Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Going to Sunda: Lower Pleistocene transcontinental migration
- 2 Pleistocene population growth
- 3 From Sunda to Sahul: transequatorial migration in the Upper Pleistocene
- 4 Upper Pleistocene migration patterns on Sahul
- 5 Palaeoenvironments, megafauna and the Upper Pleistocene settlement of Central Australia
- 6 Upper Pleistocene Australians: the Willandra people
- 7 Origins: a morphological puzzle
- 8 Migratory time frames and Upper Pleistocene environmental sequences in Australia
- 9 An incomplete jigsaw puzzle
- Appendix 1
- Appendix 2
- Appendix 3
- References
- Index
4 - Upper Pleistocene migration patterns on Sahul
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Going to Sunda: Lower Pleistocene transcontinental migration
- 2 Pleistocene population growth
- 3 From Sunda to Sahul: transequatorial migration in the Upper Pleistocene
- 4 Upper Pleistocene migration patterns on Sahul
- 5 Palaeoenvironments, megafauna and the Upper Pleistocene settlement of Central Australia
- 6 Upper Pleistocene Australians: the Willandra people
- 7 Origins: a morphological puzzle
- 8 Migratory time frames and Upper Pleistocene environmental sequences in Australia
- 9 An incomplete jigsaw puzzle
- Appendix 1
- Appendix 2
- Appendix 3
- References
- Index
Summary
The gales brought us here. They picked us up from the reef out at sea, they tossed us and rolled us and pushed us up high on the sandy head and now we lie here in the sun.
(Spirit Quandemooka – Oogeroo Nunuccal, Aboriginal elder and poet, Stradbroke Island, Queensland)Introduction
Aboriginal people have differing accounts of how the first people came to Australia, where they came from and how they travelled across the continent. These events involve animal and human-like spirit beings and heroes who undertook epic journeys across an empty and often dark landscape upon which they created natural and physical features and landscapes as well as animals and the people themselves. These ‘Dreaming’ stories tell of how all these things were infused with life and lore and language were given to the people. They describe the long journeys, adventures and battles of the ancestral beings and how the first people encountered strange creatures. The word ‘Dreamtime’ is not liked by some Aboriginal people, it implies a particular time in the past. The ‘Dreaming’ is better because it represents no particular time: it could be millions of years ago, 60 ky ago, yesterday, today and tomorrow. The ‘Dreaming’ continuum in Aboriginal society is strong because it helps explain the world, where people, animals, the landscape and everything came from. Perhaps even more important it represents the special attachment Aboriginal people have to the land.
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- Information
- The First Boat People , pp. 112 - 133Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006