Читать книгу The Times History of the World - Richard Overy - Страница 16

About 40,000 years ago, when lower sea levels linked Tasmania, Australia and New Guinea, man first ventured onto Sahul, the greater Australian continent. That journey from a southeast Asian homeland was a pioneering one, as it involved at least one major sea crossing. The original Australians were therefore among the world’s earliest mariners.

PLEISTOCENE AUSTRALIA

The strange new world that greeted these newcomers was of enormous size, and ranged from tropical north to temperate south. Some of the edible plants found in more northerly latitudes were related to those of Asia and were therefore familiar; but this was not so of the animals. In addition to the mammals that have survived until today, there was a bewildering assortment of giant forms: 3m (10ft) tall kangaroos, various enormous ox-like beasts, a large native lion and rangy, ostrich-like birds. This megafauna was a rich and easily available food source but it was reduced and eventually killed off by the advancing human tide.

Consequently, it was on the plentiful supply of fish and shellfish along the coasts and in the rivers that the newcomers focused their attention, and it was in these areas of Australia that the first human settlements were concentrated. Most of the sites are lost to us, for between 40,000 and 5000 years ago the sea level was lower than it is at present, and the sites now lie offshore, on the continental shelf.

The Pleistocene inhabitants of Australia used red ochre to create elaborate rock paintings, thus laying the foundations of a rich and long-lived Aboriginal custom. Their stone core implements and crude scrapers belong to what is known as the Australian Core Tool Tradition. This tradition, which underwent remarkably little change in more than 40,000 years, is pan-Australian, but there are a number of regional elements that have links with New Guinea and southeast Asia. One of these is the edge-ground axe, which has been dated to 22,000 years in Arnhem Land. Similar ground-stone tools found in Japan are up to 30,000 years old. Ground-stone tools were ultimately developed in most other parts of the world also, but only in a much later period.

ABORIGINAL SOCIETY

About 5000 years ago, following the end of the last ice age, the sea rose to its present level; and while Aboriginal settlements were still concentrated along the coasts there was a rapid increase in the exploitation of inland resources. At about this time a range of small, finely finished flake implements especially developed for hafting sharp tools, and known as the Australian Small Tool Tradition, appeared across the continent. The dingo was also introduced.

Political, economic and religious development continued and by the time the first European settlement arrived in the 18th century, there were about 750,000 Aborigines living in around 500 tribal territories. Although the Aborigines’ way of life was still based on hunting and gathering (they never became full-scale agriculturists) they had developed very intricate and finely balanced relationships with their environment. In desert areas, small nomadic groups ranged over thousands of square kilometres, while in richer parts of the continent there were settled, permanent villages. Fish traps were constructed, grasses and tubers were replanted to assist nature, and fire was used systematically to burn old vegetation and encourage the growth of rich new plant cover and the abundant new game it attracted. Rare goods, such as ceremonial axes, shells and ochres, were traded from one side of the vast continent to the other, as were stories down the accompanying “song lines”.