Canberra. Together they discuss indigenous epistemologies, the concept of caring for country, and the importance of conserving heritage sites and what can be learnt from these sites of great importance.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hithttps://access.historyhit.com/?utm_source=audio&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=Podcast+Campaign&utm_id=PodcastTo download, go to Android or Apple store:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.historyhit&hl=en_GB&gl=UShttps://apps.apple.com/gb/app/history-hit/id1303668247If you’re enjoying this podcast and looking for more fascinating Ancients content then subscribe to our Ancients newsletter. Follow the link here:https://www.historyhit.com/sign-up-to-history-hit/?utm_source=timelinenewsletter&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=Timeline+Podcast+Campaign.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's The Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And in today's podcast, we're talking all about Indigenous Australia.

We're going to be focusing in on archaeology, on several sites, and what these sites can tell us about Indigenous Australians, their heritage, their culture, and how they've been able to live on the continent of Australia for hundreds, for thousands of years. It's absolutely remarkable. But we're also going to be focusing in on epistemologies, on world views, on this idea particularly of caring for country and conserving these incredibly important indigenous sites in Australia today. Now joining

me to talk through all of this, I was delighted to get on the podcast Dave Johnston, an indigenous archaeologist currently based in Canberra. Dave, he's a wonderful chap. It was great to get him on the pod. He also recently starred in a documentary on History Hit, all about Indigenous Australia, a history of Indigenous Australia, which you can check out today on History Hit TV. But without further ado, to talk all about Indigenous Australian archaeology and so much more, here's Dave. indigenous Australian archaeology and so much more. Here's Dave. Dave, great to have you on the podcast, brother. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. Tristan, absolute pleasure, my friend. Yeah, looking forward to sharing some views of Aboriginal Australia. Absolutely. I mean, indigenous Australians, they have a history

not just stretching back thousands of years, but tens of thousands of years. Time immemorial, as we say, Tristan. And I think, first of all, Dave, for all of this, a welcome to country. Would you like to lead the way with this? Yeah, thanks. visiting places in Australia or communities, it is custom for our elders of a particular site or area to welcome guests, to do what we call a welcome to country. So this in a general, if this is going around the world, I can in a capacity, a generalist one, say welcome to listening to my and certainly my view of the history or ancient history or the archaeology

of Aboriginal Australia but firstly what I do is pay acknowledgement I'm a Torres Strait Islander man with Aboriginal ancestry from Bradbroke Island or the Quandamooka with connections to the Torres Strait however I'm living in the last 30 years down in Canberra so I'm on the lands of the Ngunnawal Nambri people recording this today and as you come to visit Australia and peoples you'll be getting a welcome from the custodians from that particular part of the country you visit. As way of introduction as Indigenous Australians generally welcome all visitors coming to a country or listening we do either a welcome to country or an acknowledgement and given that I'm from North Queensland with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander connections and living in down the south, I'll do acknowledgements today

from the Ngunnawal-Nambri country, the peoples for the area around Canberra. So I welcome you all today as an Indigenous Australian to a podcast which is reflecting my views on Aboriginal history. Brilliant, Dave. And let's keep on yourself at the start here because I'd love to learn a bit more about your background in this in particular I mean how did you rise to becoming to getting to where you are today this as an archaeologist in Canberra? I've had a quite a unique background and family upbringing and a wonderful educational opportunity. I'm very privileged from all those who've given, afforded me levels of education. I started my journey in the world I was born in the 60s, but I'm on the tail end of what they call the stolen generations. Australia

had a policy from 1911 to 1971, where children of mixed descent, a white father, a white mother, were known in those days as the old terms half caste or quarter caste, which we don't use today and we find quite offensive. But there was a policy of Australia that coincided with the white Australia policy of, well, forcibly removing Aboriginal children by the tens of thousands from their parents and adopting them into white families to get rid of their Aboriginality, so to speak, so they can grow up white in a white room without any family customs. And I'm an Italian.

And while I had a white mum, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander father, I wasn't forcibly taken away out of the arms of my mum. She was a fine Catholic. And so they adopted me and my sister out. And I ended up in the system because I was a coloured kid, so to speak, or I was an Indigenous Indigenous kid into the system of the adoptions for kids of mixed descent. And so I was adopted into a beautiful family, the Johnstons,

Trev and Kath Johnston, non-Indigenous, who over their time adopted five children, had one of their own, so six children. This is my family, the Johnstons. And we're from all different parts of Australia or North Queensland. And they also fostered many. I grew up in a beautiful family, lots of love, lots of support, not knowing who I was. In fact, I only just found out this year.

But I had a wonderful education through my mother. My father was a lighthouse keeper, an electrician. And I grew up on the Great Barrier Reef and up in the Torres Strait Islands and worked living on five different lighthouse stations and did correspondence school of the air went to got the opportunity to go to boarding schools and to university and I had an interest on the lighthouses living there not having much else to do except fish and fight with my brothers play a thousand games of monopoly i was exploring the caves got interested in my cowboy outfit as i wore those days as a kid

and explore the caves my mum said to me one day kath said maybe you'd like to be an archaeologist and i said oh what's that and she said being a good english teacher look it up into the encyclopedia if we had for our correspondence schooling and I went over and dusted off the 1958 or 68 encyclopedia Britannica and read what an archaeologist or archaeology what archaeology does and I thought oh that's what I want to do at 11 years old so I threw away my cowboy outfit and stole one of dad's trowels and my career just went from there I went to uni of university at the Australian National University, did my honours there. I got able to do a scholarship where I did my Masters

at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. And that opportunity gave me a ticket to ride. It was that university at the ANU that I came across a number of mature age Indigenous students. There were only five Indigenous students at the Australian National University in 1986 when I started. They're still my friends and colleagues today, my great mentors. A lot of us studied archaeology. They taught me the politics of reality as I was coming out in the world in my little sheltered lighthouse in an adopted family, realizing what reality was out there so it gave

me a ticket ride so I've been doing an advocate for heritage along the years mentored taught by not only my beautiful Johnston family but the many Indigenous elders communities who have also adopted and mentored me along the way so I'm a product of that very privileged with the education and love that I've been given so I've my has developed as a researcher, but also as an advocate for Aboriginal heritage protection and management. I've been working and doing that to this day, over 35 years. Dave, we'll definitely go back to your mission as the podcast goes along. But you also hold this staggering record as the first academically qualified Indigenous archaeologist. That is the truth. But it's sort of been relevant in such that, you know,

as I came through, there are many of our elders and uncles and aunties who have more knowledge of sites and places in their country than I. And, you know, I'm just by Western academic thing, yes, I am. And I am, in that sense, the first academically qualified archaeologist with my honours degree in archaeology and anthropology but you know there were many before me and one of the things we always do is recognize that so i don't make a big issue of that but yes yes i am fair enough absolutely good to point that out i mean if we now look at that let's really turn into the archaeology now let's's look into the archaeology of Australia.

I mean, what do we know about the first people who came to Australia, Dave? What I love about studying archaeology, both as an indigenous one now, as well as a social scientist, as an archaeologist, having those two hats. Firstly, for many traditional Aboriginal community groups or many Aboriginal people to today, we are from this country. We've always been here. That's an indigenous view. Everyone has a different aspect. We are from this earth. We go back to it. And, well, you know, we fit into this world

and we have been here for time immemorial. From a science point of view, and sometimes having scientists saying oh you are from out of africa the out of africa view and here we are traveling can be offensive to indigenous peoples so i'm saying that with a clarification that there is an indigenous worldview and many views from within our many languages within australia and that may cause offense we'll have a different worldview to what science and the Western Academy see. But if we do that, and I have a hat with that one, we do know that there is an out of Africa

migration and that we do know that from a Western side, peopling of Australia occurred, well, between 65,000, 70,000 years when the Ice Age was such that the waters were locked up and there was a bridge up in asia between the mainland of australia connected up to papua new guinea of about 90 kilometers which in any time if you go back in time is one of the greatest human feats of transferring across a waterscape at that stage so there would have needed to be basic canoes rafts to sustain a population of people in that would then come to australia so that's a western we're getting dates we know that we have genetics similar in syria at 70 000 years but for many aboriginal people that's irrelevant you know we don't need science to justify who we are. That's certainly for sure. You know, we are from this land and we are the oldest continuing cultural group on earth of modern Homo sapiens sapiens.

And with that knowledge and survival abilities brings the great knowledge and connection to country and connection to self that the Indigenous Australians have. So very briefly, the Indigenous view is that we've been here forever. Our Western view is, yes, we came through from Asia, through from Syria, originally earlier forms coming, migrating from Africa. That's the latest science view. And, you know, we can fit in with both worldviews. And so, Dave, would you mind explaining a bit more,

elaborating a bit more on this close connection between Aboriginal communities and caring for country? We love and use that word and share it, caring for country. Caring for country really is, and look, I speak for myself here only. Indigenous peoples, we all have different views and language things and aspects to our knowledge of country. But as a whole, we are from the land we are part of the natural environment it's a cultural one because we're part of that and we have a we have human brains that allow us to expand and do other things other animals or things can't do

but we're part of that system and we have come through from the ancestors who were part of the dreaming of of the creation of the world and then we are here and a continuation of that today we have we live we survive we have to know a land to survive we have to have laws that fit in to allow for the survival to allow for times of resource or catastrophe so in order to be in a harmonic state as best, you need to be one with nature. You need to know of it. You need to have laws that allow for your survival, where the water is, where the foods are.

The networks, when you have shortages, that you can see your fellow neighbours to have permissions to access their resources. There's a whole range of factors. But it's about caring for self, caring for family, caring for country, for your future. We all have an obligation to leave our place in a form of use for our future generations, knowing our ancestors had done that before.

And that's often taught in our laws of what the rules that we have to do. One thing about Aboriginal Australians, Indigenous Australians, is that there is a place for everyone. Everyone has a role. No one's left out. Some have greater roles than others, depending on their own capabilities, which is a place for everyone. Everyone has a role. No one's left out. Some have greater roles than others, depending on their own capabilities, which is a human thing.

But, you know, we all have a role. And that role collectively is that none of us are particularly important, but we have a role to play while we're here. And that's about caring for country because we are country. This idea of caring for country will come back time and time again in our podcast, no doubt. And keeping on the ancestors now, Dave, let's go as far back as we can from an archaeological perspective.

What are some of the earliest archaeological sites we know of at the moment in Australia? Okay, this is exciting too. So when we Blackfellas say we've been in here from time immemorial, please believe us, the dating techniques go back in more and more time whilst they become more developed. Carbon-14 dating has a limit of 39, 36 to 39, 40,000, where all the carbon elements are out, released from the organic material.

So it's a bottleneck then. We have thermoluminescence and other forms of dating which have developed and through that process we see this dating of Australian Indigenous Australian sites and places getting older so today we have oh Christ we've got many bottlenecked at the carbon 14 dating around 40,000 that's where the Lake Mungo Volandra lakes areas were the relocation was there the elders say the appearance where the late Mungo-Walandra Lakes areas were relocated. The elders say the appearance coming back of Mungo Lady, the skeletal remains of their ancestors. Mungo Lady being exposed on the ancient lakeshores, windblown, forming lunettes, the old Walandra

Lake system that dried up about 40,000 years ago. So there's a bottleneck there. The sites there are probably a lot older too. We have Mudgebibi up in Northern Territory with recent dates of 65,000 years. And remember though, folks, that, okay, we've got a date here at Neera that acts at 65,000. That's wonderful. Still, the elders say, well, you know, we have been here forever. Do you surprise? 60,000 years for any indigenous or any human mind is forever i mean remember that indigenous people's concept of time is not linear like a western mind say oh my god that's so long it's contemporaneous part events and knowledge of the past are contemporaneous today so you know the pain of a stole the stolen gems doesn't go away

it's still there the responsibility to look after and care for country or our ancestor remains even if they're 60 000 years old 40 000 years old say from orlando are still important as our custody of the roles today to care for country and care for our ancestors so those ancestors are as relevant today even if we don't have from a western side of genetic there might be 10 000 you know generations or thousand generations that's irrelevant so other sites we've got sites in wa all over but we're only just touching the iceberg tip of the iceberg for the amazing variety and range of Indigenous sites. But remembering, my science hat on, that when our peoples were coming into the country at 70, 60, 70,000 years ago, these dates may change later

if we get more information, that the landscape, the water ice was locked up. So the areas that people were covering on the troce back then are now underwater. So a lot of our older sites trove back then are now underwater so a lot of our older sites for the coastal sites are now underwater so we still got a lot of sites in there we're only at the tip of the iceberg but as our people elders say you know well our dates are irrelevant we time in memorial when we said time memorial back in the 50s and 60s and we had dates then at 60 12 000 years and places like clogs cave

that was thought to be old then but if this get got kept getting an older we're not surprised that is time immemorial dave it is absolutely fascinating and i know i'm now approaching it from a linear perspective from a western perspective but like comparing those dates like 60 000 years ago to for instance i did a podcast not too long ago about the oldest known human footprints in North America. And that's like 22,000 years ago. And then you look at the oldest known cave depictions of an animal in a cave painting from Sulawesi, perhaps 45,000 years ago. So to hear those numbers that you were saying there is just mind blowing. It really is when you're looking at it from a linear perspective.

But I guess, as you say, go on, Dave. It is exciting, and that's why our places and our connections through that time, this being events of water rising and then later European arrival and the destruction of our communities to such a thing, we have survived. And the knowledge of the communities to such an end. We have survived and the knowledge of the connection to country in our way across the country, all the many different language groups, is something

that should be celebrated, acknowledged by the world because that knowledge there about caring for country, coal burning of landscapes so that we don't have these horrendous fires. Surviving off the land, looking after the country, leaving it in a better place for the kids, are skills that we need today more than ever as our human abilities through our minds and the, well, later as the human population

or peopling have gone to dizzy heights with a supposed skill base. We've got climate change now because of our use of carbon to that extent that we do need to go back we need to care for our world care for countries why not come to indigenous australians to to seek some humility of how to do that but we need to do it urgently let's keep on this these archaeological sites because something which is really interesting when looking at indigenous archaeology dave is that there seem to be various types of sites that survive oh absolutely look okay so archaeology is the study of what people left

behind so you know in australia our physical sites we have two types the physical sites that you can see and the intangible our dreaming sites the stories created to a place it might be a mountain cliff or a river but it has connections and they're the intangible but it's the oral histories that go with that they're important probably even more so than some of our physical but folks we aren't like europe two things i want to say well we are like europe in that we have as many countries within austral language groups. If you can picture Europe with all our, you know, they estimate up to 350, 500, some used to say up to 750 language groups, of which there's only 17 languages surviving today

with bits and pieces and we're having a revival. But digital Australia, certainly time of contact, was like Europe, many different areas. But what we didn't have was the built environment. We didn't have monuments. We didn't have sites. We didn't do, you But what we didn't have was the built environment. We didn't have monuments. We didn't have sites. We didn't do, you know, we didn't become these, they call the modern civilisations with all the infrastructure.

However, our footprints through time are in the sands and in our landscapes, of which we call a cultural landscape. So going out as an archaeologist or as Indigenous Australian, knowing your country, you see the landscape and you see the imprints or footprints of our ancestors in the past there. So our archaeology is different to, you know, anywhere in Europe, of course, with our lifestyles. And the sites that are reflected and the physical ones are the representations of people camping burials so the types are for camping you have areas with artifacts scattered stone tools were there representing a range of tools being used for various purposes for hunting kangaroos this or that or might have been you know making boomerangs wooden artifacts the tools that

made those that's what we interpret it when we see that you know say what we call an open artifact scatter of course where people live people died so we have birthing trees we have areas where they were marked where the women would go or special areas obviously they're scarred trees that have marks the number of children born by a particular family the women in that family there are other things that's women's business but there are burial grounds everywhere so people died thousands not marked by graves might be marked by trees might be marked with something or exposed when their soils erode some tens of thousands of years such as like the ancient lakes around Lake Mungo with the ancestors of the Muddy Muddy people

the Nyampa people and the Barkindji people and in particular the clans of the Yitayita people who are the Chichinotas that were they were buried the people are still there today other sites hunting hides you could have where people would hide to hunt animals piles of stones fish traps to trap fish other areas like the budge bimmerian victoria or the goodage mara people produced kilometers of eels traps to direct the eels so they could net them. Eels traps? Eel traps, yes. Wow. But they also had smokehouses to smoke them as well.

So these are unique little, we call them idiosyncratic examples in areas, but they were unique. We're all very different. And the richness of our complex knowledge of country and adaptation of times of toughness or resources is little understood. We survived and thrived over millennia, and despite being nearly wiped out by smallpox in the role of Europeans and the massacres and taking us all away, et cetera,

we're still here strong today. And that's, you can hear, my passion for maintaining and managing Australia's heritage, something I still think we have a long way to go to recognise, to respect it. And as I argued, Australia's Indigenous heritage, what I feel, Australia's Indigenous peoples, our heritage and knowledge to country is Australia's greatest unrealised asset. If only Australians and the world understand it, learn it more, that appreciate it for what it is. And as a country that has 65,000 years of tree root, of history and heritage, is that is now a multicultural country today,

which Australia is, you know, is the tree roots of a modern nation going forward as a multicultural country and community that respects people, respects country, respects ourselves and respects the future of our children, I think would be a great Indigenous-led leadership direction for Australia and all Australians. Back to the other sites, there's, oh, scarred trees, shell middens,

all the coastal, anywhere people ain't left refuse this there, the stone tools, the shellfish, the fish bones, the whale bones, you know, that's on the coastal areas. Inland, there were grinding stones that were used to grind the seeds to make like a dough, a damper, or a little form of bread all over the country. Axes, stone axes, the most valued stone tools type within Australia because with a stone axe from a heavy dense volcanic stone like a

metadolorite or some heavy dense volcanic you could grind that stone down with water on a sandstone bed near the creek with water over three days to make a ground edge axe or hatchet and that preform is goes back throughout millennia we continue continue to hear today the differences they're made out of steel. We still have the preformed 70,000-year-ago by humanity's axe type. And they're all over Australia. So they were so valuable because if you wanted to make a spear or a boomerang or a didgeridoo or something of wood,

you weren't going to use your hands or your teeth to make do it. So you're going to use a heavy-duty axe that could be half and a little blank of wood strapped in with some resin and a strap to make your hand axe. So, of course, that comes with all the knowledge of using all these tools, which is part of your initiation and learning as a child to do all this to fit into your economy, so to speak. So the site types that are out there represent the range of activities, how people lived. And, of course, there's the famous rock art that's used for both ceremonial, social initiation and other purposes, depending on the Aboriginal language group that was there.

So there's so much there and we're still learning today. My main call as an activist, if you like, or a manager of Indigenous heritage, as an Indigenous archaeologist, is to try to stop our heritage to be dumbed down heritage legislation be dumbed down and our sites to be destroyed that they allow our rich ancient history to be destroyed at the level i mean david it is really interesting when you look at the unique nature of some of these sites like the information that that you can learn from it i just love this idea he said some of these unique ideas where you have examples of burial whether it was examples of settlement and then you have not too far away you have an example

of eel traps so you can learn more about food collection from the natural environment which these communities did absolutely and then there's another whole realm about well if areas where they've got these excess or have excess on, say, for fishing or having that, where there might be resource poor in, say, for getting steel axes, sorry, for getting stone axes, or there may be no wheels or fish, or there might be shortages of food over time. Remember, we're going through 1,000 years, so there's environmental change and climate change through the ice ages and changes, not to the speed it's going now.

And so there's another whole element of where you had to have, and this is the beauty of anywhere in the world, of human dynamics, the mind, and our social interaction and connections and responsibilities, so that in Indigenous Australia, over time, if you had a shortage, you needed to have a relationship with your neighbours or nearby groups and actually work on that so that, A, you could exchange, well, what we call exchange, we don't use the word trade.

Trade is just I'll swap you this pen for your rubber because I haven't got one, I need it. But what we're actually doing is that we use the word exchange and that's from one of Australia's great archaeologists, a first female archaeologist, Emerita Professor Isabel McBride, where she worked with a lot of communities, and the notion that you need an object rather than just a trade, there was an exchange, there was a relationship, which is so important

among Indigenous Australian communities and their neighbours, because you need to have a relationship too, because one of the biggest things, and we did it so well with our laws throughout the country and often punctual by death was that we had to marry outside of our genealogical family group so you needed to marry and have relations so that your daughters could be married up with the other language group or sub-dialect groups across the way and vice versa you're bringing in marriage members depending on your lineage so that was an important aspect but also for i don't have

any stone tools can i swap you i've got a heap of stingray bars which we can use for spheres so what's not seen but reflected in the archaeology sometimes is where the objects that have been moved over place over time and that often reflects well they could have spiritual other ceremonial associated but you could have a utilitarian purpose for a stone point or an axe that you didn't have in your country so you would have to have a relationship that you could trade or exchange something but that's why we had the big ceremonial gatherings where both initiations could occur between the different tribe men's young boys going to be initiated as men in their first days women doing theirs marriages occurring between the intertribal groups exchanging that sorting out problems or issues if there's any arguments going on but occasions were also times of plenty to

support all these people and all around the country we have different examples of plenty in the resource food resources that sustained a larger population of peoples coming together for these ceremonial exchanges initiations etc so in the canberra region with the minimal library peoples the bogon moth he came and destated in the millions so people collected them singed their wings and put them on the fire and they were these wonderful protein rich moths bodies that were eaten so after two weeks everyone was glistening with oil and lovely tans and oily looking very fit but they were able to stay in other areas there would be sea mullet down the south coast of New South Wales in Queensland

the bunya pine up north Queensland the cycad pine was used other areas on the coast with the whale had been beached that would be a time of. So it's knowing country to fit into all these activities, which are a very strong social, domestic and cultural sort of connection. And then today we see what's left over of these great survival abilities and skills over millennia are the sites that we have today and find. And because they're not monumental in the library,

they're often in our natural landscape. So we have to go find. And because they're not monumental in the library, they're often in our natural landscape, so we have to go out and look at them. Oh, there's areas of exposure, erosion, which bring out some of these ancient findings of the past. And whereas archaeologists say, oh, here I discovered this, well, there's a more respectful way rather than an egotist that I found this. It's about, as other of the elders at Volandra say, for example, Aunty Lottie Williams used to say, I found this. It's about, as other elders at Volandra say, for example,

Aunty Lottie Williams used to say, ah, this is the ancestors coming back to us to tell us something. Or our artefacts are coming, they came with a purpose, there's a meaning behind it. They were discovered. We didn't discover them, they exposed themselves to us. There's different volumes and everything. How can toilet training cows help save the planet?

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Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. I mean, let's keep on these world views now, Dave, because you said archaeology seems to be really important in learning more about these ancient indigenous communities. But that's only part of it. We also have stories that have been passed down through generations, some remarkable stories. So just on that, firstly, as I've touched on it, one is the laws, not the stories, L-O-R-E, the laws of the land that kept us alive, which is based on survival, based on having the best interests of your community, caring for country and your future and your kids' future. for country and your future and your kids future so there are laws the stories that are associated all the laws in our dreaming that tell us how to act and what to do you can't marry your sister there's a law about that there's a maybe a connecting story that gives you a moral impetus

why or punishable by death it breach these laws that keep us alive so there's that but then we are famed one thing in australia when you study archaeology and i did both archaeology and anthropology so archaeology as i said in a nutshell is the study of the objects and things and ways of life people left behind anthropology is the study of living peoples or past peoples of how they thought, lived, interacted, what their laws and beliefs were, et cetera. So in Australia, it's vitally important to have an understanding of anthropology about our peoples, our beliefs. Living Australians, we need to have our protocol

to being Indigenous culturally competent, so we're not insulting Indigenous peoples by blowing up some of our most significant sacred sites. That would be a good lesson 101. But what comes through there sorry back onto the stories is the our oral history and this is the point our peoples have a rich to this day oral history we're storytellers but there's more than just having a fun story all we've got some great uncles who do that but it's about learning it's about connecting we have areas

with song lines that we allow us through song to connect to our stories and laws and histories of the moral base or survival base. So oral history is important, but we also know these oral histories go back so far in time. Our dreaming stories and laws go back beyond our time. They were there in place of which we're following, you know, and we're still continuing. But there are also other oral history stories about how the world's created but we know from a science side now that if it's related to a geological event such as an ice age where water's rising because there's ice is being melting that fade and we have one for example I can use with permission from Aunty Caroline Briggs who is

the Boomerang elder of the traditional country of Melbourne across to the eastern coast of Wilson's Prom and they talk about the story and with her permission I can relate how they refer to what is now known in the Melbourne Bay or Port Phillip Bay about 9-11,000 to 9,000 years ago the sea level was another 90 feet and there was a waterfall there was the Yarra River flowed down and then came to a cliff and was a waterfall going down 90 feet well the Boomerang people remember the waters flooding within a hundred year or short period of time over a couple of hundred years till it came up to the cliff edge and flooded the valley now known today as Port Phillip Bay so in their living memory they remember that and how they associate this actual ice age melting phase.

Well, not the ice age, the melting of it. And that actually represents from a science knowledge point of geological time, the cusp between Pleistocene era, around 9 to 10, 11,000 years to the Holocene. And that was like, okay, ice age, melting, warmer period, waters rising, stabilisation about 5,000 years. So that story in an Indigenous oral histories is remembered and interpreted this way, that the Boomerang people were breaking the laws and what we say running amok are the laws of Bunjil, who is the creator who travels

as an eagle in Bo Bumurang country. And they went, oh, my God, our lands are flooding. And the people yelled out across the land, Bunjil, please stop. Don't drown us, please. And Bunjil said, well, okay, this is Dave's interpretation of Aunty Caroline's story. Bunjil goes, all right, you're breaking the laws. If you obey the laws so their their heat is to obey the laws of banjo look after the children and not harm the lands of banjo so you need to

obey the laws of banjo get back behave yourselves and i'll stop so banjo threw his spear into the ground the water stopped and the people rejoiced and have been behaving ever since that's oral history that happened nine eleven thousand years ago but the story is there and that's mirrored across the country and there's others and the Gunai, Kurni people and they have a story about the collapse of a mountain and now of Lake Tully Khan and I'll let them tell their story but I had permission with the Uncle Albert and the elders in the day to do a project around there to stop the visitors there because five, I think 7,000 years after the mountain collapsed and had landed and killed many Gunai people,

changed the water course. It is still a sacred site of mourning today. And that's another example of the mourning and contemporaneity of the grief and loss of, for Aboriginal people, it doesn't go away. Those stories are important. It's passed down through oral history, but we remember these things.

And it's also really striking with those stories, Dave. Once again, we come back to this idea of the natural landscape, whether it's a flood or Lake Talakang, this idea of caring for country. Absolutely. I mean, I've been trained in West May too, and I was being adopted out i've

grown up my family and then i've learned my knowledge of working doing nearly 3 000 projects across the country work with elders teaching me and showing me and that's my roles now use my brilliant skills being taught on country by elders over my career having the love and the support and education by my adopted family and all those who have mentored me gives me this privilege to go out to use the skills that I've been given gifted to try to protect manage to do the best we can to have this recognized this notion of caring for country comes across at all and when you go out with elders and you see they know their country a lot of our elders people can't read a topographical gastronomy because they don't see

their land in lines like that but they have more knowledge i get lost more than any elder does because they know every feature and thing there's ways of seeing country reading it or knowing it other elders you're out of country haven't been back because it's been locked up as properties i've been with elders where they go oh this country hasn't been looked after meaning it hasn't had regular annual burns cold burns cultural burns to keep the density of the brush down and that's so new life can come out so they look like matches and next thing you know there's a big flame as they're burning off so there's so much more and you know as indeed australians world opens we welcome people to come and visit us join some of the tours that our many communities are offering to show country because one thing we argue is that if you're comfortable in yourself in out in nature you get an appreciation of self whether an introvert or extrovert you have a

connection and that's what we call what i call our definition of bliss or peace when you're at peace with yourself in nature it's not all about that fastball. It's not all about money. It's about the peacefulness of you being here in that time. And you've come from the past to those in the past when you go and pass it on. And that's a world for you. I think you can write religions about. Well, Dave, as for someone like me, learning about this stuff,

learning about these stories for the first time, they are so interesting to listen to and to hear about that perspective. So I can imagine it's a completely different perspective when you've heard these stories for a first time they are so interesting to listen to and to hear about that perspective so i can imagine it's a completely different perspective when you've heard these stories for a long time those are passed down through generations but at the same time they still have their magic about them i mean if we do go back to the uh let's go back to some archaeological sites across australia now related to ancient indigenous populations, ancient indigenous communities. Are there any sites from across the continent that you find particularly striking, illuminating? I say across the continent because sometimes we forget with Australia just how huge it is, the land is.

It is so huge, but it's also huge in time. And so we don't talk a lot but if you say oh it's so expands yes but it equally in time and people being here surviving geological epochs changes and ice ages and that water rise and how we survive and adapt for the advent of Europeans in the country one of our greatest achievements so for me there are so many sites and i've seen a lot experienced a lot but for me the excitement is this one is that we're not even we haven't touched the tip of the iceberg yet here so there's a lot more new techniques in time so therefore we need to keep some of these old sites with deposits for archaeological testing for later

which reveal that much more for example resin analysis has come through in recent years in Australia where we can analyze stone tools that are in a conserved area in a rock shelter or something when they're excavated you can get the analysis to see what plants or animals blood samples were used what was being hunted what seeds and it just opens up our knowledge so much more to oral histories and what we know of an axe it's what's on it that's another area so there's so much more still to go so rather than there will be new sites and new things that have for the opportunity of having a cultural collection of past there and but it's it's the technology is how we interpret it with our elders and elders of course with our permissions so one of the things is we have to have heritage legislation

that isn't allowing the unordered destruction and that's what's happening at the moment the other thing then is the whole wide range of types but we're discovering new site types because classically you know we go and speak to our laws and they're telling us about the right surrounding things classical science western science has a definition the popularity of rock art being the main thing. But we've actually, there are a lot of site types such as ringed trees, with trees being human modified, has a ring, which often signifies burials. There's a lot of site things that are out there that aren't in the textbooks, archaeological textbooks yet, because it's often known by Indigenous peoples

and not in the Western universities. So the other side of it is the more Indigenous engagement at universities, respect for Indigenous cultural protocols and opportunities for Indigenous Australians to be, like myself, recognised as archaeologists and be afforded opportunities within the universities. We can bring our elders and our knowledge to it, which will, on the pages that were once printed, what archaeology is, it can add volumes to that knowledge and based on lived experience.

Now, Dave, I do need to ask about one particular site, just because of how well known it is, how popular a site it is. And that is, of course, the site of Uluru. And Dave, why, first of all, is this site so important to Indigenous Australians? There's two ways to answer that. One, if you're a traditional owner and a law person from that area, that's the key. I'm not. So I will answer it this way, as an Indigenous Australian, with respect to the people's knowledge. Uluru, for all Australians, is seen as the red centre of Australia. It represents Australia because it's right in the middle.

That's that side. But we do know that the area is so significant to the people of that area, it actually is the centre hub for the peoples of that central area. It has spiritual connections and I'll allow them to tell that story because it is theirs. But it is symbolic of Australia. So that has contemporary significance.

But we should definitely, where in time, you could do a story where you need to consult with the custodians of the Uluru Rock for its meaning beyond just a layman's view that I'm allowed to present here. So we'd be contacting, let's say, to learn more about the ancient history of that site, you would have to contact the custodians of that area, of that piece of land. Because it's not appropriate for someone like me

to know all their sacred law because you have to go through initiation and be from that country but it's iconic in i cannot say as a layman there it's iconic for all australians and for the people there because it stands out in the desert areas and is known as the world's largest monolith but then there's another whole dimension of which the law people of that country can. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals.

No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Let's go on to some other themes then, Dave, which is about Aboriginal astronomy. And it really was incredibly important to the whole culture, to the whole societies of ancient Indigenous Australians. Absolutely. I mean, when we talk about worldviews, Indigenous worldview, besides looking at books or things which we didn't, your worldview is not just looking down, looking across, it's looking up. If you didn't, your world view is not just looking down,

looking across, it's looking up. And also your world thoughts hold your world that is yours. But many people looked up at night. The elders of Marne and Land came down to Fraser Island, what are now called Fraser Island, or the Budgella people. And they had these giant satinay trees that are there that were used for making huts and shelters and later by Europeans for hunting and that. And these giant trees, 90 feet, giant satinates,

and the elders from Arnhem Land who hadn't seen trees that high used to lie down on the ground and they called them lie down, look up trees because they'd never seen anything. You know, we don't spend as humans looking up in the ground from the ground upwards. But when you do so every night around the fires or areas away from the city lights and see these amazing stars that are across all of the country, there's no surprising that our greening

creation stories, as you look up and wonder, that revolve into the various stories that are connected to various groups around the country as they are across the world and around the world as they were throughout time. So that's different. We have our unique ones what's also interesting are some of our communities with Chinese origins or connections from the Chinese days have both Asian stories of through their their biological lineage of the

Asian stories connection and then they have their Aboriginal version of that and I've seen that in play so there's a lot of knowledges of a lot of connections. We seem to do it very well. But, of course, they're represented in the dreamings, and you can see similarities across east, north and south. I'll leave that to the lawmen and women to talk about. So, yes, they're reflected in rock art. They're protected in artworks on your bodies and things as well,

and in law, so religion and law. But today we think about the stars we kind of have to go outside at night and look up or we'll get a telescope but for many if the night sky was a large part of your daily life or sleep when you're looking up plenty of time to think and wonder and also reflect on the stories that have been passed down as the connections and the meaning of them and people like my friend Pete Swanton you know he's bringing both the science hat and indigenous one together that knowledge that connection because also stars are still fabulous people are a guiding point for walking as you're traveling through country too as well as the physical landscape in front of you

well Dave you also mentioned their religion and law could you uh elaborate a bit more on that and what we know about that i think when we define you know religion as catholic but you know religion defined by this and that we have more reflections of our ancestors who created the war who left us laws now here we are today we're continuing that on and that might be in time a memorial or the ancestors of the dreaming spirits goes back in time that's why we've been here forever they're still relevant today we're still here it means forever so rather than just call it strictly a religion if we say have a base or our connection to country through our dreaming creation stories and who and the rules that flow through from that past down and that what binds us is what we call law not l

a w maybe we're rebelling against just english definitions or interpretations and we call it l o r e so it's got a bit of more of cultural impetus but that is also the law is the way we are things that come out from the dreaming and what we have to abide by so children coming through initiations girls doing their women's business and initiations the young boys coming up takes many years are learning the law l-o-r-e their roles responsibilities as they go through but it's also practical learning where the water holes are where are your obligations who can marry who can't i won't go anything much further so it's the law sort of being handed down and very much for those who, who can marry, who can't. I won't go anything much further. So it's the law sort of being handed down

and very much for those who are initiated, who can speak and the uninitiated like me who are unborn or can't speak. I'm really looking forward to asking about the next theme. And this is something which just sounds amazing. And this is trades, ancient trade of people outside of Australia. Talk to me all about this. I know you've done a lot of stuff around trade of people outside of Australia. Talk to me all about this.

I know you've done a lot of stuff around this in the north of Australia. Well, here's another area which I don't think Australians, let alone the world, are too familiar with. What I call Australia's first, well, we call Australia's first international trade export. And I'm not a critic of Captain Cook. I am of the process of the recognition as those who write history that he discovered Australia.

He was a brilliant navigator. He was beyond what he was asked to do, but he didn't discover Australia, folks. We have been Northern Australians from Western Australia across the NT and the Gulf of Carpentaria on the side, from Western Australia across the NT and the Gulf of Carpentaria on the side, have had visits from the Makassans, from Makassa in Sulawesi in Indonesia today, Indonesia. And we know the Makassans who were part of it,

we know the Chinese were exploring the world 12,000 plus or whatever, how many, you know, continually, 5,000, 7,000 years ago around the world. The Makassans had met with the aboriginal northern australians had developed over time relationship and permissions to get there and came each season to collect trepang boil them up dry them put them on their prows and to go back to sullivasey at the end of the season where they would then travel all the way up to China. Now, some say we know that these Macassans were working. It's more than just trade. It's an exchange. They're allowed to live there without getting speared. So they had to have rules and protocols. There's a

lot of consultation going on. And we know the dates of about 480 years old, but we actually are doing further research. We think it might go back to 1500 years. That's connection. And you go up to many of the groups up north, northern Australia. And, you know, there are ceremonies that sing and celebrate their brothers and sisters, the Macassans. There are Aboriginal women who left with the Macassans to be married. to be married. Now, this happened, and the living memory of this stopping was because in 1911, white Australia governance enacted the white Australia policy, which restricted all the yellow peril,

as they were calling it then. And, you know, people don't forget. That was the end of that. But the archaeology, the history, the connection of our people, thousands of Macassans were coming down. But you don't just come here and bathe. The mobs would have speared them. They had relationships.

In fact, our communities are singing ceremony to farewell the Makassans, knowing that their religion was their God, was Allah. And in Muslim countries, they sang about Allah, wishing them home with their God and good speed, you know, this interaction. So it wasn't just prayed, oh, here we go. I'll throw you this trepang and you can throw me, you know, fish. No, no, no. There was relationships.

Our people are really good at that. I mean, Dave, a couple of points on that, first of all. I mean, first of all, if it does go back 1,500 years, then that's contemporary. But I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, it didn't just happen. Passers were travelling for thousands, you know, a long time. Same with the Chinese.

So it's just we didn't, as, you know, white archaeologists developing here, didn't just happen castles were traveling for thousands you know a long time same with the chinese so it's just we didn't as you know white archaeologists developing here didn't think of that and that's fair enough but they were narrowed by their own well dave i mean as you say it is an if but if if so that could be contemporary with the fall of the western roman empire let's say the arab conquest of the near east and i guess it does make sense when you think of let's say other events such as you, their populations on places like Eastern Micronesia, Khosrae, you've got the Polynesians at that time spreading eastwards. I mean, it makes sense that there was this contact, there was very much this contact between the Australian continent and Southeast Asia at that time. And so indigenising the discipline of archaeology you know respecting our elders

you know what the works of isabel mcbride and all the mungo elders to say hey you can't just dig up our sites our history it's part of us it's important it's a moral act argument that is our country is our heritage and you need permission and you know plus what we talk about our community archaeologists which is what i'm doing these days and you know 30 years after 34 years after my honours i'm doing my phd about community archaeology about making projects that are relevant to our people it's not just about an ego academic who's trying to find the biggest and oldest and who has the biggest trout no no humanity within an archaeological district is important the ethics of it getting permissions and then we can actually open up and learn of

the people whose heritage it is and not just being the centre of the study because we have a lot of knowledge and the connection that can expand our human knowledge of the world and I think now more than ever given the speed up of the climate change because of modern human actions and you know some indigenous knowledge about how to survive look after our kids ourselves our country is is so important and i think if we could use that mccassin's and the interactions but still a ways you're going on for so long whether it's for 880 years or 15 or more it's about relationships now more than ever i think those lessons of our humanity and our association to country our connection to country, is one we can share to the world about building these relationships

so we're not having World War III in the next couple of weeks and we can come together to use our brilliant technologies and minds for humanitarian sake, not just a few misogynistic men. So one of your main missions today, if we're now focusing on that as we wrap up, the importance also kind of of astronomy, preserving Aboriginal astronomy techniques to learn more about astronomy today with modern techniques, how they can work together.

In this area too, it's preserving these indigenous Australian sites from the threats that they face so that we can learn more as a people today so we can progress as a people today people say something oh you know the past repeats you can't learn from the past you can learn in the past but it can give us an idea it's also about the minds of people and how you know I think we can follow the behaviors of human nature that repeat themselves men in power too long dictators nothing good happens to a dictator that's pretty well true we've got a few around but then nothing really happens if you've

got a capitalist societal world that's got to an extreme where one or two men think they can own everyone else sometimes you want to wonder where her benevolent dictator isn't too bad but if you've got laws that are about caring for country caring for self as a basis and that can be of man management to how we interact and relate to other people so everyone benefits that's caring for country too caring for country here we go he said it's coming full circle all the time i mean dave it's been wonderful chatting to you how important is it for you for an indigenous australian to be telling these stories in our chat today about the ancient history of Australia and so much more?

Firstly, for me personally, it's very important. I'm privileged to have the opportunity to get to where I am now to have these opportunities. I mean, for 30 years, I mean, we used to get people, commentators would get Indigenous actors to talk about an Indigenous voice to tell the archaeologist. I mean, the 35th,th fourth year now I'm getting recognised by my contemporaries and the rest but it took why you know it was always the non-Indigenous so we're getting there now but I'm also just a

phase in time I've learned from my elders and everyone who's taught me including wonderful non-Indigenous archaeologists academics i'm also repeating stories that have been passed down and being taught to me so there is the the knowledges were there before passed down i'm just a passer i'm a storyteller too now and with what i've learned but i've been given that gift of learning and by many so i that's where i see the responsibility i have to you know use those skills as i have in a Western context as well as what permission smells to be able to relate and to share it with the world a bit more, but also, you know, you can see the politic

in me as well about, hey, folks, as my Uncle Albert Mullet, I've been the head elder for the Gun Eye for many years and got the native title of my great mentor and adopted me as a son, said, son, look after the needy watch the greedy whether that was a contemporary and old one and i just i just get so excited about out the history we have here and the realization now we have had the opportunity to voice it and share it and be the ownership of owners of the custodians of it and of course each area has their own custodians and their people passing it down.

And now I'm just one with a science hat and an Indigenous hat that feels passionate about it and has seen the destruction of it to such an extent for no reason other than greed that I speak out a lot about it. And I get asked to speak out for it, to protect it. If you learn it, it embraces your life. It helps to embrace your life and your connection to the country well dave keep speaking out about this as you say he's passing these stories down and the importance of preserving these sites uh and so more it sounds also uh to wrap this all up i mean the history of the journey of australia's indigenous archaeologists in the past few years in the past half century or so is pretty extraordinary in its own right and also from what you've been saying during our chat today there's excitement

for indigenous archaeology in the future in the fact that we've only just scratched the surface that's what i'm so excited about so i see it my at this point in time okay we've got a few things to fix like a lot let's get our legislation in place that's this come on coming young fellas coming people coming in there's so much there once we get this right that's all let's get the old stuff happening properly there's opportunities to explore to learn to embrace our tourism opportunities from our communities showcasing these amazing sites and places and histories and you know connections there's so many angles that but also represent what is being modern australian through its ancient and through its you know its

antiquity so for me that's exciting the new techniques look the black lives matter around the world what's happening here we're changing here i'm on you know doing you know podcast galore now it took me 30 years to get recognized i'm grateful and i'm now my role is the whisperer between the old and the new as we call it my age to pass on the knowledge of the old to the new who are you know smarter and brighter than than perhaps i will definitely also to use their skills and use their energies and creativeness to look at you know what else is out there but i do i argue our knowledge of our past gives us connection to country connection more importantly connection to self connection to country a sense

of belonging and connectedness to those around us certainly shared it gives us a humanitarian base it does teach us lessons without doubt but you know new technologies new things but the human nature doesn't change that much you know some those who have a god biblical you know you know new technologies new things but the human nature doesn't change that much you know some those who have a god biblical you know you know and had to find the sins of man well those things don't change and that aspect of how the world evolves and the histories and things that have before us are the same and having laws or connectedness there can keep us, well, certainly kept us going and surviving for so long. Something, a gift I think we can share with the world. Well, Dave, definitely share that gift with the world.

I mean, it's been an absolute pleasure to chat with you today. And all it goes for me to say is thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Thanks so much, buddy. Well, there you go. There was our chat with Dave Johnston, all about Indigenous Australian archaeology, the first Australians, and so much more. It was great to get Dave on the podcast. It was a real pleasure to record that episode. And that also, I guess, brings an end to our small mini-series dotted over the past few months about Indigenous Australia. We've done astronomy, we've done songlines and now we've done this

episode with Dave but don't you worry we'll probably be doing more episodes on Indigenous Australia in due course as we will on other areas of the ancient world we're yet to cover. Don't you worry whether that's North America, South America, parts of Africa and so on. We're going to get there. We're going to cover those areas in due course. You have my word. Now if you want little hints as to what areas of the ancient world we're going to be covering next in the weeks ahead in upcoming podcasts, why not subscribe to our weekly ancients newsletter. Every week I'll be writing a little blurb for that newsletter, normally between 200 and 500 words, shall we say, giving you a bit of an update as to what's been happening, what episodes we're looking to release in the weeks

ahead, little hints as to what ideas we're thinking of at that moment in time. So you get the first bite of the cherry, as it were were you're the first people to know what we're probably going to be covering next so if that's of interest to you if you want more ancients content and little hints like that then subscribe to our newsletter via a link in the description below if you'd also be willing to leave us a lovely rating wherever you get your podcast be that spotify apple podcast or wherever, that would also be greatly appreciated as we continue to spread the word of the ancients further and further. And that's enough from me and I will see you in the next episode.