# No pre-Western civilisation in Australia? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 16, 2009, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209 "2009-07-16T11:55:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/81 "2009-07-19T07:21:46Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > A more plausible scenario is that the trade never stopped during that 4, 000 year period. You are drawing too long a bow for me. We shall have to agree to differ. I can’t accept your argument because I can’t find any support for it in the literature. I can only find reference after reference that says that trade with the Maccasans dates back 100s of years. Not one that suggests thousands. eg. Peter Bellwood, _First Farmers_, 2004, p. 34. Nor one that mentions pigs or rice. You then quote oral tradition as evidence. There is a wealth of literature in archaeology and anthropology which talks about the way to use oral tradition as history, and the risks involved. eg. Vansina: _Oral tradition as history_. Hiscock, in _Archaeology of Ancient Australia_, 2007, p. 276, specifically rejects this literal interpretation of Baijini. We can go on trading cites for ever and I don’t think we’re getting anywhere. It is fine to accept oral tradition literally (as in a literate way), and you are welcome to do so. As my work is under the scrutiny of archaeologists, even though I am not an archaeologist, I need archaeological evidence. Thank you for fascinating input which has led me to some really interesting material. ---
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/82 "2009-07-19T07:22:56Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > New Guinea cultures were extremely fragmented. Perhaps a thousand or more cultures existed there; the island has more than 800 languages, I believe the highest linguistic diversity of any equivalent area in the world. The rugged terrain of the interior highlands isolated many groups in their own valleys. This is the region in which early agriculture developed. OK, now you’ve got me really hooked. I need to do the reading. I am working with a linguist who is working in New Guinea, so will start with him. Thank you heaps! ---
**Author:** ![Staale\_Nordlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Staale\_Nordlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staale_Nordlie)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/83 "2009-07-19T09:44:02Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Most domesticated animals are herd or pack animals (the exception being the cat). Humans have exploited that social behavior in taking the place of the dominant herd or pack leader, enabling groups to be controlled. Emus primarily travel in pairs (although they may flock when travelling to food). They would probably not be as easily controlled during the incipient stages of domestication as true herd animals. I don’t think a human herder is seen the “leader”. My impression is that herding generally involves chasing the herd/flock where you want it to go. Herd behavior is important since it keeps the group together. (I suppose having a leader might contribute to this behavior.) As for emus, they do live in flocks some of the time. There is also a dominance hierarchy in a flock. [Example](http://ps.fass.org/cgi/reprint/76/4/615.pdf) (pdf): “The reaction of the males to humans and their position in the **dominance hierarchy** were the main factors influencing the speed and effectiveness of their training.” It’s even possible to make emu chicks imprint on humans. ([Source](http://www.wiea-emu.org/http___wiea-emu_FAQ.html)) (Though that might be harder if you don’t have a modern commercial incubator…) > [@Colibri](#): > > The benefit of most domestic animals is that they can live on grass, which we cannot utilize, and which is usually in abundant supply. Emus on the other hand eat various plants, fruits, seeds, and insects. It would be quite difficult, and very inefficient, to spend your time going around collecting food for a captive emu, especially since much of its food would be edible to humans. Emus eat grass, but it has to be green/fresh. Emus don’t like old/tough, dry or dead plants. Other than that they are notoriously willing to eat just about anything, including animal droppings. Besides, eating many of the same foods as humans is not always a drawback. It can be an advantage. Pigs are one of the most common domesticated animals and their ability to eat human leftovers have no doubt contributed to that. As for collecting food for emus, you wouldn’t necessarily have to provide _all_ their food. You could collect just enough to make it worth their while to enter a fenced off area on a regular basis to get “free food”. (And maybe to keep them alive/around during a food shortage in the wild.) You could also provide a reliable source of water. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/84 "2009-07-19T10:00:19Z")
> [@lynne-42](#): > > It is that need for portability which, I feel, is linked to the specific nature of Aboriginal orality. Once again you’re begging the question. Aborigines, like almost all HGs, were nomadic. They need to keep things portable because they are not settled. Only after the invention of agriculture could HGs develop non-portable tehcnologies So in short, aborigines maintained portable technology because the lacked agriculture, not vice versa. And, once again, they weren’t special in this regard. HGs who had non-portable technology can be counted on the fingers of one hand. You are drawing too long a bow for me. We shall have to agree to differ. > [@](#): > > I can’t accept your argument because I can’t find any support for it in the literature. I’ve given you the literature. Yo can not dispute that domesticated animals were traded with Aborigines 4, 000 ybp. And you can not dispute that domesticated plants were introduced to Australia within the last few hundred years. IOW your entire position hinges on a baseless belief that this trade for some reason ceased for millenia and then took up again, again for reasons unknown. > [@](#): > > I can only find reference after reference that says that trade with the Maccasans dates back 100s of years The people who traded dingoes with the Aborigines wouldn’t have been _called_ Macassans. That designation didn’t exist 3, 000 years ago. > [@](#): > > Nor one that mentions pigs or rice. If you can’t find at least 50 highly reputable references that Macassans traded rice with Aborigines then you are using the wrong search terms. Just putting [macassan rice australia] into Google scholar returns over 200. Of course the Macassan introduction of both pigs and rice in Northern Australia is pretty much proven by the fact that the local Aboriginal words are identical to the Macassan. > [@](#): > > As my work is under the scrutiny of archaeologists, even though I am not an archaeologist, I need archaeological evidence. By definition you are not going to find it. A few kgs of rice and a coup[le of individual pigs can not leave archaeological evidence. Aborigines had access to Macassan rice and pigs without any doubt. Nonetheless no evidence of such has been found because it was never cultivated in Australia long term. Organic material just doesn’t leave archaeological evidence when it is deposited in small, sporadic amounts. The only way you could possibly find it is if Australians had adopted agriculture, but if that had happened you wouldn’t need to find it. IOW you re asking for evidence which, if you found it, would contradict its own existence. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/85 "2009-07-19T10:12:30Z")
> [@Staale\_Nordlie](#): > > My impression is that herding generally involves chasing the herd/flock where you want it to go. Never done any animals handling, have you? You never, ever chase animals if it can possibly be avoided. It tires them out and makes them lose condition. Herding involves gently pointing the animals in the direction you want them to go and preventing them straying. Definitely not chasing. > [@](#): > > As for emus, they do live in flocks some of the time. Yep, Colibri just said that. They form loose aggregates converge on a resource, but that’s not social behaviour. Buttterflies do that too. > [@](#): > > Emus eat grass, but it has to be green/fresh. Emus can’t _survive_ on grass. that’s the point. Pigs will eat grass too. that doesn’t make them grazers like sheep or geese. > [@](#): > > Besides, eating many of the same foods as humans is not always a drawback. It can be an advantage. Pigs are one of the most common domesticated animals and their ability to eat human leftovers have no doubt contributed to that. Ahh, no. In early HG societies the concept of “leftovers” didn’t exist, or at least not at a level that would sustain an animal. Pigs are either fed on surplus _agricultural_ material (which by defintion they can’t have if they are the first dometsicate) or, more commonly in early agricultural societies, they are allowed to roam semi-freely and find their own food. > [@](#): > > You could collect just enough to make it worth their while to enter a fenced off area on a regular basis to get “free food”. And how is a pre-agricultural person going to do this with anything approaching a net calorific return? > [@](#): > > (And maybe to keep them alive/around during a food shortage in the wild.) That’s the trick isn’t it. Patterson drily noted that “When the kangaroos in their thousands die, it’s tough on the travelling sheep”. That goes doubly for emus and humans. If things are so tough that the emus are dying there is no way a human is going to be able to find a surplus of food. ---
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/86 "2009-07-19T11:15:54Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Only after the invention of agriculture could HGs develop non-portable tehcnologies… HGs who had non-portable technology can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Many (most?) HGs linked myth and legend to landscape locations, many artificially enhanced, which are considered to be a mnemonic technology. Non-portable. You are totally missing the point of my linking orality to portability. I credit that I didn’t explain it, and I won’t bother until I can justify it being relevant to the OP, which I certainly can’t at the moment. It is only this debate which has started me thinking this way. And I am not interested in a debate on the definitions of ‘technology’. Google Scholar with orality and technology will show you the academic resources which use technology the way I do in this context. ---
**Author:** ![Staale\_Nordlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Staale\_Nordlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staale_Nordlie)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/87 "2009-07-19T13:05:20Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Never done any animals handling, have you? You never, ever chase animals if it can possibly be avoided. It tires them out and makes them lose condition. Herding involves gently pointing the animals in the direction you want them to go and preventing them straying. Definitely not chasing. [Chase](http://jaguar.eb.com/dictionary/chasing): 4 : to cause to depart or flee : DRIVE You can cause an animal to “depart” (aka “move”) without starting a panicked flight. Though I suppose “drive” would have been a better word. Either way, the point is that the animals are not led by a trusted human “leader”, they are “pushed”, “chased” or “driven” in the desired direction. An excerpt from [an article on herding cattle](http://www.grandin.com/B.Williams.html): _“In cattle that have had no previous experience with herding, the “stimulus” is a person who simulates predator “stalking behavior”, which elicits predatory “avoidance behavior” in the cattle.”_ (The same article _does_ say that really tame cattle can be led, but this involves food rewards.) > [@Blake](#): > > Yep, Colibri just said that. They form loose aggregates converge on a resource, but that’s not social behaviour. Buttterflies do that too. That’s not what I meant. Emus don’t just happen to end up next to other emus when feeding or travelling in the same direction, they form groups (flocks) with an established dominance hierarchy. A few cites supporting this: \*“This huge bird naturally lives in groups together called flocks.” \*-- [http://www.paemufarmers.org/about\_emus.htm](http://www.paemufarmers.org/about_emus.htm) _" In small flocks emus forage for fruits and insects but may also damage crops. "_ – [Emu | Description, Habitat, Diet, Height, Speed, & Facts | Britannica](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/186290/emu) _" Emus live in small groups but can form flocks of thousands when migrating."_– [http://www.perthzoo.wa.gov.au/Animals--Plants/Australia/Australian-Bushwalk/Emu/](http://www.perthzoo.wa.gov.au/Animals--Plants/Australia/Australian-Bushwalk/Emu/) See my previous post for a cite on the dominance hierachy. I suspect the reason they are sometimes described as solitary or living in pairs is that pairs will move away from the group to breed, and the emu flocks will split up for a while to cover a larger area when feeding. > [@Blake](#): > > Emus can’t _survive_ on grass. that’s the point. Pigs will eat grass too. that doesn’t make them grazers like sheep or geese. Cite that emus can’t survive on grass? But yes, emus are not as effective at eating grass as _some_ other domesticated animals. Fortunately, “must eat the same food as a cow” is not a requirement for domestication. > [@Blake](#): > > Ahh, no. In early HG societies the concept of “leftovers” didn’t exist, or at least not at a level that would sustain an animal. Not true. HG societies tend to spend surprisingly little time on the hunting and gathering. They can usually afford to gather and/or kill more than they eat. Unless they’re starving they are not going to force themselves to eat everything _technically_ edible just so they don’t waste anything. There’s bound to be leftovers. (So why don’t they multiply like rabbits and cover the land in people? Presumably malnutrition and periodic starvation plays a big part.) > [@Blake](#): > > And how is a pre-agricultural person going to do this with anything approaching a net calorific return? How do you know there wouldn’t be a net calorific return? Have you tried it? Anyway, there’s more to domestication that “net calorific return”. Meat is usually a luxury, and people will put in extra effort to get it just because it tastes better. Meat also has valuable nutrients (notably protein) beyond the basic number of calories. Finally, the “emu calories” can potentially be eaten when you really need them. > [@Blake](#): > > That’s the trick isn’t it. Patterson drily noted that “When the kangaroos in their thousands die, it’s tough on the travelling sheep”. That goes doubly for emus and humans. If things are so tough that the emus are dying there is no way a human is going to be able to find a surplus of food. A human can collect and store food in times of plenty in a way an emu can’t. Especially since the emus do eat some foods inedible to humans. Humans are also better equipped to dig for water. (Emus can survive for a long time on little or no food, but they need water.) And as I mentioned above, one obvious source of food when things get tough is … emus. You know, the emus you’ve been using to “store” excess food. Keep the best animals alive and eat the rest. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/88 "2009-07-19T16:37:57Z")
> [@lynne-42](#): > > Is biodiversity an indicator of when hunter-gatherer cultures can survive in a given area? Just to follow up on this, I agree with **Blake** that higher diversity will probably make it more difficult to locate resources when you are comparing ecosystems, such as rainforest vs forest-savanna ecotone. I was talking about a comparison _between_ tropical forests, in that a monodominant forest such as those found in Africa is going to have less variety in available resources such as nuts and fruits than a more diverse tropical forest would have. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/89 "2009-07-19T16:53:53Z")
> [@Staale\_Nordlie](#): > > [Chase](http://jaguar.eb.com/dictionary/chasing): 4 : to cause to depart or flee : DRIVE :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > An excerpt from [an article on herding cattle](http://www.grandin.com/B.Williams.html): _“In cattle that have had no previous experience with herding, the “stimulus” is a person who simulates predator “stalking behavior”, which elicits predatory “avoidance behavior” in the cattle.”_ :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > (The same article _does_ say that really tame cattle can be led, but this involves food rewards.) Which is simply nonsense. > [@](#): > > That’s not what I meant. Emus don’t just happen to end up next to other emus when feeding or travelling in the same direction, they form groups (flocks) with an established dominance hierarchy. Dude, Colibri is an authority of tropical birds in real life. Good luck arguing with him. See my previous post for a cite on the dominance hierachy. > [@](#): > > Cite that emus can’t survive on grass? :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > Not true. HG societies tend to spend surprisingly little time on the hunting and gathering. Between 10 and 16 hours a day on average is spent in finding food and associated activities. I suspect that you, like many amateurs, have misunderstood the oft quoted fact that HGs spend 4 hours a day actually obtaining food. But you forgot to read the rest pf the study where the authors add in the time you add in tool making, travelling etc that are necessary to obtain food and come up with the 10-16 hour figure. > [@](#): > > How do you know there wouldn’t be a net calorific return? Have you tried it? :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > . Meat is usually a luxury, and people will put in extra effort to get it just because it tastes better. Nonsense, the majority of a HG diet is meat. Meta only became a luxury after the adoption of agriculture. > [@](#): > > A human can collect and store food in times of plenty in a way an emu can’t. Nomadic HGS do not and can not. > [@](#): > > Humans are also better equipped to dig for water. Establishing agriculture in an environment where there is no surface water. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > Keep the best animals alive and eat the rest. Uh huh. So your feeding the cats to the rats and the rats to the cats.:rolleyes: I honestly can’t be bothered arguing this with you. It’s all way too silly to give further consideration. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/90 "2009-07-19T17:11:58Z")
> [@Staale\_Nordlie](#): > > Cite that emus can’t survive on grass? > > But yes, emus are not as effective at eating grass as _some_ other domesticated animals. Fortunately, “must eat the same food as a cow” is not a requirement for domestication. Cite that they can survive on grass? Emus can digest fiber to some extent, but they lack the dietary specializations present in cattle and some other herbivorous birds. [This article](http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=MU9850043.pdf) says: > [@](#): > > However, Emus consuming four diets with neutral detergent fibre contents from 26 to 36% digested between 35 and 45% of the fibre, yielding energy equivalent to 12 to 63% of their standard metabolic rate and capable of satisfying 10 to 50% of their daily maintenance requirements for energy (Herd & Dawson 1984). It’s unlikely, given this, that they would be able to supply 100% of their maintenance requirements from grass alone, let alone be able to come into breeding condition. Furthermore, chicks would require enhanced levels of protein in order to grow to maturity. And “eat the same food as a cow” _is_ pretty much a requirement for domestication as a meat animal before the establishment of agriculture. The only animal domesticated before agriculture was the dog, which was primarily used for hunting, and which would have been able to survive on the leavings from kills. The other early domesticates were ruminants and the horse, all of which process cellulose well. Pigs, which are omnivores like emus, were not domesticated until after the development of agriculture. We know that the emu was _not_ domesticated by native Australians. **Blake** and I have provided several reasons based on social structure and diet why it would difficult to domesticate under pre-agricultural conditions. If you think it actually was domesticable, you need to come up with an alternative hypothesis as to why it was _not_ domesticated, since we know this was the actual case. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/91 "2009-07-20T04:12:53Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Is this a joke. or have you honestly totally failed to understand the entire thread? > > The request was for an example of where, and I quote, “an Australian indigenous species was **domesticated elsewhere** as a crop”. > Get it? **Domesticated elsewhere**. Not **domesticated in Australia.** If those distributions were of domesticated rice then they wouldn’t be an example of rice being **domesticated elsewhere**. > > Do you honestly not understand this, or am being whooshed? Let me move the bolding: The request was for an example of where, and I quote, “ **an Australian indigenous species** was domesticated elsewhere as a crop”. Rice is not indigenous to Australia, and to the extent it grew wild here those species were not then domesticated elsewhere. The request was clearly for a plant that _originated_ in Australia, was not domesticated here but was elsewhere. That is, that was a local domesticable food crop that the Australian aboriginals failed to domesticate. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/92 "2009-07-20T04:43:54Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > Let me move the bolding: The request was for an example of where, and I quote, “ **an Australian indigenous species** was domesticated elsewhere as a crop”. Rice is not indigenous to Australia, and to the extent it grew wild here those species were not then domesticated elsewhere. The request was clearly for a plant that _originated_ in Australia, was not domesticated here but was elsewhere. That is, that was a local domesticable food crop that the Australian aboriginals failed to domesticate. I already gave one in post #31: Bananas (genus _Musa_) of a species that is the same or very close to one that gave rise to the cultivated one elsewhere are native to Australia but were not domesticated there. ETA: and I see that **Blake** also mentioned this example in the post you quoted (#30), which was posted a couple of minutes before mine. Did you miss that? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/93 "2009-07-20T07:28:36Z")
You can’t store bananas long-term, can you? So, unlike grains such as rice, they’re unsuitable for forming the basis of an agrarian culture. ---
**Author:** ![Staale\_Nordlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Staale\_Nordlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staale_Nordlie)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/94 "2009-07-20T08:37:42Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > :rolleyes: > > :rolleyes: > > Which is simply nonsense. > > :rolleyes: > > :rolleyes: Boy, that sure showed me. What crushingly logical arguments you have. Wait, I know… :rolleyes:! Ha! Now _I_’m winning!!! > [@Blake](#): > > Between 10 and 16 hours a day on average is spent in finding food and associated activities. . Cite! Even Google is unable to find a source for your 10-16 hours per day estimate. > [@Blake](#): > > I suspect that you, like many amateurs, have misunderstood the oft quoted fact that HGs spend 4 hours a day actually obtaining food. But you forgot to read the rest pf the study where the authors add in the time you add in tool making, travelling etc that are necessary to obtain food and come up with the 10-16 hour figure.. People who have actually worked with (sort of) HG peoples do not report that they spend almost all their time on survival activities. There is a fair amount of “laying around” or “playing” going on. If nothing else it is clear that HG societies have free time for songs, dances, storytelling, religious rituals, painting, beadwork and so on. Besides, getting back to the original issue of leftovers, any real-world example of time use would include time spent on getting food people want and enjoy eating, not just “sufficient calories if we force down everything even remotely edible” food. > [@Blake](#): > > Nonsense, the majority of a HG diet is meat. Meta only became a luxury after the adoption of agriculture.. The percentage of meat in a HG diet differs from group to group and depends heavily on availability. It is often a luxury (“something adding to pleasure or comfort but not absolutely necessary”) in that HGs prefer it over other food and will make an extra effort to get it beyond simple calorie calculations. ([Example](http://foragers.wikidot.com/australian-aborigines#toc7) from Australia: “… Aborigines prefer meat over anything else …”) > [@Blake](#): > > Nomadic HGS do not and can not. Your point? > [@Blake](#): > > Establishing agriculture in an environment where there is no surface water. :rolleyes: What are you talking about? I didn’t mention agriculture. Emus need water. Humans can find water where emus can’t. > [@Blake](#): > > Uh huh. So your feeding the cats to the rats and the rats to the cats.:rolleyes: No. Times are hard. There is less emu food to go around. There is less human food to go around. You kill some of the emus. There is now more emu food for the remaining emus and the humans have more food as well. It’s not that complicated. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/95 "2009-07-20T09:24:14Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > Rice is not indigenous to Australia, and to the extent it grew wild here those species were not then domesticated elsewhere. Yes it bloody is. Read the bloody reference. "The progenitors of _O. sativa_ are… _ **O. rufipogon** _ and _O. nivara_… Four Oryza species are reported to grow naturally in Australia. These are … _ **O. rufipogon** _. The fucking progenitor of domestic rice is an Australian native species. It has been there since before humans arrived. Is this really that difficult to grok? Why do people who clearly don’t have a clue feel the need to debate this shit without bothering to read the references? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/96 "2009-07-20T09:26:13Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > You can’t store bananas long-term, can you? So, unlike grains such as rice, they’re unsuitable for forming the basis of an agrarian culture. Bananas form the basis of countless agrarian cultures. Bananas are a wet tropical crop, and wet tropical agrarian cultures often don’t store food to any great degree, instead practicing year round harvest. ---
**Author:** ![Staale\_Nordlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Staale\_Nordlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staale_Nordlie)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/97 "2009-07-20T09:56:21Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Cite that they can survive on grass? Exclusively? I don’t have one. And I’m not sure why you’re asking for one, since I’ve never made that claim. They can and do eat grass though, and it can be an important part of their diet. [Cite](http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/animals/theemu.htm): \*“In autumn, as those foods become scarce, they graze on young grass which sprouts after summer rains.” \* > [@Colibri](#): > > Emus can digest fiber to some extent, but they lack the dietary specializations present in cattle and some other herbivorous birds. [This article](http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=MU9850043.pdf) says: > > > [@](#): > > > > However, Emus consuming four diets with neutral detergent fibre contents from 26 to 36% digested between 35 and 45% of the fibre, yielding energy equivalent to 12 to 63% of their standard metabolic rate and capable of satisfying 10 to 50% of their daily maintenance requirements for energy (Herd & Dawson 1984). > > It’s unlikely, given this, that they would be able to supply 100% of their maintenance requirements from grass alone, let alone be able to come into breeding condition. Furthermore, chicks would require enhanced levels of protein in order to grow to maturity. As far as I can tell the part you quoted only involves fibres (?), and the article points out that this is a “significant level of digestion of fibre”. The conclusion is actually that “[t]he Emu, … , may be capable of gaining a _significant portion of its daily energy requirement from the digestion of plant fibre_,…” Add to this that the young grass and grass sprouts emus like to eat contain plenty of nutrients beyond hard-to-digest fibres, and it seems to me that emus may actually be able to survive on grass for extended periods of time. You probably have a point with regards to breeding and chicks though. However, nobody (or not me at least) are advocating feeding emus nothing but grass. (Though that could conceivably be a long term result of domestication.) Clearly the emu’s ability to eat many different kinds of food in addition to grass (at the cost of optimal fibre-digestion) has been an _advantage_ in nature. I don’t see that it would suddenly become such a huge disadvantage if humans tried to domesticate them in the environment the emus evolved to survive in. > [@](#): > > And “eat the same food as a cow” _is_ pretty much a requirement for domestication as a meat animal before the establishment of agriculture. The only animal domesticated before agriculture was the dog, which was primarily used for hunting, and which would have been able to survive on the leavings from kills. The other early domesticates were ruminants and the horse, all of which process cellulose well. Pigs, which are omnivores like emus, were not domesticated until after the development of agriculture. > > We know that the emu was _not_ domesticated by native Australians. This all seems rather circular. “Why didn’t the Australian Aborigines domesticate any animals? The animals were impossible to domesticate. How do you know they were impossible to domesticate? The Australian Aborigines did not domesticate them.” The grass-eating argument seems to be based on similar reasoning. “It wasn’t done so it must be impossible.” > [@Colibri](#): > > **Blake** and I have provided several reasons based on social structure and diet why it would difficult to domesticate under pre-agricultural conditions. Yes, and I have provided evidence that the social structure-based argument is faulty, and I’m questioning the diet argument. > [@Colibri](#): > > If you think it actually was domesticable, you need to come up with an alternative hypothesis as to why it was _not_ domesticated, since we know this was the actual case. There are other possible explanations for why no Australian animals were domesticated, such as the genetics or memetics of the Aborigines or the climate/weather in Australia. I don’t have to pick one. I can doubt the claim that Thor, God of Thunder, causes lightning, without simultaneously delivering a thesis on the physics of thunderstorms. Y’all are claiming that no native Australian animals could _possibly_ have been domesticated by hunter-gatherers. The burden is on you to substantiate that, not on me to prove you wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/98 "2009-07-20T10:05:42Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Bananas form the basis of countless agrarian cultures. Bananas are a wet tropical crop, and wet tropical agrarian cultures often don’t store food to any great degree, instead practicing year round harvest. Agreed, but I was thinking of the climatic problems mentioned earlier. You cannot harvest year round if the crop is not growing. You cannot store bananas against a drought, can you? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/99 "2009-07-20T15:00:16Z")
> [@Staale\_Nordlie](#): > > Yes, and I have provided evidence that the social structure-based argument is faulty, Not really. Dominance relationships are not the same as herding behavior. > [@](#): > > and I’m questioning the diet argument. You have not refuted it in any way. > [@](#): > > There are other possible explanations for why no Australian animals were domesticated, such as the genetics or memetics of the Aborigines or the climate/weather in Australia. I don’t have to pick one. I can doubt the claim that Thor, God of Thunder, causes lightning, without simultaneously delivering a thesis on the physics of thunderstorms. In other words, you have no alternative hypothesis to present, but are merely arguing for the sake of arguing. We didn’t make any claim equivalent to Thor causing lightning here, but cited valid scientific information. Very well. > [@](#): > > Y’all are claiming that no native Australian animals could _possibly_ have been domesticated by hunter-gatherers. The burden is on you to substantiate that, not on me to prove you wrong. No I’m not. I am not claiming that it would have been absolutely impossible, just that there are significant differences in emu diet and social behaviors from animals that were domesticated elsewhere that would have made it more difficult to domesticate them. (I will however point out that even emus have not been domesticated in modern times, that is bred to have substantial genetic, physical, and behavioral differences from wild stock. Emus that are farmed today are essentially wild animals kept in captivity, rather than being true domesticates.) If you want to contend they were domesticable, you actually need to provide a alternative hypothesis why they were not. ---
**Author:** ![Staale\_Nordlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Staale\_Nordlie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staale_Nordlie)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209/100 "2009-07-23T17:56:55Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Not really. Dominance relationships are not the same as herding behavior. As I understood it (?), your argument [was](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11353411#post11353411) that emus could “probably not be as easily controlled during the incipient stages of domestication as true herd animals” because: 1. “Emu flocks have no ‘leaders’ (dominant animals)”. 2. “Humans control herds/flocks by taking the leader’s place”. [1] is not true, and [2] generally isn’t true either as far as I can tell. If you’ve now moved on to claiming the emus aren’t as … herdy … as “true” herd animals, well, that might be true but you’re going to have to explain how. (The most obvious problem would be if they scatter in response to a perceived threat instead of herding together. I’ve seen no mention of this while researching emus. [One page](http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/poulsci/tech_manuals/emu.html) did say they can sometimes be difficult to drive [no details], but presumably most wild animals are “difficult” compared to animals that have been undergoing domestication for millennia. ) > [@Colibri](#): > > You have not refuted it in any way. And what would it take to refute it? (“It” being the assertion that emus are extremely hard to domesticate because of their diet.) > [@Colibri](#): > > In other words, you have no alternative hypothesis to present, but are merely arguing for the sake of arguing. We didn’t make any claim equivalent to Thor causing lightning here, but cited valid scientific information. Very well. Questioning an unsubstantiated claim is not “arguing for the sake of arguing”. This thread topic is a good example. If Australian animals can in fact be domesticated, then assuming otherwise based on scanty evidence will seriously hamper any discussion about, or research on, why Australian Aborigines didn’t develop a civilization. You need good premises to make good conclusions. > [@Colibri](#): > > No I’m not. I am not claiming that it would have been absolutely impossible, … (I entered this thread asking a question: Why does everyone agree that native Australian animals can’t be farmed/domesticated? When you replied to that post I assumed you believed that it would have been _effectively_ impossible to domesticate the emu.) > [@Colibri](#): > > (I will however point out that even emus have not been domesticated in modern times, that is bred to have substantial genetic, physical, and behavioral differences from wild stock. Emus that are farmed today are essentially wild animals kept in captivity, rather than being true domesticates.) Domestication is a process. Emus are _being domesticated_. [Example](http://www.dinomeat.com/At%20The%20Farm.html): " _"Most of our breeder birds were hatched from eggs laid on our farm, have been microchiped and their genetics are listed in our computer database for tracking purposes. Other breeder birds on our farm are outstanding egg layers with known, good genetics that were acquired several years ago, from emu farms leaving the industry. We have culled our breeding stock for years, retaining only those breeders that consistently produce large emu eggs and healthy chicks. "_ This is happening on farms all over the world. It will probably lead to distinct domesticated emu breeds in a fairly short amount of time. > [@Colibri](#): > > If you want to contend they were domesticable, you actually need to provide a alternative hypothesis why they were not. I am not contending they were domesticable. I am contending that we don’t know if they were domesticable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-pre-western-civilisation-in-australia/503209.md?page=6)