Aboriginal Folklore Leads To Meteorite Crater

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Aboriginal Folklore Leads To Meteorite Crater

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 6, 2010 @09:21PM from the bunyip-approved dept.

An anonymous reader writes "An Australian Aboriginal dreaming story has helped experts uncover a meteorite impact crater in the outback of the Northern Territory. From the article: 'One story, from the folklore of the Arrernte people, is about a star falling to Earth at a site called Puka. This led to a search on Google Maps of Palm Valley, about 130 km southwest of Alice Springs. Here Hamacher discovered what looked like a crater, which he confirmed with surveys in the field in September 2009.'"

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Always more to the legends and stories... by YankDownUnder · 2010-01-06 21:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's just too bad that so much of the Indigenous Australian's stories are "turned aside" by Western culture; they've been here AT LEAST 75,000 years (and most likely far longer than that) and there is so much within the framework of the Dreamtime stories and legends that bespeak heaps of extremely interesting occurrences - cosmic, geological and human. There's much more to be learned from studying what is left of their culture - and it's extremely important to preserve what we have now - for future generations. The Indigenous culture here is dying off at an alarming rate, and little care is aimed at this travesty.

--
YankDownUnder Veni, Vidi, volo in domum redire
1. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by krou · 2010-01-06 22:02 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  On my brief visits to Australia, I was always fascinated by Indigenous Australian culture and history, and made a point of learning more about it. What struck me, though, was how present day Australia has assimilated their culture as a marketing tool, and done next to nothing to allow their people and culture to survive. You can buy cheap Indigenous Australian "art" tat at airports that are made in China, while the vast majority of Indigenous Australians seem to have been left to rot, poor and drunk, in the gutter. There is such a deep undercurrent of racism against them, that I find it remarkable that they still exist at all. Everywhere I went, I heard the same stories of how lazy and worthless they are, they just squander everything they're given, they're all just drug addicts and drunks, stupid, and child abusers, which sounded eerily similar to the attitude of whites towards blacks that I remember from South Africa. I see a deep irony whenever I hear white Australians talk about preserving the white, Christian culture of Australia as justification for their immigration policies: they basically don't want someone to do to them what they did, and are doing, to Indigenous Australians.
  
  --
  'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
2. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by hwyhobo · 2010-01-06 22:04 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The Indigenous culture here is dying off at an alarming rate, and little care is aimed at this travesty.
  Dying off of cultures and civilizations is a natural process. What must be preserved is their collective knowledge. Written records of their stories may one day prove to be a giant shortcut for future research.
  
  --
  End anonymous moderation and posting on /.
3. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 22:14 · Score: 0
  
  > You can buy cheap Indigenous Australian "art" tat at airports that are made in China
  You can buy any culture's "art" at the major local airports, also made in China
  >the vast majority of Indigenous Australians seem to have been left to rot, poor and drunk, in the gutter
  You're making the same assumptions as the racists by claiming it's the "vast majority". As a visitor you may not have noticed the depth and breadth of subsidies and welfare afforded to Aboriginal people as a whole. Many resent them for this. More still resent them for the few who squander it.
  >they're all just drug addicts and drunks, stupid, and child abusers
  You forgot 'thieves'
4. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 22:29 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  And what would you suggest we do to fix this? We've tried the 'just leaving them alone'. We've tried the 'throw copious amounts of money at them to promote development'. We've tried the 'educating them to help themselves'. We've tried both the carrot, and in the past, the stick, unfortunately.
  But nothing changes. And you can understand why ... their culture is most fundamentally a nomadic one. They have no concept of 'ownership' of land or property, and rarely stay in one place for long. Thus no amount of providing infrastructure does anything ... they simply aren't interested in that. They are quite happy doing what they've done for the last 80,000 years. And more power to them I say - except that the scourge of alcohol and other Western influences has corrupted this traditional lifestyle for many to such a point where their societies collapse.
  Australians are just as ashamed at the situation as you are. We've handed back vast tracts of traditional lands to the Aborigines (much like the Indian Nations in the US), but the native Americans seem to have done much better for themselves than the Australian Aborigines (from what I have seen during my numerous trips to the US, they are quite prosperous on their reserves and have good self-determination and leadership).
  Sure there are some racists around, like anywhere, but I firmly believe the vast majority of Australians are not prejudiced against the Aborigines. But the problems you describe are deep and very, very difficult to fix.
5. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by ACDChook · 2010-01-06 22:31 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's doubtful they've been here much longer than 40000 years. Genetic evidence indicates they are descended from the same group of people that left Africa about 70000 years ago as every other non-African person on Earth.
6. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by phyrz · 2010-01-06 23:03 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I spent a bit of time during some touristy native american stuff while i was in canada and alaska last year, those tribes are (were) WAY more advanced than the Australian native peoples that the comparision just doesn't apply.
  Native americans built full blown cabins where aborigionals largely still lived in caves and temporary shelter. They had a far better chance at integration.
  Yeah its sad whats happened to the aussie abos, but at the end of the day they, as a people, need to save themselves - they have been given whatever resources they need. And perhaps they are making progress like alcohol bans in some towns up north, mon-fri boarding schools for children so they get proper rest at night, and pouring money into aborigional art and expression (hip-hop, dance and so on).
  The biggest problem is that a large proportion of this and the next generation of aboriginal kids will be growing up with fetal alcohol syndrome. those kids dont have a chance.
  
  --
  Don't point that gun at him, he's an unpaid intern!
7. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by NeutronCowboy · 2010-01-06 23:05 · Score: 1
  
  Flamebait, really? The mod should read up on Aborigene history - especially the last 200 years or so. It's the unfortunate truth.
  
  --
  Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
8. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by c6gunner · 2010-01-06 23:07 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  Thanks, you took the words right out of my mouth! Even if their stories directly referred to this crater, that's one semi-useful story out of thousands which are entirely worthless (other than for whatever artistic merit they may have). It doesn't come close to showing that there's any real value to their legends or their culture.
  It's even worse than that, though, since - as someone else pointed out - this crater is millions of years old. Their story is most likely entirely unrelated to that impact. Therefore the only "lesson" here is that if you dig through enough garbage, you may eventually run across some gold ... but your odds won't be any better than chance.
9. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by MichaelSmith · 2010-01-06 23:15 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Its about the worst possible interface. Aboriginal people are about the most primitive culture in the world today. They were always going to get steamrolled by Europeans.
  As a white Australian I would favour vastly expanded alcohol and petrol bans. Lets talk about the entire Northern Territory. Include South Australia and Western Australia more than 100km outside their capital cities.
  I live in Melbourne and a schoolmate of my son is Aboriginal. He is being raised by a white woman who adopted him and arranged for him to have a liver transplant, which saved his life. She takes him home to see his birth family every year. Its a variation of the mistake which led to the stolen generation, but its the only way for this boy.
  
  --
  http://michaelsmith.id.au
10. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by MichaelSmith · 2010-01-06 23:17 · Score: 1
  
  I agree. See the Myall Creek massacre.
  
  --
  http://michaelsmith.id.au
11. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by whrde · 2010-01-06 23:18 · Score: 1
  
  > Dying off of cultures and civilizations is a natural process. Then you have no idea what is happening in Australia.
12. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Ceriel+Nosforit · 2010-01-06 23:19 · Score: 1
  
  Speaking of dying cultures, I can hardly believe I'm reading comments like this modded up. I think we've come far in not being the ones who dismiss the knowledge of our ancestors. When I first became a reg on this site it felt like my fellow slashdotters were trying to wipe my memory and reinstall Linux when I voiced such opinions. :b
  Knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Feels good man.
  
  --
  All rites reversed 2010
13. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by MichaelSmith · 2010-01-06 23:26 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  One thousand years is a long time. If you put your mind to it you could walk from Africa to Asia or Europe in a year. I reckon 1000 years is easily enough to go from Africa to Australia. Quite possibly 100 years. Remember they are not diffusing like animals. Once they decide to go from A to B that is what they do. And the people who left Africa at 70000 BP were genetically identical to us, with the same potential.
  And I have this idea that sometimes the safest way to be is to move fast, especially if you have the intelligence to make good mental maps. That way if you strike a problem you can use your map to find a solution.
  
  --
  http://michaelsmith.id.au
14. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Potor · 2010-01-06 23:31 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Once they decide to go from A to B that is what they do.
  
  Are you implying that they knew what B was, and where it was? If they didn't, they were essentially wandering.
15. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by kklein · 2010-01-06 23:38 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Then you have no idea what is happening in Australia.
  Weaker cultures/civilizations being replaced by stronger ones is exactly what has been happening in Australia, and North America, and South America, and that's only in the last couple centuries. It has happened countless times throughout history. It's normal. That's isn't an excuse to be dicks about it, but it happens to every culture eventually. We're sitting here typing in the language of the people who had their own fine and dandy language which was decimated by Nordic raiders who took over the northern parts of their island and started supplanting bits of their culture with their own, then came the Normans who enslaved them for 300 years and relegated some of their best words (fuck, shit) to the "dirty" category... Oh, and don't forget about the Romans...
  We are the lucky benefactors of several waves of colonization. Just because our culture was the last to really go on a colonizing bender doesn't mean we were the first, or the last.
  That's what "natural" means.
16. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 23:39 · Score: 0
  
  I also agree, you should watch the First Australians documentary series which aired on SBS - http://www.sbs.com.au/firstaustralians/ (SBS Television). Every Australian citizen should.
17. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by MichaelSmith · 2010-01-06 23:40 · Score: 1
  
  Once they decide to go from A to B that is what they do.
  Are you implying that they knew what B was, and where it was? If they didn't, they were essentially wandering.
  I think they were smarter than we give them credit for being. They were essentially the same as us after all. For sure they wouldn't have known that there was a continent ahead, but they might have decided to walk in a particular direction and see where it took them.
  
  --
  http://michaelsmith.id.au
18. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Jacques+Chester · 2010-01-06 23:41 · Score: 4, Informative
  Dissipation is slower than centuries for two reasons:
  
  People get used to where they grow up. It's not as though every generation set themselves the task of moving as far from their parents as possible.
  Land bridges depended on ice ages. Australia was settled by (depending on who you consult) 2 or 3 waves of humans, corresponding with ice ages making it possible to easily reach Australia from the Indonesian / PNG archipelago.
  As for the grandparent's claim that Aboriginal Australians have been on this continent longer than 75,000 years, the evidence is based on a single highly polluted sample. The evidence for 40,000 years of settlement is much stronger and corroborated by multiple sites.
  --
  
  Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
19. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by ACDChook · 2010-01-06 23:42 · Score: 1
  
  Well, IIRC, following the archaeology from Africa, through the middle east, India, SE Asia, to Australia, it basically shows a slow progression around the shore. With arrival in Australia being 40-50k years ago.
20. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Ceriel+Nosforit · 2010-01-06 23:51 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  "Primitive" in regards to peoples is deprecated. The past few generations of our culture has consumed our resources as quickly as they could, without thought to our children, or our children's children. This is a failure, a divorce from nature, of darwinian proportions. I'm sad to note that some of our contemporaries that I have spoken to intend to procreate and still in their own lifetime use up the resources of their own offspring.
  Speaking as a human male intent of protecting my young, I'm well within my rights to become a force of natural selection. We must soon advance on a personal level to no longer need more than the quintessential Australian aboriginal. Imagine, if you will, yourself in their clothes by the side of a road as a glutton in a SUV drives by, when re-evaluate the meaning of "primitive".
  
  --
  All rites reversed 2010
21. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by krou · 2010-01-06 23:53 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  I went from insightful to flaimbait to troll. Tough crowd. Now I just need funny and interesting, and I'll have a full set.
  
  --
  'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
22. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Jacques+Chester · 2010-01-06 23:54 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  The Indigenous culture here is dying off at an alarming rate, and little care is aimed at this travesty.
  Most traditional Aboriginal cultures have already been lost since British settlement. Depending on who you ask, there might have been 600 independent cultural-linguistic "nations" in Australia in 1788 with the British claimed approximately 2/3rds of the continent as "New South Wales".
  Nevertheless, a large amount of traditional culture still exists throughout the centre and north of the continent. I am from Darwin in the Northern Territory, for example. Just a few hundred kilometres from that beautiful little town you can find traditional law being practiced in all directions.
  What cultures have survived are being studied by anthropologists, linguists and the like. Similarly, dreamtime stories and rituals are often sought for insight they can give into historical events and geological features.
  I don't think that all elements of some existing traditions are praiseworthy and deserving of retention. In many places, for example, traditional law is brutal and inhumane. However, much as European culture grew out of the comparable brutalities of the classical world, we can adopt and learn the best elements of tradtional cultures and combine them within our own in the centuries ahead. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Stasis can be as destructive to cultural survival as anything else.
  
  --
  
  Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
23. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by drinkypoo · 2010-01-07 00:06 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  This is NO DIFFERENT from what racially privileged people have been doing EVERYWHERE since the dawn of racial privilege. I could as easily rewrite your last sentence as "I see a deep irony whenever I hear white Americans talk about..." etc etc. Oh noes the border is failing, the brown people are coming back! We invited them back... to clean hotels and offices and pick lettuce and strawberries.
  I live in Lake County, California which gives me some very close perspective on what you are talking about; for over 10,000 years it was the home of the peaceful Pomo people who enjoyed a land covered with acorn-dropping oaks and filled with deer and elk, a lake filled with fish, and a day's walk to a coast well-encrusted with shellfish (and peopled with other peaceful peoples.) I live in Kelseyville, named after a slaver rapist whose wife helped bring him to his deserved conclusion by sabotaging the weapons. Every time I go out I encounter Pomo-lite who glare at me (I'm big and somewhat evanescent in most lighting conditions) for my part in their oppression, though all I ever did to them was run reports against a casino database for one of their casinos. For my part, I'd prefer to return this land to the way it was before "we" came to mess with them, but you'd have to replant it with oaks and wait a hundred years before it would even be possible.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
24. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Jacques+Chester · 2010-01-07 00:06 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  But nothing changes. And you can understand why ... their culture is most fundamentally a nomadic one. They have no concept of 'ownership' of land or property, and rarely stay in one place for long.
  Because of the construction of townships and outstations, this is no longer true. Or rather, it is not as completely true as it used to be.
  It is very simplistic to say that "their" culture is nomadic. Firstly, there are dozens of distinct cultures, each with different features, languages and laws.
  Secondly, aboriginals understand freehold title pretty well at this point. It's not as if they haven't hundreds of years of seeing everyone else have it except for them!
  
  We've handed back vast tracts of traditional lands to the Aborigines (much like the Indian Nations in the US), but the native Americans seem to have done much better for themselves than the Australian Aborigines...
  You are probably thinking of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (Northern Territory), the High Court decisions in Mabo and Wik and the Native Title Act which followed those decisions.
  However, the Land Rights Act did not give aboriginals freehold or even leasehold. Instead it created monstrously bureaucratic Land Councils which have mostly enriched a very few at the expense of the many. Thus the average aboriginal living on "their" land which was "given" to them can't actually do anything with it. They don't own it, and they can't own it. Consequently they can't start a business, or own a house. They cannot get a loan secured by the land. They can't do anything with it, in fact, except hope that they have mates in their Land Council.
  As for Native Title, again it grants nothing like freehold rights to land. All it grants is traditional rights, and only under very particular and difficult-to-prove conditions. Win Native Title and you might get Crown land back, but not always as ordinary freehold. Most likely you'll only get hunting rights or ceremonial access. Again it's basically economically useless.
  Aboriginals are human beings. They behave according to their perceived self-interest. I suspect that if we gave them freehold of their land, instead of trying to put them in a sort of cultural museum to assuage our own guilt, we'd learn that they're a smart and capable people.
  
  --
  
  Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
25. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 00:25 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Then die at 30 like the average life expectancy of a "native" human due to measles or some other easily treated disease.
26. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Potor · 2010-01-07 00:29 · Score: 1
  
  I agree with your position against the noble savage, but if they were seeing where there journeys took them, then they did not have a B, a destination, in mind ...
  Thus the speed you attribute to decisiveness is lacking.
27. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Hognoxious · 2010-01-07 00:36 · Score: 1
  
  First you imply that they had a map of the world - they *decided* to go from A to B - then suddenly they went on a bit of a random mystery tour.
  Sounds like a lot of handwaving there.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
28. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Hognoxious · 2010-01-07 00:46 · Score: 1
  
  And the people who left Africa at 70000 BP were genetically identical to us
  Who do you mean by "us"? Take a Berber, an Inuit, a Norwegian, an Ainu and a Zulu. They're far from being identical to each other, so how can they be collectively identical to anyone else?
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
29. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 00:47 · Score: 0
  
  Probably a couple of reasons for this. A few brief visits as a tourist does not make you an expert in cultural affairs; you've sampled only. The native Australian aborigine is not like a lot of other indigenous cultures. I've met a few Americans while in different countries and all were loud and self obsessed. I guess that makes me an expert to say all Americans are like that. I bet there are a few here that'd say I'm wrong.
  Not a lot of water here which is a strong belief why the aborigines are thought to be so nomadic. They just don't settle; which makes a major setback to integrating into the caucasian culture. That and everything was off to a bad start when the English red coats hunted the Aborigine down. Sure some evils were conducted in the past, but that was also done to caucasian women who where not married and had their babies taken from them as well (right up into the 1970's).
  Aborigines get free education, accommodation and food. That is, free primary, secondary and tertiary education. Some take to it which is great but most don't care and are more interested in 'white man's disease' (alcohol). In fact, they just hate cities. But you'd know that right? You would have travelled into the country before even seeing an aborigine. If you didn't go into the NT or FNQ you didn't see anything.
  And what 'white, Christian culture of Australia' are you talking about? Christianity is thought to be as bigger evil here as the fundamentalist Islamic. I think you see too much of your own culture when you go visiting other countries.
30. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 00:51 · Score: 0
  
  Speaking as a human male intent of protecting my young, I'm well within my rights to become a force of natural selection. We must soon advance on a personal level to no longer need more than the quintessential Australian aboriginal. Imagine, if you will, yourself in their clothes by the side of a road as a glutton in a SUV drives by, when re-evaluate the meaning of "primitive".
  "Become a force for natural selection"? Sounds rather violent that. Perhaps you shouldn't be so hasty to declare that "primitive" is deprecated in regards to peoples until you've had a good long look in the mirror Mister H. sapiens.
  BTW, you're not exempt from natural selection. Nor are your young.
31. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 01:08 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Its a bit sad to see how racist some of the comments from fellow Australians are on this matter. Coories or any other "race" should not be judged on European standards.
  The are not nomadic, the indiginues Australians lived in many differnt specific areas, and tended to remain in that area for a great deal of time.
  To place them in a category of always drinking, or have no respect for property is just plain wrong, racist and stupid.
  A group of people who can live for thousands of years, in harmoney with the enviroment, and not hurting anyone, no human sacrifices and generally peacefull.
  Im embarassed to see other Australian, (even if we are all immigrants) showing so much racims.
32. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by corbettw · 2010-01-07 01:09 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Strictly speaking, the language we're using right now came from those Nordic raiders. The one used by the indigenous people in Britain was more like modern Irish (not that you hear that much anymore, either).
  
  --
  God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
33. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 01:09 · Score: 0
  
  Without the stabilizing force of writing, the content of folk stories changes at an extremely fast pace. Hell, so does language. Listen to a nineteenth century wax recording of an uneducated American; it's barely comprehensible, and the slang is entirely foreign—formal spoken language from the time just sounds slightly odd.
  Sure, the Australian aborigines might have been there for 75,000 years, but if you found a time machine and sent a modern aborigine back 1,000 years to his own direct ancestors, chances are he wouldn't understand anything at all. If he did, it would probably just be basic prepositions, pronouns, and such. Leave him there long enough to pick up the lingo, and I suspect you'll find he doesn't recognize any of the stories.
  He'll recognize the themes, of course—so would anyone else. The details would have morphed and changed beyond recognition, though. (Actual geography and events would be details, not themes.) 75,000 years is just a game of Telephone across 2,500 generations. Even in this case, it was a matter of pure chance; the crater predates modern humans, let alone the aborigines. They weren't there to see it, and they certainly don't 'remember' it.
  Cultures like the Australian aborigines and the Kalahari bushmen seem eternal and unchanging to the Western imagination only because their very lack of a written tradition serves to hide how radically and constantly they actually do change.
34. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 01:13 · Score: 1
  
  And what would you suggest we do to fix this?
  nothing - it is now too late. there will be some survivors who can be integrated into the now dominant australian culture but the fact of the matter is that it is now impossible to undo the harms inflicted on this race of people. best just ignore them and let the natural course of events unfold.
35. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 01:21 · Score: 0
  
  "they basically don't want someone to do to them what they did, and are doing, to Indigenous Australians." And? I hear the same argument about immigrants in the US. "Well, the whites did it to the Indians." Yeah, and maybe there's something to be learned from what happened to the Indians, like don't roll over and let your culture be taken away.
36. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by mcgrew · 2010-01-07 01:43 · Score: 1
  
  The same goes for indigenous Americans. What is it with we descendants of Europeans, both in America and Australia? Are the Europeans who stayed in Europe like that too?
  
  --
  Free Martian Whores!
37. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by imaque · 2010-01-07 01:47 · Score: 1
  
  We must preserve them if for no other reason than because they can lead us to rich deposits of Unobtanium.
38. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by TheKidWho · 2010-01-07 02:01 · Score: 1
  
  This is what we call White Man's guilt.
39. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by anss123 · 2010-01-07 02:07 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  You're wrong! Before Europe there were no wars or famines and people had perfect teeth. I've seen plenty of movies so I know it's true.
40. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by digitig · 2010-01-07 02:13 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I spent a bit of time during some touristy native american stuff while i was in canada and alaska last year, those tribes are (were) WAY more advanced than the Australian native peoples that the comparision just doesn't apply.
  Native americans built full blown cabins where aborigionals largely still lived in caves and temporary shelter. They had a far better chance at integration.
  So you define "advanced" as "more like you"? Has it occurred to you that permanent shelter is just not the issue in a generally warm place like Australia than in a generally cold place like Alaska? That they might not have made those "advances" because they have no need of them? That "integration", whatever benefits it might have, might not be the best way to preserve the culture, and that the later is a valid choice?
  
  pouring money into aborigional art and expression (hip-hop, dance and so on).
  Hip-hop is an aboriginal Australian form of expression?
  
  --
  Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
41. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by dow · 2010-01-07 02:18 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  I do not understand why you both have been modded down. You both have views which may be against what the majority of people feel, but they are valid points and you should be able to express your opinion without being modded flamebait and redundant. It's not as if you posted as anonymous coward or anything, just that your opinions are against the left wing attitudes which seem to be a lot more prevalent and enforced here than they were a few years ago.
42. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by neonsignal · 2010-01-07 02:25 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Talking about 'them' and 'us' is perhaps the first root of your problem.
  If you really think that Aboriginal cultures are 'nomadic' and 'have no concept of ownership of land', then you aren't even at a wikipedia level of understanding of traditional cultures. Not to mention that many Aboriginal Australians are living in cities.
  You are correct that the problems are complex, which is why the solutions need to go beyond political grandstanding and patronizing platitudes. At the root of the matter is a lack of respect.
  Prejudice is to pre-judge a person. There is plenty of that going around in Australia, whether or not you like to think of it as racism.
43. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by jbengt · 2010-01-07 02:31 · Score: 1
  
  Interestingly, the Normans who invaded the island previoously invaded by the Nordic raiders were descendants of those same Viking peoples.
44. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by AndersOSU · 2010-01-07 02:50 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Here's the problem. There's 7 billion of us. Either we continue with industrial agriculture or three-quarters of us die. If you're intent on protecting your young you'd be better off figuring out how to make industry less destructive than trying a return to pre-industrial ways.
45. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by elrous0 · 2010-01-07 03:02 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Wow, looks like someone really bought into that noble savage horseshit. I can almost picture the wind blowing through the Indian's hair as I read your post. But here is my non-hippie interpretation of the noble native American (you politically-correct types might want to avert your eyes):
  The "Native Americans" were actually many different tribes, many of whom despised one another. They fought wars with one another where torture, enslavement, rape, and various other atrocities were common. Some even practiced human sacrifice. They did not use "every part of" whatever animal they killed. They were not environmentalists. They were not peaceniks. They weren't even really "natives" (having immigrated from Asia once themselves). The relationship between Europeans and natives was a very complex one. It was not just a case of evil Europeans stealing the land of the noble savage and displacing some romantic hippie communal lifestyle. Some tribes welcomed Europeans, some fought them (using the same brutal tactics they used before the colonists came), some assimilated, some didn't. Many tribes appreciated the technological improvements of the Europeans, some spurned them. Different European "tribes" also treated the natives differently. The Spanish were much more open to intermarriage with the natives than the English. The French were more reluctant to build permanent settelments than the Spanish, British, or Portugese. Again, it was all a very complex cultural interaction--with plenty of atrocities and injustices to go around on all sides.
  Today's Native Americans still love to bitch about the evil white man--but few turn down our vaccinations or technology. And far too few turn down our hand-outs and alcohol. When they build casinos, they don't do it with "noble savage" architects. Again, it remains a complex situation--easy to romanticize, but much harder to *really* understand.
  
  --
  SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
46. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by AndersOSU · 2010-01-07 03:10 · Score: 1
  
  roll over my ass.
  If there's a lesson, it's don't be susceptible to non-indigenous diseases, and don't be massively out-gunned.
  Or, to put it another way, be born lucky.
47. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by pnewhook · 2010-01-07 03:12 · Score: 1
  
  And what would you suggest we do to fix this? We've tried the 'just leaving them alone'. We've tried the 'throw copious amounts of money at them to promote development'. We've tried the 'educating them to help themselves'. We've tried both the carrot, and in the past, the stick, unfortunately.
  Has anyone tried ASKING them what they want, instead of just assuming a solution?
  If they want, empower them. Give them the right to decide their own destiny. Stop treating them like a problem to be solved.
  This should be true of all natives and minorities throughout the world. History is full of this ridiculous interference where it is not wanted. Too often people try and 'fix' the 'problem' by making them just like the people trying to solve the problem, without actually asking what they want.
  
  --
  Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
48. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by rident · 2010-01-07 03:14 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I had the same opinion when I read that. The Lakota, Mandan, and other tribes from northern North America required better shelter to survive. They had very large animals (bison) to kill and process for food, shelter, and clothing. There are also vast forests as you progress farther north in their area of what is now the northern Minnesota and southern Ontario. All of which makes a big difference when you need to learn to survive. It's -9 F outside right now and I'm guessing the temps weren't that much different back then. Compare that to the arid plains, desert, and relatively small prey size which the Aboriginals had to contend with. I saw others mention the concept of land ownership. That was also a new idea to Native Americans when the Europeans arrived also. Sure there were tribes with their semi-staked out hunting lands and there were battles over that space but I would say it was more for basic resources which grew or fed upon that land than the land itself.
49. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by dkleinsc · 2010-01-07 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  The one used by the indigenous people in Britain was more like modern Irish (not that you hear that much anymore, either).
  My understanding is that the Irish language is actually getting preserved fairly well, in large part because the Irish people and government decided a while back that their language was a good way to stick it to the English invaders as well as recognizing Ireland's own cultural heritage (much like the revival of hurling and Gaelic football). About half of the Irish speak it to some degree, and most study it as part of their public school curriculum.
  And as far as Nordic raiders are concerned, don't forget that a lot of modern English is also due to the Norman Conquest, when French-rooted words started moving in.
  
  --
  I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
50. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by pnewhook · 2010-01-07 03:24 · Score: 1
  
  The "Native Americans" were actually many different tribes, many of whom despised one another. They fought wars with one another where torture, enslavement, rape, and various other atrocities were common. Some even practiced human sacrifice. They did not use "every part of" whatever animal they killed. They were not environmentalists. They were not peaceniks. They weren't even really "natives" (having immigrated from Asia once themselves).
  You could easily replace 'native americans' with 'europeans' and it would be very true of the state of europe over 1000 years ago.
  
  --
  Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
51. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Virak · 2010-01-07 03:27 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  There is no "divorce from nature". In fact, man is doing the most natural thing possible: expanding and consuming until nature's limiter of resources, death, kicks in. This sort of thing isn't particularly odd in nature, the only difference is that usually there are other predators and such that keep the other species in line. Humans, however, are the predator above all predators, and with all these shiny toys we've built up over the millennia, there's not really any threat from any animal on the planet to us, so the usual checks and balances that would keep such behavior from going to such pathological extents do little.
52. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by pnewhook · 2010-01-07 03:27 · Score: 1
  
  Dying off of cultures and civilizations is a natural process. What must be preserved is their collective knowledge. Written records of their stories may one day prove to be a giant shortcut for future research.
  Hey! We could do that to the Americans! Ok, for everyone that lives in the US, write down what you know and send it to someone who lives in another country. That way when your country self destructs, your knowledge and culture will be preserved. Kinda like the Romans.
  
  --
  Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
53. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by AndersOSU · 2010-01-07 03:31 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  It's not a european trait, it's a human trait.
  The privileged want more privilege, and they get it by taking from the already less privileged.
  In Europe, the pendulum was on it's way back to (relative) equality since the feudal system collapsed (for a whole variety of reasons, severe inequality cannot be sustained in the long run.) When Europeans started establishing colonies, it was a whole new dynamic, and exploitation ruled.
  If you look, you will find throughout history dominant cultures expanding and crushing native cultures (with varying degrees of success). There undoubtedly used to be hundreds, if not thousands of native European cultures, but waves of empire building and proselytizing has smoothed out all but the subtle differences. Africa was much more culturally diverse before the zulu expansion, and the han didn't always dominate interior china. As a rule, the dominant culture gets that way by eliminating or occasionally merging with competing ones, but either way no culture goes on unchanged.
  History of civilization in a nutshell:
  1. Identify the traits of a group different from you.
  2. Deny resources to anyone with those traits.
  3. Profit.
54. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by AndersOSU · 2010-01-07 03:32 · Score: 1
  
  They must not have been british movies.
55. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 03:40 · Score: 0
  
  I have lived in South Africa, Australia New Zealand ....and I can tell you the colonial mentally runs stronger than ever in these countries. They are saints abroad and devils at home.
56. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by bdabautcb · 2010-01-07 03:46 · Score: 0
  
  I thought hip-hop originated in US culture during the 1980's. Could you explain how this qualifies as "aboriginal art and expression"?
  
  --
  Koalas. They're telepathic. Plus, they control the weather. -Margaret
57. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 03:47 · Score: 0
  
  I am the AC to which you are responding. I love how there's always one person who can see even the most benign post, twist and misinterpret it, and make it come out sounding like 'I' have a problem...
  I was not meaning to convey 'us' vs 'them'. Simply, it's quicker to use a pronoun 'them' rather than keep writing 'Aborigines' a dozen times. We are, in fact talking about a specific group of people, so using a pronoun does not automatically mean I think of them as, well, 'them'.
  Nomadic: you're right that they aren't strictly a 'nomadic' culture in the way that, say, some African societies are. They did generally have roughly defined tribal boundaries. And of course you can't generalise across the many different Aboriginal cultures and tribes. But ~in general~ you can say that due to the dry climate and scarce/seasonal food in Australia, they tended not to dwell in the same place year-round. That was all I was saying
  No concept of ownership of land: I was talking about orginally - yes of course these days most Aboriginal people live in cities. But originally, they didn't really have the same concept of ownership of land than the European settlers did ... I don't think anyone can deny that's a major reason why the cultures didn't 'mesh' well from the start. Aboriginal people tend to seem themselves as caretakers of the land rather than owners. Again, a generalisation, but who is going to write a huge essay in a Slashdot post.
  And talking of prejudice ... from your opening sentence, it sure sounds like you were just itching to prejudge me. :)
58. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Tyler+Durden · 2010-01-07 03:48 · Score: 0, Troll
  
  Oh OK. For a minute I thought that the dying off of cultures and civilizations was the result of supernatural causes, and thus could be thought of as immoral.
  Wait a minute. What the fuck are you trying to say?
  
  --
  Happy people make bad consumers.
59. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by bug1 · 2010-01-07 03:53 · Score: 1
  
  At the root of the matter is a lack of respect.
  Group A loses respect for group B because they dont conform to the social norms of their group, so group B is excluded from group A and the cultural differences stay the same or get worse.
  How do you bring two separate cultures together and still maintain them as seperate cultures (so one cultures identity isnt weakend or lost) ?
  Maybe everyone should just accept there are two different cultures and not expect people to live upto the values of the other culture.
60. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 03:56 · Score: 0
  
  Its about the worst possible interface. Aboriginal people are about the most primitive culture in the world today. They were always going to get steamrolled by Europeans.
  As a white Australian I would favour vastly expanded alcohol and petrol bans. Lets talk about the entire Northern Territory. Include South Australia and Western Australia more than 100km outside their capital cities.
  I live in Melbourne and a schoolmate of my son is Aboriginal. He is being raised by a white woman who adopted him and arranged for him to have a liver transplant, which saved his life. She takes him home to see his birth family every year. Its a variation of the mistake which led to the stolen generation, but its the only way for this boy.
  The schoolmate of your son!? That's the best link you can muster to an aboriginal person in modern day Australia? And you are qualified how, exactly, to make blanket statements about "primitiveness" and call for special laws to impact on people who live outside of your inner-urban comfort zone; people who just happen look different to you.
  The fact you call aboriginal culture primitive demonstrates your ignorance. Sadly, it is an ignorance all too common in this country. You may not think you are racist. That doesn't mean you are not a racist.
  I too live in Melbourne. I've also lived in The NT, WA and Queensland. All places where I've been privileged to learn about the world's oldest living culture from members of it. It's called expanding your horizons. Another term you may want to familiarise yourself with is 'confronting your prejudice'.
61. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 04:00 · Score: 0
  
  And what 'white, Christian culture of Australia' are you talking about? Christianity is thought to be as bigger evil here as the fundamentalist Islamic. I think you see too much of your own culture when you go visiting other countries.
  Yeah that was the only part of the GPs original post that confused me a bit. This assessment would have been accurate in the 1950s but today? Australia is one of the most secular and multicultural countries on earth (one in three of us were born overseas, i.e. 1st generation immigrants ... and the biggest source of these is Asia rather than Europe). Walk down the street in the CBD of any Australian city and white Europeans would be lucky to make up 50% (and most of those would be atheist).
62. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Nadaka · 2010-01-07 04:07 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  What vast tracts of land were returned to the native american people? They currently have tiny tracts of the most desolate and inhospitable land in the US. Every time land was set aside for them in a binding treaty, that treaty was broken. I hear time and time again that in the US, treaty trumps all law, even the constitution. This is a lie, every single treaty with the native people has been broken. They were "given" (aka removed from all land that is not) all land west of the Apalacha's. That was taken and they were given all land west of the Mississippi. Then all land west of the rockies. Then a few large reservations. Then the reservations shrank. etc.
63. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Cimexus · 2010-01-07 04:10 · Score: 1
  
  Either way ... 40,000 years is a phenomenal amount of time. I mean, that's 10 time older than the pyramids.
  History is a funny thing ... here's an interesting thought experiment:
  One of the key drivers for Britain settling Australia was the US War of Independence, 12 years earlier in 1776. The Brits lost their American colonies, which they used for several things, including the shipment of convicts (yes the US had them too ... always remember that when making your 'haha Australians are convicts' jokes people!). James Cook having mapped the east coast of Australia around this time, it was decided that they needed a new penal colony and so New South Wales was born (which eventually became one of the modern-day Australian states ... keep in mind some Australian colonies/states were never penal settlements, e.g. WA and SA).
  But what if that hadn't happened? What if the US War of Independence never happened, or happened substantially later. The Dutch had mapped the area around Australia reasonably well too by that time, but showed little interest in it since it was so barren and useless ;) When would Australia have eventually been 'settled' by non-indigenous people, and who would it be? It could well have actually been the Indonesians. Maybe even the Japanese. How different this part of the world might have been had an Asian power settled Australia?
  And would the Aborigines have fared better or worse under such a scenario?
64. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by rubycodez · 2010-01-07 04:15 · Score: 1
  
  that's because 99.999% of the stories are bullshit, same as our legends and myths. Back to my "Thors-day" at work, don't want to make the big god with the hammer who makes thunder pissed at me by not working on his day.....
65. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Just+Some+Guy · 2010-01-07 04:17 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  We must soon advance on a personal level to no longer need more than the quintessential Australian aboriginal. Imagine, if you will, yourself in their clothes by the side of a road as a glutton in a SUV drives by, when re-evaluate the meaning of "primitive".
  Imagine the same Aborigine seeing your coddled butt parked in a Starbucks with a laptop and sneering at your "gluttonous" neighbors.
  
  --
  Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
66. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 04:17 · Score: 0
  
  I call and rise that to 40000-60000 years. Modern human was 40000 years ago at least in Siberia and well on their way towards Europe. Wasn't there some carbon dated paintings at the northern parts of Australia suggesting earlier settlement?
67. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 04:19 · Score: 0
  
  Couldn't agree more... except that
  'On one hand we have these myths from a bunch of people who say their ancestors saw something happen here, and it kinda, sorta sounds like it might mean 'star' or 'rock' and the verb 'fall' is in there, and on the other hand we have this crater nearby'
  is not even remotely science.
68. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by BobMcD · 2010-01-07 05:15 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Has anyone tried ASKING them what they want, instead of just assuming a solution?
  I'd assume the answer would be:
  "Pack up your belongings and go back where you came from."
  Not sure how much that helps...
69. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by shutdown+-p+now · 2010-01-07 05:16 · Score: 1
  
  We must soon advance on a personal level to no longer need more than the quintessential Australian aboriginal.
  You can lead by example by starting with yourself. That means no computers, by the way, so why are you still posting on Slashdot?
70. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by shutdown+-p+now · 2010-01-07 05:19 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  So you define "advanced" as "more like you"? Has it occurred to you that permanent shelter is just not the issue in a generally warm place like Australia than in a generally cold place like Alaska? That they might not have made those "advances" because they have no need of them?
  That's irrelevant. It's true that, if advances aren't really needed, they won't be made (or will be made and then quickly discarded). However, regardless of the reasons, the civilization with more advances is, well, more advanced, pretty much by definition.
  
  That "integration", whatever benefits it might have, might not be the best way to preserve the culture, and that the later is a valid choice?
  Not integrating is a valid choice, absolutely, but if you don't integrate, then don't complain that the society you didn't integrate into doesn't consider you a part of it, and speaks in "us vs them" terms.
71. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by SMoynihan · 2010-01-07 05:20 · Score: 1
  
  Well, along with pretty much everyone else from Ireland, I have studied the modern language for 14 years. That being said, it is not used for daily conversation outside of very limited areas (the Gaelteacht). Back at the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasions, the language here would have been Old Irish - which was quite a bit more arcane and complex (well - at least according to the little I have seen of it), though certainly recognisable.
  In Britain, Brythonic would have been spoken - which would be much closer to modern day Welsh (Britain was likely settled through France, and Ireland through Spain at perhaps 350 BC- the Celtic language had diverged earlier yet).
  Trace it back, and you get earlier peoples in the Isles, conquered or assimilated. These had their own cultures, languages and monuments (Newgrange is over 5 thousand years old, and is older than the Pyramids). These too are lost - remembered only as Formorians, Firbolg, or Milesians.
  Now the Welsh were these Britons existing in a land yet unconquered by the Saxons - indeed their very country is named by the Saxons for it (Waelas - foreigner, often a Celtic (sometimes Roman) epithet. Wallachia and Vlad have the same root). As was Cornwall (Kern Waelas - Foreigners of the Horn).
  And yes, England experienced many many waves of conquest, as evidenced by our mongrel tongue. Perhaps the most remarkable part is that their relative integrity in the recent Millenium or so. The same, unfortunately, could not be said of Ireland - although in earlier years we got off lightly. Indeed, post Roman times, we were raiders too: Ever wondered why Scottish is just a version of Irish?.
72. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by XDirtypunkX · 2010-01-07 05:28 · Score: 1
  
  WA was a penal settlement; Fremantle prison was built by convicts for the housing of convicts in the 1850s when they arrived in large numbers. It also happens to be one of the most interesting post-settlement historical sites in Australia.
73. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by BobMcD · 2010-01-07 05:33 · Score: 1
  
  The thing that stalls me whenever anyone plays the 'noble savage horseshit' card is simply this -
  All generalizations are false.
  You haven't discovered anything profound in your analysis that some Native Americans were 'bad'. Some Europeans were worse. This really lends nothing to the conversation. Humans are, after all, human, and they vary wildly from one specimen to the next.
  
  Today's Native Americans still love to bitch about the evil white man--but few turn down our vaccinations or technology. And far too few turn down our hand-outs and alcohol. When they build casinos, they don't do it with "noble savage" architects. Again, it remains a complex situation--easy to romanticize, but much harder to *really* understand.
  Enlighten us, then. Explain the justification for the reservation system, and explain how the choice between reservation or death is a just one. Describe the logical justification for the Trail of Tears. Illustrate to me the honorable behavior at Wounded Knee. Describe to me how the Royal Proclamation of 1763 was well received and how the wholesale land grab by the colonists was immediately stopped. Or perhaps the nobility of using smallpox as a weapon against people seeking to stay warm will stand in stark contrast to those vile brown people?
  Whether or not the Shoshone were as bloodthirsty as the Iriquois, or whether or not the Cheyenne were as noble as the Cherokee, or any other comparisons you may draw, have almost zero bearing on the treatment handed these people by our government. Is the 'noble savage' position romantic? Yes. But if you can stand in the face of all the broken treaties, all the dead bodies, all the crushed cultures and still say 'horseshit', then you should truly be ashamed. I think a little romanticism in the face of such uneven treatment is merited.
74. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by DavidTC · 2010-01-07 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  Um, all those people are genetically identical to each other for all intents and purposes. That's his point.
  Pretending there are vast genetic differences between the various races of humanity is one of the great sillinesses of our time. There's a difference in some melanin, and a few facial features, and maybe different levels of metabolism, and of course any population can have diseases that are more common in it.
  But if aliens came down and took DNA samples from everyone, and tried to distinguish 'groups' of people from the DNA, they'd never catch on to 'races' as we've invented them.
  
  --
  If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
75. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by digitig · 2010-01-07 05:47 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  That's irrelevant. It's true that, if advances aren't really needed, they won't be made (or will be made and then quickly discarded). However, regardless of the reasons, the civilization with more advances is, well, more advanced, pretty much by definition.
  Too simplistic. I bet the aboriginal society is more "advanced" than White or Asian Australian in terms of surviving in the bush. "Advances" aren't simple, counatble things.
  
  --
  Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
76. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by AmberBlackCat · 2010-01-07 05:48 · Score: 1
  
  And what would you suggest we do to fix this?
  
  What I've read here makes it seem like the problem started when "white" people invaded their land and all of the things, the aboriginals were doing to survive, stopped working when combined with Western influences, specifically drugs and alcohol. And you say money, education, and "leaving them alone" didn't work. So my suggestion would be to just undo what caused the problem in the first place and get out of Australia. You see, you didn't really leave them alone. You just segregated Australia. You'd have to actually get out and give them back all of their land. They probably wouldn't end up building a space shuttle but, without access to the things that caused them to fall apart, I'd bet their old way of doing things would eventually start working for them again. And I'm not trying to troll or flamebait. I'm just answering the question you asked.
77. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by shutdown+-p+now · 2010-01-07 05:52 · Score: 1
  
  Too simplistic. I bet the aboriginal society is more "advanced" than White or Asian Australian in terms of surviving in the bush.
  
  Not really. A "White" society would quite easily survive the bush by getting rid of it and replacing it with a more friendly environment.
  Ultimately, when talking about survival, the single measure that you need to look at are population numbers, and growth rates.
78. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by future+assassin · 2010-01-07 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  [QUOTE]. You can buy cheap Indigenous Australian "art" tat at airports that are made in China, while the vast majority of Indigenous Australians seem to have been left to rot, poor and drunk, in the gutter. [/QUOTE]
  
  Ohh just like the IOC exploiting the Native Canadians with their "Authentic" products. http://storereviews.vancouver2010.com/0715/TT3219439/reviews.htm
  
  --
  by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
79. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by locallyunscene · 2010-01-07 06:16 · Score: 1
  
  I hope you think hard about what you said because you're promoting social darwinism and that road leads to dark places.
  
  No, genocide is not new, but that does not make it right or desirable when two cultures come into contact.
80. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by digitig · 2010-01-07 06:25 · Score: 1
  
  Not really. A "White" society would quite easily survive the bush by getting rid of it and replacing it with a more friendly environment.
  Do we have the technology to do that? We can make isolated friendly "bubbles", but I'm not sure we could convert the whole Bush into a California clone.
  
  Ultimately, when talking about survival, the single measure that you need to look at are population numbers, and growth rates.
  So Afghanistan (4.5%) is more advanced than the USA (0.6%)? China is less advanced now than it was in the 1960s? If you're looking at survival then you need to look at whether the population numbers and growth are sustainable, and it's at least possible that the Aboriginal lifestyle may cope better with climate change, for example, than the Western model.
  
  --
  Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
81. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by shutdown+-p+now · 2010-01-07 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  Do we have the technology to do that?
  Sure, it just takes time. We did that hundreds of times in our history, without even deliberately planning for it. I'm not saying we can make weather conditions to our liking, but we can certainly transform huge chunks of landscape such that we don't really care about the weather past it being a point of minor (and, very occasionally, major) annoyance.
  
  So Afghanistan (4.5%) is more advanced than the USA (0.6%)?
  Note that I wasn't talking about "advanced", but rather about "survival". It was your premise that those two are linked. That said, the answer is still "no". That's why I wrote that you should look at population numbers and growth rates. A society like Afghanistan can grow faster, but soon enough it will hit the natural population boundary, where more people die of famine and diseases (all caused by overpopulation) than are born. This was already seen in some African countries. A society best at "survival", ultimately, is the one that can push that boundary upwards, and consistently grow with it. To compare two societies, then, you'd have to put them in the same external conditions, and see how they fare.
  Western societies used to be of that kind - having rather high birth rates and using advancements in medicine to minimize deaths at birth and early childhood illnesses to maximize growth, and at the same time using technology to transform the living habitat to increase chances of survival in it, and prolong life length. Now it's less clear, though those Western countries that have positive growth rates are still, in long term, better at "survival" than any third-world country.
  Aside from that, another way to compare things is to see how societies would fare given the same external conditions and numbers. For example, if you put Australian Aboriginal tribes, numbering 80 million, all maintaining their traditional culture, on a land of the same territory as Germany, and with the same envoronmental conditions and natural resources, will they be able to maintain that population number? Or will they steadily die out because of overpopulation issues? If the latter, then clearly their society is worse at "survival" than German one is.
  Similarly, let's say we take the same number of Germans as there are Australian aborigines, settle them in Australia, with their society and culture (and all the scientific advances that come with that), and see how their population trends will go. If they will see steady growth beyond that the Aborigines have, then clearly their society is better at "survival".
  Actually, that latter experiment was already performed. There are estimates of any number from 300,000 to 750,000 Aborigines living in Australia before Europeans came, with the latter number being the highest sustainable one - and those people had access to, and settled in, all regions, not just the bush, and had access to all the same natural resources. Then Europeans came and started settling - and now numbering over 20 million, and still steadily growing (2/3 of growth coming from births, and 1/3 from immigration), with no signs of unsustainability point being reached in foreseeable future.
82. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by kthejoker · 2010-01-07 06:54 · Score: 1
  
  Your point only emphasizes the original: Neither one of them was that great. So why is one of them mythologized and one of them demonized?
83. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by kthejoker · 2010-01-07 06:56 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, their cultures pretty much come from the available living areas: Europe's being much smaller developed a lot more competitive means of survival. In America, if one group came and started harassing you, you could move pretty much anywhere to get away from them.
  Guns Germs and Steel is a great read. Highly recommended.
84. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by hwyhobo · 2010-01-07 06:56 · Score: 1
  
  Hey! We could do that to the Americans!
  Of course. I have no illusion that our culture is anything but a temporary step in history, no less, no more. Evolution is not limited to genes. It spans both micro and macro aspects of human development.
  
  --
  End anonymous moderation and posting on /.
85. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by shadowbearer · 2010-01-07 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  Except that he wasn't generalizing, as you are, but talking about a specific region - where he happens to live. Are you familiar with the native history of that region well enough to really call him on it?
  SB
  
  --
  It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
86. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by elrous0 · 2010-01-07 07:35 · Score: 1
  
  Enlighten us, then. Explain the justification for the reservation system, and explain how the choice between reservation or death is a just one. Describe the logical justification for the Trail of Tears. Illustrate to me the honorable behavior at Wounded Knee. Describe to me how the Royal Proclamation of 1763 was well received and how the wholesale land grab by the colonists was immediately stopped. Or perhaps the nobility of using smallpox as a weapon against people seeking to stay warm will stand in stark contrast to those vile brown people?
  Atrocities all--except for the "smallpox as weapon" thing, which is a myth (there is only one recorded incidence of such a thing even being discussed, during the French and Indian War in the 1760's, and no evidence to indicate it was ever actually done). Should I provide a equally long list of nasty native attacks against colonial settlements, where innocent men, women, and children were slaughtered? Should I point to the reconsecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan, where noble Aztecs slaughtered over 80,000 war prisoners just to demonstrate their power? Probably not so romantic to have your family killed and scalped just because you happened to run afoul of the wrong tribe on the wrong day, but it happened.
  Just remember, when you talk about the horrible treatment of these people by various colonial governments, it's worth noting that there were no "these people." There were many different tribes, in many different times, in many different types of interaction with the Europeans and with each other. And the natives could be every bit as nasty as the colonials. Don't turn them into noble, innocent victims just because they got here a few thousand years earlier than the European tribes.
  
  --
  SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
87. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by AndersOSU · 2010-01-07 07:41 · Score: 1
  
  That all may be true (and I too am a big fan of Guns, Germs and Steel) but the lesson for indigenous people from European Colonization is most certainly not "don't roll over." Native Americans fighting against the US resulted in being steamrolled. Native Americans going along to get along resulted in being steamrolled slightly more slowly.
  It was lose/lose from the start. The lesson from every ethnically homogeneous expansion in history is that if you're outmatched in numbers and technology and in their way, you're screwed.
88. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by AndersOSU · 2010-01-07 07:45 · Score: 1
  
  thinking a little more about this.
  If we look at the roman empire, the holy roman empire, and the spread of islam, perhaps the lesson is to embrace the central tenets of the expansionists and try really, really hard to convince them that a polyglot empire is better than an ethnically homogeneous one. (call it the roll over like you've never rolled before theory of survival.)
89. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by BobMcD · 2010-01-07 07:55 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The smallpox thing is not a myth. There is no evidence to suggest it did not happen, and there exists documentation to suggest it did. You can doubt it if you'd like, but you have no basis for the label of 'myth'. Even if it were not successfully carried out, even the act of planning it is despicable, so I fail to see what your nit is gaining, exactly.
  These people are not being turned into anything. I am demonstrating how our colonial governments treated them a sub-human, and subjugated them summarily, but that does not change them in the slightest.
  Saying there was no 'these people' is like saying there are no 'white people' because they all come from various European ancestors. You're varying the definitions of the words to make a point, and I find this form of argument non-compelling.
  Finally, I'm not necessarily advocating their nobility in a vacuum. But once compared to the absolutely vile behavior that was inflicted upon them as a group, they do come out looking far better. Bear in mind also that WE are the ones that wrote the history books! So it stands to reason that the events depicted are the MOST FAVORABLE ACCOUNT POSSIBLE. And in that light, I must wonder about the motivations for your 'horseshit' position.
  Personally I hope that we look back on what we did and remember how vile it was. Otherwise we'll simply wind up making these same mistakes in the future. Attacking the 'noble savage' notion as an apologist is shameful behavior.
90. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by drinkypoo · 2010-01-07 08:26 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Wow, looks like someone really bought into that noble savage horseshit.
  
  Wow, looks like I'm about to get a ration of propagandist bullshit.
  
  I can almost picture the wind blowing through the Indian's hair as I read your post.
  She bit into a York(tm) peppermint patty.
  
  But here is my non-hippie interpretation of the noble native American
  It's also non-relevant. As is the fact that you're not a hippie. You're also not the president, but you didn't mention that.
  
  The "Native Americans" were actually many different tribes
  You are hereby fined your fucking credibility for misusing quotation marks. Now, I do understand that you're just flying off on a fucking rant here, which you're entitled to do any old time. But you're doing it in response to my comment, and like it or not, that makes it a reply to what I said. And nowhere in my comment did I in fact actually use the words "Native" or "American". Once you get that whole Mitochondrial Eve thing then the Native part falls apart; and "American" covers a lot of ground. Instead, I talked about the people who live[d] where I'm living now. We find arrowheads here occasionally; there's a nice little promontory and even today, this spot is fairly heavy with assorted small game. A bear has come through and crapped in our yard a couple times; at least, I can't imagine what else would have crap that big with meat and berries in it. Maybe sasquatch, eh?
  Anyway, you used my discussion about some specific people as the launching-off point for your own personal rant about natives as if I had no fucking idea what I'm talking about. But nothing I said in my comment warranted your wankery. Rein it in, me laddo. Go bad-mouth "Native Americans" in your journal or something. Certainly there are plenty that deserve it. Of course, being subjected to a couple hundred years of ridicule and occasional attempts at genocide can change a people. When the 1st US Cavalry came out here and slaughtered the occupants of what's now called "Bloody Island" after a different band of Pomo rose up against their Kelsey oppressors. And these people were living in peace and managing their lands. You can come up here and argue with them about how they know fuck-all, though.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
91. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by spasm · 2010-01-07 08:30 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  "They have no concept of 'ownership' of land or property, and rarely stay in one place for long"
  I'm going to pick on this specific example of horrendous ignorance, but believe me it's just a single example of the kind of nonsense I'm seeing on this thread.
  The historic problem hasn't been that Aboriginals haven't had a concept of land ownership, rather than they have a whole body of legal concepts which are more complex than the feudally-based concepts brought by Europeans, and hence were rarely recognized as such. Let me give you an example. Any one geographic space may have multiple rights and duties associated with it. The right to hunt geese during the early part of the wet season. The right to collect turtle eggs when turtles are hatching on beaches. The right to move through the area. The right to set up camp during the dry season when there are few food resources. The 'ownership' of, or association with specific dreamtime entities whose stories connect with that area in some way. These different types and levels of ownership can and often are held by different groups, families, and individuals. There's any number of examples of what has gone wrong when Europeans have attempted to engage with this system even with good intent. A mining company, for example, might seek permission to do exploratory drilling, and ask around to find out who 'owns' the land. Directed to some imposing looking elder, they ask if he is the owner of the land and he says yes. They ask if there's any religiously sensitive places in the area and he says no. The offer a payment in exchange for exploratory drilling. All good, right? Except when the mining company rolls the drills out, all hell breaks loose with other groups of people turning up saying that they're the owners and they weren't consulted at all and there's a number of important religious sites within the area and so on. The mining company throws its hands up in disgust and declares the local community is just trying to screw them for more money. The real problem being the elder they consulted in the first place turns out to have rights to hunt in the area during parts of the year (and hence felt fine saying yes he 'owned' the land because loosely translated he did), but was either unaware or didn't care that other groups also had ownership rights over different aspects of the land and that there's a number of sacred spaces connected to exclusively-female dreamtime stories that he was (appropriately) unaware of, and so on. And this is what can happen when people are acting with good intentions, let alone if someone is actually deliberately trying to screw the locals over. Aboriginal law has complex, multi-layered conceptions of legal rights and ownership where there are many simultaneous and overlaying categories of ownership; European property law is largely an extension of feudal property law and, by contrast, is simple, static, and does not allow for simultaneous multiple types of ownership. To the frustration of both Europeans and Aboriginals, trying to shoehorn Aboriginal property law into European property categories for the sake of expediency and to allow things like mining or property development to be pursued in a timely manner has rarely produced entirely satisfactory results.
  To get back to my original point, the idea that Aboriginals "no concept of 'ownership' of land or property" merely displays breathtaking ignorance, and the fact that this is a widespread understanding among European Australians is, I think, both a national embarrassment and the basis for much of the ongoing misunderstandings between Australians of all backgrounds.
92. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by MichaelSmith · 2010-01-07 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  I am happy to abandon the term primitive. I agree that it says as much about me as it does about them. Lets just say that Aboriginal culture and Western culture are so different that a merge was never going to work.
  
  --
  http://michaelsmith.id.au
93. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Hognoxious · 2010-01-07 08:57 · Score: 1
  
  Um, all those people are genetically identical to each other for all intents and purposes.
  
  Meaningless. Quantify "to all intents and purposes".
  I take it you don't believe in evolution, then? Because without any genetic differences, it can't happen.
  Let me remind you again, the word used was "identical", without any qualifier. Not "nearlly identical". Not "quite similar". That's at best sloppy and at worst a downright lie.
  
  But if aliens came down and took DNA samples from everyone, and tried to distinguish 'groups' of people from the DNA, they'd never catch on to 'races' as we've invented them.
  Really? Perhaps I hang out with smarter aliens than you do. If it isn't genes that cause Bantu parents (who look like Bantus) to have Bantu children (who also look like Bantus) - I could go on - then what is it? Is it the maaaagiiiic spiiiriiitssss of the aaaancestoooooors?
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
94. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by MightyMait · 2010-01-07 08:57 · Score: 1
  
  Well, there may be no large animals that pose a serious threat to us, but pestilence remains a threat. We keep curing diseases and new ones keep popping up. There's still no cure for AIDS, and over-reliance on antibiotics is leading to an epidemic of MRSA. Swine flu hasn't proven as destructive as predicted, but the next pandemic killer could be right around the corner.
  
  Of course, then there are the epidemics of obesity, heart disease, cancer, etc., that come with our sedentary lifestyles. We may just end up killing ourselves.
  
  --
  Nothing interesting to say...MUST...NOT...REPLY...ohtheheckwithit.
95. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Blakey+Rat · 2010-01-07 09:02 · Score: 1
  
  You could easily replace 'native americans' with 'europeans' and it would be very true of the state of europe over 1000 years ago.
  Except we call that the "dark ages" and people who glorify it are generally aware that they're full of shit, and that conditions then really, really sucked.
  You're just illustrating the hypocrisy here.
  
  --
  Comment of the year
96. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by youngone · 2010-01-07 09:05 · Score: 1
  
  There is some evidence that they didn't entirely live in harmony with their environment. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_megafauna I don't have any other comment to make about Aboriginals, as I don't know any. I would imagine that they're pretty much like any other racial group. You know, tall ones, short ones, smart ones, dumb ones, extoverts, etc. You get the picture.
97. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by digitig · 2010-01-07 09:13 · Score: 1
  
  Note that I wasn't talking about "advanced", but rather about "survival". It was your premise that those two are linked.
  Ah! That was based on the assumption that your posting was supposed to be relevant to the discussion. My mistake. Sorry!
  
  --
  Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
98. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by cyn1c77 · 2010-01-07 10:03 · Score: 1
  
  ... but the native Americans seem to have done much better for themselves than the Australian Aborigines (from what I have seen during my numerous trips to the US, they are quite prosperous on their reserves and have good self-determination and leadership).
  I agree with your entire statement except what I quoted above. The American Indians have done well only due to the legalization of gambling. While the influx of money has allowed them cashflow, it has only degraded their culture. Their native culture has only declined, they haven't really integrated in with the rest of the US, and they still have low graduation rates and rampant alcoholism.
  The Indians without casinos are doing a heck of a lot worse: A drive through the Four Corners region of the southwest (which is all Navajo and Ute Mountain Indians) is probably one of the most depressing places in the US... While scenically beautiful, there are no casinos, no money, no infrastructure, little electricity, little education. It's an incredibly quality of life, no matter what cultural perspective you evaluate it from.
  In my observation, the cultures that eschew assimilation into modern society yet live adjacent to modern populations are doomed for failure. A high percentage of their population is unable to resist modern addictive vices (gambling, drinking). These addictions, coupled with their historical lack of education, money, infrastructure and social support drags them into ruin.
  History has shown that you're best bet is to completely integrate into modern society or completely remove yourself from it. Attempting to do anything else tears you apart.
99. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by PaganRitual · 2010-01-07 12:33 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  relatively small prey size which the Aboriginals had to contend with
  Drop Bears, while relatively small in size, are vicious fuckers that will have torn a hole in your jugular and be drinking the warmth of your life force before you even realise what the hell is going on.
100. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by fatboyslack · 2010-01-07 12:44 · Score: 1
  
  Apparently the rhythmic style and the story based nature strikes a chord with a lot of younger Aboriginals. Sure it originated in the US but if it's something that younger Aboriginals can use to express themselves and be heard then I think it's fantastic.
  http://www.localnoise.net.au/site-directory/papers/aboriginal-hip-hop-a-modern-day-corroboree/
  Also Hip Hop has been part of Aboriginal Culture since the mid 80s apparently. (according to the above link)
  
  --
  Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Tolstoy
101. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by fatboyslack · 2010-01-07 12:59 · Score: 1
  
  Generally the more successful situations have been where the community has become more self-governing. It hasn't always worked, but there are some success stories.
  The self-governing success stories seem to be when there was still a reasonable level of culture and social structure remaining untouched where the elders had the respect they deserved. There has even been I think a return to the local aboriginal community having their own more traditional courts with full jurisdiction. Of course it's always amusing to see the media grapple with some of the justice meted out by the traditional methods of spearing them. (hmm can't find a reference for this but I'm sure I read about it)
  Obviously, the greater the influence of western culture though the more complex and difficult the problems. Where the traditional society and culture has completely being destroyed it's unfair to expect full 'integration' into either the traditional or western culture. I don't know what the answer is.
  (also I'm not saying that *all* aboriginals fail to adapt or adjust and succeed in western culture but surely there is something that can be done for those that fall through the cracks)
  Oh and for anyone who has no sympathy I suggest watching the movie 'Samson and Delilah' that was released last year.
  
  --
  Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Tolstoy
102. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by fatboyslack · 2010-01-07 13:02 · Score: 1
  
  Brilliant post. Mod up please.
  
  --
  Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Tolstoy
103. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by fatboyslack · 2010-01-07 13:04 · Score: 1
  
  Depends on where you live...
  in the rural and small town areas of Australia it's 95% white, mostly Christian(ish)... a lot of the cultural clashes go on there...
  in the city aboriginal's are sadly just another minority
  
  --
  Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Tolstoy
104. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 13:07 · Score: 0
  
  We all have a theoretical African "Eve" as our ancestor, from about 150000-280000 years ago . The genetically oldest, that is most varied, modern population is some tribe in East Africa. From their faces you can see European, Asian and African characteristics, all present in a same village.
105. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by cmdotter · 2010-01-07 16:19 · Score: 1
  
  I think you misunderstood quite a deal when you visited us. As a whole we are a multicultural country, however, the Aborigines have a history markedly different from our 'modern' cultures. In short, they were semi-nomadic, very tribal and had absolutely no concept of ownership.
  Enter the white man. We see these people living without clothes. So we give them clothes. We see them without shelter. We give them shelter. Unfortunately, we failed to understand that these concepts don't mean much to a people who live, literally, for the land itself.
  From an Aboriginal's point of view, we white people live off the land by harvesting and digging and, basically pillaging the earth, but are completely disconnected from it. They simply don't want to live like us, and yet we force them to (mainly because we don't understand).
  Tragically, we have forced them to live in sheltered areas, wearing western clothes and even worse, they (somewhat like the american indians, from what I understand) also have alcohol issues as a result.
  There is no easy answer for the Aboriginal issue, since there doesn't seem to be a culture anywhere else in the world similar to them. Unfortunately, we seemed doomed to make mistake after mistake trying to interact with their long lived heritage and culture. It has nothing to do with Immigration policies.
  Note further, that there are Aboriginals who (while still acknowledging their heritage) now live in a 'western' manner: clothes, house and job. Many many are very highly educated too. We white people see them as a success, whilst many Aboriginals see them as brothers who have lost the way.
  I hope this helps.
106. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 17:54 · Score: 0
  
  We've tried the 'just leaving them alone'.
  Indeed we have. This wasn't much use, as we only tried it after introducing them to alcohol, kidnapping their childrenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_generation and shooting anyone who tried to stop us didn't get the results we were hoping for.
  
  We've tried the 'throw copious amounts of money at them to promote development'.
  For those outside of Australia, what we actually tried was more along the lines of "Oh, it's you again. Here's 100 grand, the booze shops that way, now bugger off, I've got work to do". You can guess how well this worked.
  
  We've tried the 'educating them to help themselves'.
  See the aforementioned kidnapping of children.
  It's only in the last 5 years or so that the government has officially recognised how much damage we've done, and things are changing now, slowly. Alcohol and solvent sales are finally being regulated throughout South Australia and the Northern Territory. Child abuse and sexual assault cases are being dragged kicking and screaming into the spotlight. Improvements are slowly being made, but a lot of the damage is already done. It's to late to save most of their heritage, but it's not to late to try a new way of fixing their problems: treating them like human beings.
107. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by inKubus · 2010-01-07 18:12 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, there was plenty of nomadism and cave-dwelling activity in North America. British Columbia, the northwest and the islands there are all the exception. The extremely rich fisheries, abundant lumber, otter and beaver, and decent climate all led to an amazing abundance of resources for the natives there. In fact, they had so much they were also one of the most violent native cultures in the Americas. They didn't have anything better to do with their time since nature had provided so much.
  Good book on the area, and about a specific tree also, which makes it more interesting.
  
  --
  Cool! Amazing Toys.
108. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by inKubus · 2010-01-07 18:15 · Score: 1
  
  I'm still a big fan of OpenSSL but yeah, it's prety good.
  
  --
  Cool! Amazing Toys.
109. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Cimexus · 2010-01-07 21:16 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah you're right. - my bad I know SA was freely settled and I'm sure there was one other that wasn't a penal colony too. Qld or Vic maybe?
110. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Phoghat · 2010-01-07 22:09 · Score: 1
  
  Way back in 1970, I was managing a pharmacy on 7th Ave in NY City. The store was picked to have a visit by some Australian Pharmacists for a visit to see how American Pharmacies work. I had always had a dream of at least visiting there and asked what was needed to gain a license to practice in Australia. I'm Eastern European Caucusoid and they answered my questions with enthusiasm,
  Another Pharmacist of Puerto Rican extraction said he was interested also and was stone walled. You could see it in their body posture, and hear it in their answers that he was just not wanted.
  
  --
  Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
111. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by MBGMorden · 2010-01-08 02:27 · Score: 1
  
  We may just end up killing ourselves.
  Doubtful. What we may end up doing is just seeing some thing come into balance. The reality is that most of the problems you quote can be controlled - and many do not cause death until WELL after the time of procreation (which is all that's needed from an evolutionary standpoint - evolution won't favor people who die off at 50 any more than people who die off at 80).
  The reality is that we are the world's most advanced organism. We've evolved from primates who ran from anything on the African plains to the apex predator. Sure we're not perfect, but we're about as close as you're going to get.
  It may be a stretch, but I'm willing to bet that in 1 million years every species currently alive EXCEPT humans will be extinct, or will have evolved into something else. In 10 billion years, long after the Earth itself has been swallowed up by the Sun (which in turn is just a smoldering white dwarf), I'd wager that we'll still be somewhere in the universe making a go of it. No other creature that "lives in harmony" with nature will be able to say the same.
  
  --
  "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
112. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-08 02:57 · Score: 0
  
  We've handed back vast tracts of traditional lands to the Aborigines (much like the Indian Nations in the US),
  Nobody has given back ANY tracts of land to Indian People in the US. Even the Rez is "Land held is Trust" by the US government.
113. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by MightyMait · 2010-01-08 05:30 · Score: 1
  
  The reality is that most of the problems you quote can be controlled - and many do not cause death until WELL after the time of procreation (which is all that's needed from an evolutionary standpoint - evolution won't favor people who die off at 50 any more than people who die off at 80).
  Well, I didn't mention rising rates of teen suicide, decreased fertility in men, etc., etc., which *would* affect reproduction. Of course, your argument about moving towards some sort of natural balance could be applied to these phenomena as well.
  
  The reality is that we are the world's most advanced organism.
  Well, we'd have to define "advanced" first. If by that you mean the best able to bend the environment to its will, I'd have to agree. If by best able to survive natural disasters, there'd be many other organisms that are much hardier.
  
  It may be a stretch, but I'm willing to bet that in 1 million years every species currently alive EXCEPT humans will be extinct, or will have evolved into something else. In 10 billion years, long after the Earth itself has been swallowed up by the Sun (which in turn is just a smoldering white dwarf), I'd wager that we'll still be somewhere in the universe making a go of it. No other creature that "lives in harmony" with nature will be able to say the same.
  Haven't crocodiles, sharks, and cockroaches survived for millions of years virtually unchanged? In any case, I'd be willing to accept your wager, but I doubt I'd get a chance to collect if I won.
  
  --
  Nothing interesting to say...MUST...NOT...REPLY...ohtheheckwithit.
114. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Hognoxious · 2010-01-08 06:38 · Score: 1
  
  And I have this idea that sometimes the safest way to be is to move fast, especially if you have the intelligence to make good mental maps.
  
  How can you have a mental map of somewhere you haven't been to before?
  If they have been there before they aren't going to get to Asia or anywhere else; they're going in a circle.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
115. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Hognoxious · 2010-01-08 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  It's not as though every generation set themselves the task of moving as far from their parents as possible.
  Exactly. They aren't going wandering for a hobby. Once they'd found somewhere that was OK, they'd stay around until something - population pressure, resource depletion or even natural disaster - pretty much forced them to move.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
116. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by bostongraf · 2010-01-08 10:15 · Score: 1
  
  Realizing it is late in the response/mod cycle, the above should truly be modded up and not modded funny. Even though I was rolling with laughter, it is a very well put together flaying that both informs and insights. It is a shame that the post calling this gentleman's story horseshit is +5 while the defense against said post is stuck at +3 and has a Funny label attached to it.
117. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by phyrz · 2010-01-08 14:45 · Score: 1
  
  I guess in this case I do define 'advanced' as more like me, because i was talking about 2 ethnic groups trying to integrate into our society. By integrate i mean 'finding their place' as opposed to 'becoming white fellahs'. They need to adapt to modern life and become a successful, healthy people.
  Advanced may have been a poor word selection as its a pretty loaded term.
  With Aboriginal hip hop, I wasn't talking commmercial 'bling' hip hop. I meant it as a street level form of self expression and building self respect.
  Watch the vid at http://www.indigenoushiphop.com/
  
  --
  Don't point that gun at him, he's an unpaid intern!
118. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by phyrz · 2010-01-09 00:13 · Score: 1
  
  makes sense. coming from australia, the sheer amount of water and trees blew my mind.
  
  --
  Don't point that gun at him, he's an unpaid intern!
119. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Hognoxious · 2010-01-09 01:41 · Score: 1
  
  Just because they're the oldest population doesn't mean the full set of current features will be present. Some would be severely selected against in an African environment. Some mutations would only have arisen much later, and somewhere else.
  I'd like to see a citation for this village (and pictures), because it's the kind of thing you'd expect to be famous.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
120. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by Mauzl · 2010-01-11 15:23 · Score: 1
  
  I try to not prejudice aboriginals, but its hard when your prejudice has never been wrong..
121. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by zummit · 2010-01-14 07:39 · Score: 1
  
  I wonder what Ward Churchill would have to say about this.
122. Re:Always more to the legends and stories... by TheoMurpse · 2010-01-16 19:55 · Score: 1
  
  I hear time and time again that in the US, treaty trumps all law, even the constitution.
  Whoever says that is a liar or a fool. The Constitution cannot be trumped by anything, including a treaty.
It's bloody obvious when you know its there by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 21:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

Here it is. I went looking for it when the original story broke, without a picture or link, and easily found it. I knew where Palm Valley was, and from there the crater was pretty obvious. Mind you, it would be easy to dismiss it as an odd shaped formation if you didn't know you were looking for a crater, so hats off to Hamacher and the accuracy of "legend".
The most intriguing paragraph... by Angostura · 2010-01-06 21:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

.... as far as I'm concerned is...

Despite the link to the dreaming story, weathering and the absence of meteorite fragments suggest that the crater is millions of years old and humans could not possibly have witnessed the event, Hamacher said.
.
His suggestion is that Aborigines may have learned to recognise craters from more recent impacts and then deduced the origin of the Palm Valley and Gosse's Bluff craters. Now, I don't know about you, but that feels extraordinarily unlikely to me, given the frequency of large meteorite strikes. But that might just be because I don't have the aboriginal sensibilities for land features.
1. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by Arker · 2010-01-06 22:02 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Much of "dreamtime" and similar bodies of lore elsewhere, but the australian dreamtime is the canonical example by most accounts, is "cultural geography." The stories were adaptive strategies for human groups which travelled great distances and relied on their knowledge of local features for survival. If a person can predict features of geography in an area he has never been before because he remembers stories which encoded those features, this is a huge advantage. So that accurate information can be decoded from them should hardly be surprising.
  Nor would it be very surprising that they correctly deduced that craters are caused by meteor impact. The frequency of *large* meteorite collisions may be quite low, but the frequency of medium and small impacts is orders of magnitude greater, and they also leave craters. Simply dropping a rock into a still body of water forms a crater as well, even though it erodes away in the blink of an eye many people have sat dropping rocks into a pond and observing what happens as well.
  
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2. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 22:04 · Score: 0
  
  my theory is that one of the more adept people of early aborginy people saw the events that lead to this particular crater in a dream, there is a lot of truth to the concept of "dream time" in my opinion.
3. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 22:17 · Score: 0
  
  It doesn't sound so far fetched to me. Recognizing craters after seeing one made would be real entertainment. They did not have books. It does imply that the old crater got a new name that stuck to this day about 4,000 years ago. It makes me wonder what the Nile was called 4,000 years ago.
4. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by dargaud · 2010-01-06 22:19 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  His suggestion is that Aborigines may have learned to recognise craters from more recent impacts and then deduced the origin of the Palm Valley
  I would like to point to a similar story. In France the town of Rochechouart sits on a meteor crater. The name of the town, dating back centuries, literally means 'Fallen rock'. But the crater is 200e6 years old and is hardly recognizable from the ground (it's 21km in diameter, yes, it was a big hit). So who and how did they name the city ?
  
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5. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by MichaelSmith · 2010-01-06 22:32 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  His suggestion is that Aborigines may have learned to recognise craters from more recent impacts and then deduced the origin of the Palm Valley
  I would like to point to a similar story. In France the town of Rochechouart sits on a meteor crater. The name of the town, dating back centuries, literally means 'Fallen rock'. But the crater is 200e6 years old and is hardly recognizable from the ground (it's 21km in diameter, yes, it was a big hit). So who and how did they name the city ?
  Many people in history and pre-history mined meteorites for iron. They learnt to associate meteorites with impact events and so associated iron mines with impacts.
  
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6. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by nhaines · 2010-01-06 22:37 · Score: 1
  
  Well, I can't tell you about 4,000 years ago, but 3,000 years ago in Archaic Egyptian, the Nile was variously called iteru or H'pi.
  The name "Nile" is probably from the Arabic name "an-nil" (you'll have to imagine that's an i with a straight line over it--Slashdot hates Unicode).
7. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by nhaines · 2010-01-06 22:43 · Score: 1
  
  Err, let's pretend I looked it up originally that Nile is from the Greek word Neilos. ;)
8. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 22:47 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Although the "roche" part of the town's name does indeed mean rock, the other part, Chouart, does not mean fallen. It comes from the name Cavardus, the original owner of the fortification built on a rocky pillar there. Check out the official town history through a translation machine of your choice: http://www.ville-rochechouart.fr/Tourisme/Histoire/index.php
9. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by bcmm · 2010-01-06 23:20 · Score: 1
  
  that feels extraordinarily unlikely to me, given the frequency of large meteorite strikes
  Perhaps not if you consider the extraordinary age of some Australian aborigine cultures.
  
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10. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by sznupi · 2010-01-06 23:29 · Score: 1
  
  Goa'uld
  
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11. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by Thomas+Miconi · 2010-01-07 00:16 · Score: 1
  
  I would like to point to a similar story. In France the town of Rochechouart [france-for-visitors.com] sits on a meteor crater. The name of the town, dating back centuries, literally means 'Fallen rock'.
  
  Actually it doesn't. There is no plausible etymology from choir ("to fall", from latin cadere) to "chouart". Rather, the term "Rochechouart" comes from "Cavardus' rock", referring to the man who built a fort in the area.
12. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by drinkypoo · 2010-01-07 01:10 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps not if you consider the extraordinary age of some Australian aborigine cultures.
  They know because they were the citizens of the now-lost city of Atlantis, just off the coast of Australia, destroyed by meteor impact.
  I kid, I kid, but it sounds like a decent short story...
  
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13. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by hey! · 2010-01-07 01:16 · Score: 1
  
  Now, I don't know about you, but that feels extraordinarily unlikely to me, given the frequency of large meteorite strikes.
  On the other hand, that same infrequency doesn't seem to have prevented geologists from European cultures from figuring it out.
  
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14. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 01:31 · Score: 0
  
  Your claim is not verified by that site, nor is it by wikipedia. In fact, wikipedia says the town is named after the guy who built its castle/fortress.
  In fact, the french adjective for falling is 'en baisse' which doesn't even look like 'couart'. Moreover, there are several other words for falling (nouns) and those don't look like it either.
15. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by delinear · 2010-01-07 03:49 · Score: 1
  
  It's much easier to figure things out when you have the writings of those who went before you to help. Or to put it another way, several people may have "guessed" how the craters came to be, individually they just had interesting stories, put them together and you have something worthy of scientific investigation and then corroboration, all of this is a lot easier when you have writing.
16. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by DerekLyons · 2010-01-07 04:36 · Score: 1
  
  Nor would it be very surprising that they correctly deduced that craters are caused by meteor impact. The frequency of *large* meteorite collisions may be quite low, but the frequency of medium and small impacts is orders of magnitude greater, and they also leave craters.
  Keep in mind that an order of magnitude greater (that is less rare) than "incredibly, unbelievably, fucking rare" is still "incredibly fucking rare". The smallest (and hence most common) bodies that have a reasonable chance to survive to reach the Earth's surface and leave a crater are going to be in the ten's of meters size range - which hit every thousand years or so. Given the small size of Australia in comparison to the whole of the Earth's surface, the odds are extraordinarily slim that an Aborigine witnessed an impact event. (Even slimmer when you consider their low population density.)
  
  Not impossible, but highly improbable.
17. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by DavidTC · 2010-01-07 05:56 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  They don't need to witness an event.
  They just need to see a meteor in the sky, and then later find the crater.
  As was pointed out, the entire purpose of dreamtime is to know the landscape. They know the landscape very well. They're going to notice if a big damn crater shows up.
  Hell, they don't even need to figure out that a specific meteor in the sky caused the later. They see meteors all the time, they know about the 'shooting stars' as Europeans called them, and they apparently came to the same, logical conclusion that they were stars that had broken loose and fallen down. (They already knew that some of them were loose, aka, the planets.)
  As any fool can figure out how impact craters work by watching rocks drop into water, it seems a very logical conclusion that an brand new geographic feature that looks like what happens when rocks are dropped into water was made by something dropping into the land. Duh.
  So what drops from above? Well, there are stars up there that come loose...maybe a star hit here!
  And once they knew that land can suddenly be shaped like that, and that the 'story' for such land is 'it got hit with a falling star', of course they're going to label the other places where land is shaped like that with similar stories. (As that is, in fact, the entire point of dreamtime, to make up stories for the land so you can remember what the damn thing looks like because you haven't invented maps yet.)
  
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18. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by DerekLyons · 2010-01-07 06:16 · Score: 1
  
  Which means you miss the point entirely. Impact craters are fairly rare, recognizable impact craters rarer still, fresh impact craters even more rare. Thus the odds are very slim indeed.
  
  Or to put it less politely, I'm looking at it from a scientific point of view - actually considering the numbers. You're just blowing smoke.
  
  Not to mention that a rock dropped into water produces an effect that looks precisely nothing like an impact crater. The logical conclusion, since the land based feature lacks the splash back peak and multiple ripples that characterize a water impact is that they aren't caused by the same effect.
19. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by DavidTC · 2010-01-07 06:41 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, because there are no modern craters or series of craters that the Aborigines saw wasn't there, and then were suddenly there. Why, the very concept is totally impossible.
  
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20. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by DerekLyons · 2010-01-07 10:33 · Score: 1
  
  Learn to fucking read moron, I never said it was impossible, I said it was improbable. There is a difference.
21. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by Arker · 2010-01-07 12:09 · Score: 1
  
  I do believe *you* are the one blowing smoke, on both issues. First you complain about the lack of numbers but give none yourself.
  Humans have been in Australia for somewhere between 40 and 80k years, first off. You didnt give any numbers yourself but you appear to be underestimating that time period. Beyond that, you seem to be conceptualising the history of the various Aboriginal peoples as being limited to the time since arrival on the continent - which is a tremendous misconception. Those people existed long before that time, at various stages of a very long migration which took them from Africa along the southern coast of asia, through the malay archipelago, and so on. The true and complete history of those people is precisely the same length as that of any other people, as we all come from the same roots, in all likelihood the time period involved is no less than a quarter of a million years. They could have learned to associate craters with "falling stars" in Africa, in Australia, or at any point in between. It is no less unlikely for this association to have been made by Australians than by Europeans.
  Furthermore when you claim that dropping a pebble into water does not make the same shape, you are just wrong. You either havent done the experiment yourself, or you lack the perceptual focus to catch it, but the same shape is formed, for a fraction of a second.
  
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22. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by DerekLyons · 2010-01-07 16:39 · Score: 1
  
  I do believe *you* are the one blowing smoke, on both issues. First you complain about the lack of numbers but give none yourself.
  You could look them up, but since you can't bothered... Meteors large enough to survive transit through the Earth's atmosphere and leave a recognizable crater about once every ten thousand years across the entire surface of the earth.
  [Remainder of your post snipped, as it's nothing but smoke blowing bullshit. Given the quantities you emit, it's unsurprising you are no longer able to discern the difference between smoke and science.]
23. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by Arker · 2010-01-07 18:22 · Score: 1
  
  You could look them up, but since you can't bothered... Meteors large enough to survive transit through the Earth's atmosphere and leave a recognizable crater about once every ten thousand years across the entire surface of the earth.
  Ok, so using your numbers this should have happened a minimum of 250k/10k=25 times since modern humans first appeared. Plenty of chance for at least one of those impacts to be observed.
  
  [Remainder of your post snipped, as it's nothing but smoke blowing bullshit. Given the quantities you emit, it's unsurprising you are no longer able to discern the difference between smoke and science.]
  An excellent all-purpose rebuttal when you have no rebuttal eh? I bet you use it a lot.
  
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24. Re:The most intriguing paragraph... by bstender · 2010-01-07 18:31 · Score: 1
  
  the meteor crater in arizona looks very much like the classic splash of a pebble in water, frozen. the rim is way above the flat plane, sharp drop on the inside and parabolic slop back to the plain. Plus there's ripples that occur for miles. It's very impressive to see. the splashback may have also occurred, there's a large but localized pile of rubble in the bottom. (but i doubt that since the earth is a bit less fluid), but that detail is a minor departure overall. this pic is fair: http://travelandtweet.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/meteorcrater.jpeg.jpg
  
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Wonder... by plasticsquirrel · 2010-01-06 21:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

I wonder how many "myths" have such a basis in true events? I'm reminded of the "hobbit humans" story where the native people had stories about them that had been passed down reliably for thousands of years. It seems that in our rush to be certain about our world, we are often too eager to dismiss the ideas of ancient people. It is unfortunate as well, because they cannot defend themselves, so they are especially easy prey for academics looking for notoriety.

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1. Re:Wonder... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 22:00 · Score: 0
  
  ... and don't forget about the reptile-like beings from the heavens that Zulu folklore tells us about.
  (OK, going back to straight-faced mode again.)
2. Re:Wonder... by Kolie · 2010-01-06 22:02 · Score: 1
  
  Evidence of the unas?
3. Re:Wonder... by vadim_t · 2010-01-06 22:14 · Score: 1
  
  Such things are worthless if there's no evidence to back them up.
  All those myths get warped radically when they're passed from one generation to another. By the time we hear them, there are good chances they indicate nothing of use, even if they refer to a real event.
  Take something more recent and well known such as the tale of the Little Red Riding Hood, for instance. The original had the wolf leave the grandma's meat and blood for the girl to eat, then asked her to strip naked and throw the clothing into a fire. It's a story that's familiar to pretty much everybody, yet few people know it wasn't always like the modern version.
  Then there's plenty mythology that has absolutely nothing to do with reality.
  Mythology is certainly interesting enough to study, but I wouldn't put much weight into it as "transmitted wisdom of the ancient people", since by the time we find about it a lot of that isn't even what the ancient people used to tell each other.
4. Re:Wonder... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 22:17 · Score: 0
  
  It is the nature of folklore that it's very difficult to disentangle any truths which it may enclose, from the rest of the matter. Sometimes the truth is like the particle of grit that begins the formation of a pearl. Sure there's an element of truth in there, somewhere, but you have to dig pretty enthusiastically to expose it.
  A myth or story that has been around for centuries, especially in an oral tradition, is going to have a great many variations, additions, omissions, interpretations and translations. Can truth be had from them? Maybe. Can truth be had from them reliably? No.
  As such I think its very reasonable that when faced with these myths, we will often prefer a observation and experimentation as a mechanism of accessing the truth.
5. Re:Wonder... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 22:19 · Score: 0
  
  yes, it is heartbreakingly easy to dismiss something that you can't understand because it seems to contradict what you think you understand.
6. Re:Wonder... by cheesybagel · 2010-01-06 22:32 · Score: 1
  
  Nah its clearly The Race.
7. Re:Wonder... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 22:45 · Score: 0
  
  Yes, Jack Handey said it best: We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.
8. Re:Wonder... by plasticsquirrel · 2010-01-06 22:50 · Score: 1
  
  It is not true that they are worthless without evidence. They are not only cultural and historical treasures, but may be preserved for a later date when evidence has been found. And even if they are never found to be accurate about history, they can still tell us about a culture and its people.
  
  As for Little Red Riding Hood, I do not know if that is true or not. However, if it is, that is simply one example of how a story may change. However, TFA is an example of how a story did not, and it was indeed very valuable information that lead directly to the meteorite crater. Hardly "worthless" in this case. If they had dismissed it as such because there was no prior evidence, they would never have discovered the evidence that made it so valuable.
  
  Another example is the Chinese Shang dynasty, which western scholars simply assumed was mythical, and criticized others as naive for believing that the ancient Chinese would have such accurate records about the past. That is, until archaeologists found ancient turtle bones from the period inscribed with the names of the same kings in the ancient records. There is always such a trend in academia for scholars to toss aside ancient knowledge as pure myth.
  
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9. Re:Wonder... by vadim_t · 2010-01-06 23:18 · Score: 1
  
  It is not true that they are worthless without evidence. They are not only cultural and historical treasures, but may be preserved for a later date when evidence has been found. And even if they are never found to be accurate about history, they can still tell us about a culture and its people.
  Oh, I agree that mythology is interesting. But I wouldn't trust it much for geological research. For each story that has some relationship with reality there are hundreds about things like women that can sever their torso and fly around
  
  Another example is the Chinese Shang dynasty, which western scholars simply assumed was mythical, and criticized others as naive for believing that the ancient Chinese would have such accurate records about the past. That is, until archaeologists found ancient turtle bones from the period inscribed with the names of the same kings in the ancient records. There is always such a trend in academia for scholars to toss aside ancient knowledge as pure myth.
  Yeah, except that from the TFA:
  
  Despite the link to the dreaming story, weathering and the absence of meteorite fragments suggest that the crater is millions of years old and humans could not possibly have witnessed the event, Hamacher said.
  So it's quite possible that something else went boom in the general vicinity, or that the original myth is about some other place with a name that was similar to "Puka", or that over millions lots of stuff has fallen from the sky and if you look hard enough in a wide enough area that hasn't seen a lot of change over time, you're bound to find something.
10. Re:Wonder... by c6gunner · 2010-01-06 23:26 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  It seems that in our rush to be certain about our world, we are often too eager to dismiss the ideas of ancient people.
  The continued popularity of Judaism - and it's offspring, Christianity and Islam - tends to counter your claim. As does the number of people who have adopted various older forms of beliefs, from Paganism to Buddhism to Feng Sui and Tai Chi. If anything, the opposite of your claim is true - people tend to have a knee jerk tendency to accept the "wisdom" of "ancient culture", while rejecting "western science" as commercialized or "closed minded".
  
  It is unfortunate as well, because they cannot defend themselves, so they are especially easy prey for academics looking for notoriety.
  Nonsense. College campuses and left-leaning political movements are chock-full of people willing to jump to the defense of any culture which incorporated mysticism. If you want evidence, just attended any protest put on by "environmental" groups, and ask a random person about their spiritualism.
11. Re:Wonder... by sznupi · 2010-01-06 23:46 · Score: 1
  
  All myths have a basis in true events in regards to how they came to be - a story of certain function grown out of particular community. Some just took "artist license" in regards to their narrative further than the others, so to speak.
  It would be also a good idea to look at all myths like that if you want to wonder about them. "Western" ones aren't any more enlighted. Ancient ones or belonging to indigenous people living today are also regarded as more or less factual, by their adherents.
  
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12. Re:Wonder... by Ceriel+Nosforit · 2010-01-07 00:11 · Score: 1
  
  Unfortunately those who jump up to such defence are by majority much more enthusiastic than skillful or informed. They provide their detractors with a straw man to beat up, and get loud and obnoxious in their own failing. The detractor then promptly declares victory on false grounds. That such arguments are motivated by wanting to "win" it rather than wishing to learn something new speaks of their futility.
  Having spoken with people who are very well-informed, and sometimes skilled, in spiritual arts I form the impression that they have very little inclination to 'defend' their views and tend to only open up into discussion with their peers.
  A group worse than either of these are those who are in possession of a little knowledge and then dangerously use it to charm and influence others, even becoming cult leaders and other such false gurus. Then their hapless students pick an argument with a skeptic of any calibre and get their asses handed to them...
  No one said free thought was going to be easy.
  
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13. Re:Wonder... by drinkypoo · 2010-01-07 00:12 · Score: 1
  
  The continued popularity of Judaism - and it's offspring, Christianity and Islam - tends to counter your claim.
  All of these religions are having increasing trouble gaining converts. If they grow they do it by reproduction (which is why Catholicism is running strong — they heavily targeted peoples with high birth rates, then proceeded to tell them they would go to hell if they used birth control. A brilliant strategy.)
  
  If anything, the opposite of your claim is true - people tend to have a knee jerk tendency to accept the "wisdom" of "ancient culture", while rejecting "western science" as commercialized or "closed minded".
  I disagree. People only enjoy the wisdom of ancient culture when it has been made more palatable, like Wicca which is a bullshit fabrication but which is made up of ancient traditions. In that respect it is much like any kind of religious wingnut who gets too excited about which word comes after which in a book that's part parable and part historical record.
  
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14. Re:Wonder... by Hognoxious · 2010-01-07 01:00 · Score: 1
  
  If anything, the opposite of your claim is true - people tend to have a knee jerk tendency to accept the "wisdom" of "ancient culture", while rejecting "western science" as commercialized or "closed minded".
  Have you read "The Demon Haunted World" by the late great Carl Sagan? He expounds on this subject at some length. I highly recommend it.
  
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15. Re:Wonder... by DavidTC · 2010-01-07 06:11 · Score: 1
  
  You joke, but there's an interesting question about dragons and dinosaurs.
  Presumably, at various points in human history, people actually came across dinosaur bones, and said 'Whoa. Big lizard!', and, tada, dragons were invented. (Multiple times, in fact.)
  
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16. Re:Wonder... by DavidTC · 2010-01-07 06:19 · Score: 1
  
  Oral traditions, while changing over the years, change a lot less than stories in societies without oral traditions.
  Societies with religious oral traditions almost always have official remember-ers whose main job is to repeat the story exactly the same, and train others to repeat the story the same. There are often strong taboos against changing the story.
  This does not mean the story does not ever change, or that new stories don't show up and the old stories are forgotten. There is still change. It happens.
  But it's nowhere near the level of the changes oral stories have in a society that doesn't have an oral tradition. It's a thousand times, or more, slower. Don't assume it happens at the same rate as medieval England, a society with no oral tradition whatsoever.
  
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17. Re:Wonder... by c6gunner · 2010-01-08 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, it's an excellent read. If I were to nominate any book to be an "Atheists Bible", that would be it.
18. Re:Wonder... by c6gunner · 2010-01-08 08:11 · Score: 1
  
  All of these religions are having increasing trouble gaining converts. If they grow they do it by reproduction (which is why Catholicism is running strong — they heavily targeted peoples with high birth rates, then proceeded to tell them they would go to hell if they used birth control. A brilliant strategy.)
  The number of Muslims has tripled over the last 30 years. Christianity hasn't grown too much, but it hasn't shrunk either. I think that your statement may be accurate in a general sense, but only because the number of possible converts has shrunk to very low levels. The three largest religions already own two thirds of the worlds population - it's no surprise that, at this point, they're mostly converting eachothers adherents.
  
  I disagree. People only enjoy the wisdom of ancient culture when it has been made more palatable, like Wicca which is a bullshit fabrication but which is made up of ancient traditions.
  Agreed - most of the modern day "new age" woo is a perversion of past cultures. They are, however based on "the ideas of ancient people", which is the part of the original post that I was replying to.
19. Re:Wonder... by Hognoxious · 2010-01-09 00:05 · Score: 1
  
  If they grow they do it by reproduction (which is why Catholicism is running strong -- they heavily targeted peoples with high birth rates, then proceeded to tell them they would go to hell if they used birth control. A brilliant strategy.)
  Having twelve kids isn't a great strategy if eleven of them starve.
  But I think you exaggerate catholic birthrates. Italy[1] has one of the lowest in Europe.
  [1] I guess it's quite catholic - the pope lives there, after all.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm highly skeptical. by FlyingSquidStudios · 2010-01-06 22:10 · Score: 1

The Earth has been hit literally countless times by meteors and the best places to find craters are ones which have very sparse vegetation like Australia (there are around 25 known craters in Australia). The fact that they tell 'lots of stories' about stars falling out the sky with a noise like thunder coupled with the relative commonality of impact craters on the continent along with the fact that there was not a precise location, just a general area, makes it sound an awful lot like coincidence. I'm not dismissing it entirely, but it makes the connection seem a little weak to me.

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1. Re:I'm highly skeptical. by t0p · 2010-01-06 22:31 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah okay. A whole twenty-five craters. I bet you can't move in Oz without tripping over a crater.
  
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2. Re:I'm highly skeptical. by FlyingSquidStudios · 2010-01-06 22:42 · Score: 1
  
  Twenty-five KNOWN craters. The number is far, far higher, and expect that number to soar with better and detailed satellite imagery available to the general public.
  
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3. Re:I'm highly skeptical. by MichaelSmith · 2010-01-06 22:46 · Score: 1
  
  Twenty-five KNOWN craters. The number is far, far higher, and expect that number to soar with better and detailed satellite imagery available to the general public.
  I have long been suspicious about the configuration of Port Philip and Western Port bays.
  
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4. Re:I'm highly skeptical. by MichaelSmith · 2010-01-06 22:49 · Score: 1
  
  With those magnificent dark skies the Aboriginal people must have seen a lot of brilliant fireballs over the millenia. Some would generate a shock wave as well. For every crater on the ground I am sure many meteors were seen in the sky.
  When you sleep in the open you spend a lot of time staring straight up...
  
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5. Re:I'm highly skeptical. by DavidTC · 2010-01-07 06:23 · Score: 1
  
  As the entire point of dreamtime is to encode location data into stories, I'm baffled as to why you think they managed to figure out how impact craters work, but the fact they had such a location encoded into their story, to correspond to the right place, was 'coincidence'.
  I bet their dreamtime has a bunch of stories about rivers and whatnot, and if you look you might 'coincidentally' find rivers exactly where the stories say they are.
  It's crazy, man, crazy. It's almost as if they wrote the stories on purpose!
  
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  If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Re:This is not one of those cases by derdesh · 2010-01-06 22:14 · Score: 5, Interesting

Okay, I admit, I RTFA, and the crater in question has been dated as millions of years old, long before *anyone* claims humans capable of cultural transmission visited Australia.
According to the article, the author himself thinks that the aboriginal Australians were sophisticated enough to recognize impact craters on the landscape, and what might have caused them, and concoct legends about falling objects to explain them.
With all due respect to the parent post, the Indigenous Australians may have great knowledge that has been dismissed by their Western colonizers, but this is not evidence of such.
Ah, what a wonderful plot addition this will be by Enleth · 2010-01-06 22:21 · Score: 2, Funny

Just as I was thinking of some way to spice up a Call of Cthulhu adventure located in Australia for my players - a million years old crater from the aboriginal dreams pops up, and it's a genuine, real one. A little too far to the east for the original plot location, but that's nothing, just might be a tad more difficult for them to reach. Brilliant.

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Correlation != Causality by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 22:29 · Score: 0

nice story, might be true, certainly is true for some such stories, but correlation != causality
1. Re:Correlation != Causality by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 23:34 · Score: 0
  
  nice story, might be true, certainly is true for some such stories, but correlation != causality
  Would you like some CO2 to go with that temperature change, Sir?
Emu Dreaming by idji · 2010-01-06 22:32 · Score: 2, Informative

A very recent podcast with transcript (3. Jan 2010) called Aboriginal Astronomy from Radio Australia was about this topic, referring to this book Emu Dreaming by Ray Norris
Aboriginal names for crater areas are well known. by popoutman · 2010-01-06 22:35 · Score: 3, Informative

In a 1988 or 1989 edition of Astronomy Now (an english astronomy magazine), there was a very interesting article detailing Australian meteor craters.
In this article, there were about 30 craters listed, along with pictures and descriptions of the area, with the best-guess ages of the craters. Along with the radio-isotope dating, if there was a local name for the area that implies a large amount of sky-based fire in an area without volcanic activity, and without the vegetation to have a large bushfire.
A great examle of this is the Henbury Craters complex (NT, 24 34'S, 133 10'E) which is a collection of 14 craters, about 130 kilometres south of Alice Springs. They are scattered over an area of about one square kilometre. The craters range from 10 metres to about 73 metres across. The Aboriginal name for these craters is ''chindu chinna waru chingi yabu'' which roughly means ''sun walk fire devil rock''
text quoted from http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/trek/4wd/Over11.htm
Typical! I read the fine article, and it looks as though the article already has this listed.....

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At Last An Alien Landing Site by mindbrane · 2010-01-06 22:39 · Score: 1

at a site called Puka
That was no meteorite, that's where Harvey's spaceship touched down.

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ideopath @ play
Coordinates! by Cappella · 2010-01-06 22:44 · Score: 1

132.7102717
-24.0527939
So that you don't have to hunt for it like I do.

--
Stealth Falcon
1. Re:Coordinates! by bcmm · 2010-01-06 23:49 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I had a look on Google Earth, and couldn't see anything out of the ordinary at that spot, either from a flat photo or from elevation (and it's in a nice high-resolution bit, presumably because it's only 15km from the nearest populated place - not far in Australia).
  
  24*3'10.06" S 132*42'36.98" E in DMS, for anyone else trying to see it. (* in place of degree sign because slashdot hates us).
  
  --
  # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
  Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
2. Re:Coordinates! by corbettw · 2010-01-07 01:24 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Look a little to the northeast of that location, just south of the fossil river. It's plain as day.
  
  --
  God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Old news by RichiH · 2010-01-06 23:31 · Score: 1

I saw that crater from a vantage point during September.
The guide told us the dream story and that it was a crater. Old, weathered info signs said the same. I did not get any specifics, but everything I heard and saw makes me believe that this has been known for a long time.
1. Re:Old news by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-19 10:58 · Score: 0
  
  That was Gosse's Bluff crater... not far from Palm Valley.
Re:Aboriginal names for crater areas are well know by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 23:46 · Score: 0

... which roughly means ''sun walk fire devil rock''

microsoft run water god hardplace
People would not spread too fast. by jotaeleemeese · 2010-01-06 23:46 · Score: 1

Primitive people would have needed to figure out their environment first. That is something you can't do in a few decades, specially when you are not using s systematic approach to collecting knowledge (the scientific method is a recent invention and is not innate as far as we know).
Most likely people would move to one place or area, stay there for several hundreds of years, and groups would move slightly further away to adapt to new environments slowly.

--
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
They don't need to do that much by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-06 23:56 · Score: 0

They don't need to recognize craters from meteors. They only need to recognize "That massive shape is similar to those smaller shapes that occur whn you drop something heavy... Let's say... A star must have fallen here!". A lucky guess can explain it.
Then again, it doesn't sound so odd to think that they would have known about meteors. In the old days there was a lot less light pollution (though I dislike using that term, I know nothing better to call the thing) so it was easier to see the stars. In addition, people had little to do after the dark. You either slept (and might or might not have guards posted, I don't know about aborginals enough to say) or were gathered around a campfire (lots of people outside, watching around). It doesn't sound very unlikely that if there is a meteor strike, it will be noticed and investigated. And if it is investigated, it will become part of the mythology and pass along for numerous generations... Hell, we still know about the shooting star that the three wise men supposedly followed. And we know about the floods of Egypt, around the time when Noah supposedly would have existed.
After that Indian Ocean tsunami, I read somewhere about a primitive tribe that had survived. They had had stories about events like that. Something like "When the sea backs up... It will soon strike back. We should get to the high ground" and they survived because of that.
EVen so, I don't think we should pay all that much attention to that kind of stuff. Occasionally the aborginals, etc. have something useful in their folk lore. Most of it however is pure superstition. There is no reason to think that their ancestors were any wiser than we are. That assumption is the base of all those mystic, ancient chinese herbal medicine, etc... People assume that just because something is old, it must work. Even if it can't be proven scientifically.
1. Re:They don't need to do that much by DavidTC · 2010-01-07 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  It's worth pointing out that every historical culture knew not only about meteors, but assumed they were, in fact, 'falling stars', which actually lingers on as an expression even in modern English. I mean, think about it. There are points of light in the sky, entirely stable, although some seem to wander around (And, sure enough, in English, 'planet' is from 'wanderer'), and occasionally one of those points moves incredibly quickly across the sky.
  Every single culture came pretty much to the same conclusion. 'Hey, a star moving quickly'. And, because every culture knew abut gravity, the easiest assumption was that stars had come loose from what it was normally attached to (Whatever that was.), and was falling from the sky, like an acorn from a tree.
  Now, I don't know how many people connected the 'falling stars' with impact craters, but that's really not a far logical leap. Impact craters show up all the time in other contexts, and hell, all it would take is one human tribe 60,000 years ago seeing something slam into the earth and no one would have to 'figure' anything out at all.
  
  --
  If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Aboriginal? by M8e · 2010-01-07 00:03 · Score: 1, Funny

How unoriginal!
Re:Yes it is, but genocide isn't. by Jacques+Chester · 2010-01-07 00:16 · Score: 1

"Genocide"? Really? I was not aware that non-aboriginal Australians were consciously and systematically trying to kill all aboriginal Australians in concentration camp ovens. Having been an Australian since 1980 you'd think I'd have noticed that by now.
Particularly since, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the aboriginal and torres strait islander population of Australia is growing at a faster rate than the national average.

--

Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
Re:what the story doesn't mention... by Hognoxious · 2010-01-07 00:25 · Score: 3, Funny

like English, but without grammar or meaning
Well the story's about Australia, so that kind of fits.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
How about "El Dorado" and "The Fountain of Youth" by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2010-01-07 00:49 · Score: 1

Now THOSE would be fun . . .
I guess the trouble is the signal to noise ratio . . . for every myth that might have the potential of being true, there are 1,000 that are quite utterly bogus.
It's like a Website that you read . . . when too much garbage flows in, you don't take anything on it seriously, or stop reading it altogether.

--
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
A similar "legend" from Siberia. by imtheguru · 2010-01-07 00:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

" In remote central Siberia, there was a time when the Tungus people told strange tales of a giant fireball that split the sky and shook the Earth. They told of a blast of searing wind that knocked down people and whole forests. It happened, they said, on a summer's morning in the year 1908. "
About 20 years later the legend of the fireball led to the search and discovery of what has become known as the 'Tunguska Event'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
As seen in Carl Sagan's Cosmos, episode 4, Heaven and Hell.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/63316/cosmos-heaven-and-hell
Cheers.

--
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
Puka? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 01:05 · Score: 0

Next town over from Ralpha...
Re:This is not one of those cases by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2010-01-07 01:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

According to the article, the author himself thinks that the aboriginal Australians were sophisticated enough to recognize impact craters on the landscape, and what might have caused them, and concoct legends about falling objects to explain them.
With all due respect to the parent post, the Indigenous Australians may have great knowledge that has been dismissed by their Western colonizers, but this is not evidence of such.

So, figuring out what happened after the fact is not as impressive as witnessing it?
Seems backwards to me.

--
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Re:This is not one of those cases by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 01:55 · Score: 0

You're forgetting that earth is only 5 thousand years old. So, maybe they really did see it.
There are always possibilities.... by mark-t · 2010-01-07 02:53 · Score: 2, Interesting
- We are wrong about how long humans have been on the planet
- We are wrong about how long ago the impact was
- We are wrong about the level of sophistication of pre-human ancestors in the area to relate such folklore
- It is a serendipitous coincidence that such folklore happens to appear to match up with an actual meteor impact.
The latter seems to me to be the most likely explanation at this time. There would need be far more such occurrences before I would even begin to start to presume one of the others.
--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Grimms fairy tales provide more incite by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 03:29 · Score: 0

Given enough stories, something, in some story, will apparently coincide with something in the real world. It doesn't show incite or understanding on the part of the story teller.
I have read about aboriginal tracking skills and survival ability in the out back, and am truly impressed. Sadly, their wider spiritual culture, based as it was mostly on twoddle, has rightly been sidelined as an historic artefact. Interesting to study, but void of incite about the real world.
in the west, most of us, long ago pushed our superstitions to one side, and reappraised the world around us. The aboriginal people would do well to do the same and move on.
It's about time liberal, middle class, white people got over their fear of appearing racist, and rid themselves of the pretence that they believe all this baloney. It does nobody any good, least of all the aboriginals.
1. Re:Grimms fairy tales provide more incite by Jimmy_Slimmy · 2010-01-07 06:30 · Score: 1
  
  Give the man a cigar.
  "Given enough stories, something, in some story, will apparently coincide with something in the real world. It doesn't show incite [sic] or understanding on the part of the story teller."
  In other, less interesting news, an idiot savant in New York City on September 10, 2001 predicted that Miami would be struck by a meteorite the very next day.
2. Re:Grimms fairy tales provide more incite by bstender · 2010-01-07 17:03 · Score: 1
  
  Wow, where to begin to unwind the arrogance here. first of all we have "their wider spiritual culture, based as it was mostly on twoddle, has rightly been sidelined as an historic artefact" Sidelined by YOU, in your considerable opinion, but how is your opinion relevant in any way in judging this culture?
  
  "Interesting to study, but void of incite about the real world." In the "real world" that they inhabit, it runs circles around your awesome knowledge base. iow, you'd last 24-72 hours out there without a good load of imported technology, and without regular re-supply you'd quickly perish. Your hubris would vanish and you'd be begging like a baby for their technology!
  
  It gets funnier; "in the west, most of us, long ago pushed our superstitions to one side, and reappraised the world around us. The aboriginal people would do well to do the same and move on"
  How well would they do i wonder, and why haven't they jumped at this fine opportunity sooner? Your answer is something along the lines of "obviously they're untemensch" but could it be instead that they would no longer be able to maintain a sustainable lifestyle, they would be forced into the model that requires vast amounts of energy, pillage and slave labor to maintain, a pyramid scheme that is patently terminal? no, they're just aborigines, so how could they be smart enough to know that, yeah?
  
  This one takes the cake; "It's about time liberal, middle class, white people got over their fear of appearing racist, and rid themselves of the pretence that they believe all this baloney. It does nobody any good, least of all the aboriginals." double-plus wow. cf. "the white man's burden" seriously dude, take a philosophy course already. it has nothing to do with "belief", or should i say, everything has to do with belief, even your vaunted axiomatic theorems. Your Science is, at the end of the day, a description of what works. as soon as something works better, it magically becomes the new science. it is not the end of the story. In that outback, their strange voodoo works, it kicks your butt. you dont understand it any better than they understand your voodoo. I'm sure they have their own racist equivalent word to describe Western science. It only appears to you as superior because of its energy inputs, it has shown itself to be far far far from comprehensive, so show some intelligence already.
  
  --
  look sig is kool
Re:This is not one of those cases by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 03:32 · Score: 0

Or maybe they lucked out - maybe there are a thousand different stories about how a crater came to be and this one just happened to be close enough to the truth that you assume they figured it out (I'm not saying they didn't figure it out but you're making a big assumtion nonetheless). Or alternatively maybe they never even realised the crater was a crater and it just happens that on a planet pocked with craters a story about something falling from the sky happened to originate close enough to one of the craters that some scientist incorrectly put them together. In any case GP was right, this is too small a sample of cultural knowledge = lots to teach us about the world to be any kind of evidence.
Re:what the story doesn't mention... by Runaway1956 · 2010-01-07 03:36 · Score: 1

No worries, Mate. We'll track AC down, and hit his country right after Yemen. Fricking inbred tribal shouldn't be on the internet anyway. He'll be extinct soon, too!

--
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Re:Yes it is, but genocide isn't. by AndersOSU · 2010-01-07 03:36 · Score: 1

If a dominant culture kills a minority culture, what do you call it?
I tend to agree that it's not conscious or systemic (at least not anymore), and possibly not even intentional. Genocide may be the best word we have.
"us" = the human race by J_Omega · 2010-01-07 04:07 · Score: 1

I'm guessing that is what the parent meant.

There really is not much GENETIC difference between all of those tribes of people.

From what I understand (citation needed,) homo-sapiens grew out of a very small breeding population - only several hundred individuals - while still on the plains of Africa. The exodus ~70k years ago did cause certain physical traits to come into dominance or fade for the various tribes, but the genetics didn't really change that much over those 70k years. It seems that today's chimpanzees are *much* more genetically diverse than today's humans are. (Chimps all look the same to me, but I am a known specie-ist.)

Point being - "us" is Berber, Inuit, Norwegian, Ainu, Zulu, /.-er, etc. We are VERY CLOSE to being identical to each other - individually AND collectively.
1. Re:"us" = the human race by Hognoxious · 2010-01-07 11:57 · Score: 1
  
  The exodus ~70k years ago did cause certain physical traits to come into dominance or fade for the various tribes, but the genetics didn't really change that much over those 70k years.
  So you believe in Lamarckian evolution? If the genes didn't change at all (which was the original claim) how come the phenotype has?
  If we assume domestication started around the same time, it was long enough for wolves to become chihuahuas. They are clearly not identical.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
in other news... by dirtyhippie · 2010-01-07 04:21 · Score: 1

australian army officials are trying to determinehow a mushroom smoking, dijeridoo blowing, hippie unknowingly discovered the site of a top secret nuclear test detonation in the middle of the outback...
Here is how they named the city by aepervius · 2010-01-07 04:39 · Score: 1

Wiki (german) on rochechouart

Rochechouart ist aus Roca und Cavardus zusammengesetzt, der erste Teil bezeichnet einen leicht zu verteidigenden Felssporn, der zweite Teil ist der Name desjenigen Ritters, der hier um das Jahr 1000 eine Burg anlegte.

Rochechouart is composed of the word Roca and Cavardus (note from me : Roche=rock), the first part describe a easy to defend clip, the second part is the name of the knight which constructed a burg tehre.

In other word if wiki is to be believed, there is no relationship whatsoever with the fact it was a crater created by a meteorite.

--
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Here is how they named the city (english wiki) by aepervius · 2010-01-07 04:42 · Score: 1

I found out they also have an english wiki link (take previous post link and replace de. by en.) :

Rochechouart (Rechoard in Occitan, earlier La Ròcha Choard) is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in west-central France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. The name of the town comes from Latin roca cavardi, which roughly translates as the rock of Cavardus, the lord who had the fortified place built at the beginning of the 11th century. More often than not, natives pronounce it [owa], not *[wa].

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visit randi.org
Coincidental by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 05:25 · Score: 0

Wow, the odds of finding a crater there are...astronomical. I'm pretty sure any myth about a star falling anywhere could result in someone finding a crater if they looked hard enough. The Earth is covered with craters- but they have been disguised by erosion, foliage, and geological activity. Not to detract from the interesting story...but the myth is too general for it to be tied to a specific crater.
A quick search on google maps? by AlphaBit · 2010-01-07 05:37 · Score: 1

I know that google maps has been used like this before, but it amazes me every time that this very same tool is available to everyone for free.

The FA didn't talk about any fieldwork that might have been done to gather/clarify the folklore, but the rest of it seems like it could have been done from a bathtub with a smartphone!
Re:This is not one of those cases by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 05:44 · Score: 0

It is not difficult to observe the depression in ground when you throw some hard round object, like a ball, forcefully on soft sandy ground. And then if you come across similar shape somewhere, all it takes is common sense to deduce that this must have caused by some big thing thrown forcefully on ground.
It's amazing that today's scientists talk about dolphins being intelligent. But when it comes to anyone that has not been part of Western civilization, the preclusion is they were dumb.
Re:Hip Hop by Phrogman · 2010-01-07 07:58 · Score: 1

Hip-hop is an aboriginal Australian form of expression?
Yeah, and its been evolving there on its own for about 75000 years... :P

--
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Re:Normans by Phrogman · 2010-01-07 08:19 · Score: 1

My understanding is that the Irish language is actually getting preserved fairly well, in large part because the Irish people and government decided a while back that their language was a good way to stick it to the English invaders as well as recognizing Ireland's own cultural heritage (much like the revival of hurling and Gaelic football). About half of the Irish speak it to some degree, and most study it as part of their public school curriculum.
Actually the language spoken in England when it was Celtic dominated would be similar to Welsh rather than Irish in all likelihood. Actually, the Welsh could be viewed as the remnants of that population I believe. Welsh is also doing fairly well and being taught in the school system, likely better than Irish although I can't be sure. Scot's Gaelic (a descendant of Irish Gaelic mostly) is on the rocks, but efforts are being made to increase the speaking population with some success. Cornish died out completely but they are trying to revive it, and Breton is slowly dying off under the heavy hand of French culture I believe but am not sure.
It does take a tremendous effort to preserve these languages and encourage speakers under the onslaught of major languages like English sadly. We are losing a human language every few days apparently, and it won't be all that long before the majority of them have gone. Since each represents a unique perspective on what it means to be human, I think this is a massive shame.

And as far as Nordic raiders are concerned, don't forget that a lot of modern English is also due to the Norman Conquest, when French-rooted words started moving in.
As far as the Norman raiders are concerned, lets not forget that they were descendants of other Viking Raiders who settled north of Paris and created Normandy. Yes, they adopted Frankish as their language, but the aggressive military culture the evolved was due in some part to the Norse heritage they came from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normans

--
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Re:Yes it is, but genocide isn't. by slashtivus · 2010-01-07 08:25 · Score: 1

The word is 'assimilation'. The people are still alive. Genocide is the death of people (as well as culture).
Re:Yes it is, but genocide isn't. by AndersOSU · 2010-01-07 08:44 · Score: 1

that's only true if there actually is assimilation. This is not the case in a number of situations including Australian Aborigines, Japanese Ainu, and to a slightly lesser extent, Native Americans.
Besides, we're not talking about actively killing individuals, we're talking about isolating small social groups in harsher than usual conditions, and letting them fend for themselves.
When the dominant culture is hardly changed (if at all) and the minority culture withers and dies, what is that called. Genocide is too strong a word, but assimilation isn't right either. Perhaps subsumed is better.
Re:oh good, abos by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 09:06 · Score: 0

vb = victoria bitter? I don't believe it for a minute the abbo's were too damn thick to invent beer by themselves.
blah by cyphercell · 2010-01-07 10:08 · Score: 1

blah blah blah
posting to undo

--
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
on modding by eleuthero · 2010-01-07 10:24 · Score: 1

I think the op was likely modded down as a result of tone. Use of words such as "abbo" are likely regarded as offensive to many (it is pejorative). The same comments could have been made (and indeed, if you look elsewhere in the postings) have been made without the pejorative sense.

To sum up the OP's actual points:
1. Most aboriginal knowledge is focused on survival level skills.
2. Modern Western culture expresses a guilt complex towards less complex societies.
The guilt complex is unjustified because societies which exist only on a subsistence level are of lower value and should be replaced by those capable of improving quality and quantity of life / knowledge.

I would tend to agree with these points with the provisos that modern Western culture has its own problems and no one culture has all the answers. I would also tend to seek out those areas where other cultures have positive value (and it may be, as in the case of a hypothetical culture where murder and cannibalism are the highest and only positive values that some cultures have no positive value--though I am not familiar with such at this point in history).
"The Noble Savage" and rose-tinted glasses. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-01-07 10:33 · Score: 0

Everybody admires the indigenous peoples of foreign lands, while claiming those of their own are little better than vermin.
Americans think the Australian aborigines are wonderful, yet wish the native Americans would go away.
Australians think native Americans are wonderful, yet wish the Australian aborigine would go away.
To be fair, Australians admire everything about America, so it's not surprising they also say nice things about the native Americans, but Australians also say the same about, say, the New Zealand Maori, whereas the majority of New Zealanders wish the Maori would just go away.
It's how these things work.
Re:This is not one of those cases by derdesh · 2010-01-07 12:26 · Score: 1

Even more impressive. But the credit should go to their scientific understanding of how the world works, not to some (Western interpreted) mythology of primitive peoples.
A Similar Story from Papua New Guinea by mlnease · 2010-01-08 08:27 · Score: 1

In 1982 the University of Washington Press published R.J. Blong's 'The Time of Darkness: Local Legends and Volcanic Reality in Papua New Guinea'. In that case a local oral tradition was proven to have been an accurate account of an ancient volcanic eruption. Out of print now but easy to find second hand and a good read.