Origins of the Australian Aborigines: Help!

Although I come from South Africa, I recently had a family member returning from Australia with a controversial book: "Cape York: The Savage Frontier" (Rodney Liddell, 1996). Although self-published, it is apparently a sell-out, massive success in Australia.
I was always taught that the Aborigines came from Asia during migrations 40 000 years ago. Liddell however argues that the original inhabitants of Australia were short, wooly-haired "Papuans" (or negritos) who migrated to the continent from New Guinea about 6000 years ago. The modern "Aborigines" were imposters from India, who only came 1000 years ago. Liddell rejects Carbon dating as wrong, and claims many "Aboriginal" sites are forged, including several rock-art sites. He also claims that liberal academics have a conspiracy to uphold the "lie" of Dravidian aboriginality, and that the Dravidian "invaders" massacred the native Papuans. To Liddell 'Aborigines" have no land claims, since they never "owned" land, and get special treatment based on false claims. His book opens (p2, 2004 edition) with a quote from E.R. Gribble:

"The first race (of Australia) were a negroid race being curly haired. Later came the "Dravidians" (Pre). A straight haired race driven from Egypt, through the north of India. In both these places indications of the boomerang have been found. In Tutankamen's tomb .... there were two boomerangs wrought in silver."

Shortly, Liddell argues that the original wooly haired race survived only in remote pockets and Tasmania. I think this is all generalized nonsense, without evidence. He goes on to typify the Dravidian "Aborigines" as lazy, savage cannibals and head-hunters.
I wonder, did the Dravidians forget how to build pyramids and work silver en route to Australia (1000 years ago)? Both the "Papuans and Dravidian Veddas had bows and arrows 1000 years ago, so how come Aborigines did not have them? Did they abandon that thechnology. More likely is that Aborigines were isolated in Australia for at least 40 000 years before this technology spread. I've already been alerted that Liddell wants to gain Christian "young earth followers", who think the entire creation happened just 6 000 years ago. Ancient people like the Aborigines thus need to be explained away, by making regional variations different "races". Can anybody really belive this, I mean seriously?

I hate sounding racist but personally I've always believed the aborigines were the evolved form of the Neanderthal that eventually migrated eastward for food and less competition from the Homosapien but I think at some point the Homosapian moved eastward as well since the Neanderthal knew were the good food was...and eventually the bloodlines phased together to form the aborigines

reply to post by kevinsquibben


That argument was actually advanced at some stage in the early 1900s and eugenics. I think it had to do with prominent brow ridges in some aborigines. We now have Neanderthal DNA, and we now know that they were another species of humans that probably didn't interbreed with us. They certainly did not migrate outside a Euro-Asian area into the Pacific. It is well established that the aborigines are Homo Sapiens like everyone else. They did move through India during antiquity, but certainly not 1000 years ago. The stocky Neanderthals had specfic adaptations to the freezing cold of the ice-ages in Europe.
The young earth creationist theorists believe Neanderthal man to be a fraud. (As far as I know.)

Well, I wouldn't call them sub-human by any means, I don't mean this in a OMG UR RACIST way but if you actually look into their culture and their myths you'll see a thing of tremendous beauty.

The dreamtime storys are some of the oldest and most poetic myth cycles I've ever heard.

Again, I'm not being condescending I'm just hoping you'll look into their culture.

As to their origin, I just ventured they found their way there the same way other island cultures found their way around. Who knows though?

interesting...so why the foreheads?

all I really know about the aborigines is from crocodile dundee so my science is way off

[edit on 8-11-2009 by kevinsquibben]

reply to post by halfoldman

Can anybody really belive this, I mean seriously?

"Anybody?" Sure.

I mean...some people that there's a bearded man in the sky who watches them and wants to burn them for eternity if they do bad things. Why is it so difficult to believe that there's somebody out there who believes Liddell's story?

Seriously though...there are several competing theories about the origin of man and races. In my own opinion, I think it basically comes to faith and belief, because none of us were there, the fossil record is inadequete, and there simply isn't enough information to come to a definite conclusion.

If you're christian or jewish, races can be explained by acts of god, the various tribes, and Cain and Abel. If you lean towards evolution, races can be explained by suggesting that different humanoid races evolved separately but in tandem from apes, chimps and orangutans. If you're hindu, or if you like aliens, then you can say different races were seeded in different parts of the world based on whichever genetic materials were available.

Whatever. Take your pick.

It's only the "out of Africa" people who have any difficulty explaining things.

I would suggest booking a ticket to say Darwin in the Northern Territory and spending a few weeks travelling the various Aboriginal communities in that area, talking to them and listening to their Dreamtime recollections. Go and take a personal look at some of the aboriginal cave drawings (that are accessable to the public, many aren't as they are protected sites) and you will find that those drawings do not look like fakes and have a quality about them that suggests having been there for tens of thousands of years.

I guarantee that once you speak with the elders and hear some of their Dreamtime recollections straight from the horses mouth, you will conclude that the Aboriginals have been in Australia for much much longer than 6000 years.

[edit on 8/11/2009 by Kryties]

reply to post by Kryties

Yes, I agree. Besides that, some aboriginal groups are still known to practise rock art to this day.

i would definitely avoid taking much stock in this book by liddell. the fact that he pretty much denies all science and makes up his own world doesnt lend to much credibility.

reply to post by ELECTRICkoolaidZOMBIEtest

True, however the fact that so many Australians seem to swallow it makes me wonder. It appears that when he is confronted he claims that he is merely saying what a lot of people think.

reply to post by halfoldman


yes, many australians swallow it, but australia has a big creationist movement. so anything confirming their beliefs tends to do well enough.


and saying "its what everyone thinks" shies away from the issue and deflects and responsibility.



[edit on 8-11-2009 by ELECTRICkoolaidZOMBIEtest]

reply to post by ELECTRICkoolaidZOMBIEtest

Interesting, didn't know that. But he focuses on stuff that is vindictive and tailored to justify racism against Aborigines/Torres Strait Islanders. Yet he claims that it is white Australians that are the victims of unjust racism.

reply to post by halfoldman


isnt that typical of racists?
doesnt that go back to The White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling (nd even further back)?

Interesting question.

I believe that the Aborigines and the New Guineans are closely related - their lands are close and their looks are close.

I believe that they are the earliest manifestion of mankind after the Neanderthals etc - I mean, before the rest of the humans on the planet.

reply to post by ELECTRICkoolaidZOMBIEtest

To all on the thread, for an aboriginal response to Liddell see:
www.aboriginalrights.suite101.com...

Whether aboriginal rights go too far in some modern cases and misdirect taxpayers money, I cannot comment.

reply to post by halfoldman

Page cannnot find server, let me retry: aboriginalrights.suite101.com...
Sorry, never get it right!

reply to post by halfoldman

no offense but your link didnt work dude.

presumably you wanted something like



aboriginalrights.suite101.com...

I don't know if the OP is a racist or not, but Liddel and his pseudoscientific fantasies certainly are.

This is a nauseating subject for a thread.

reply to post by Astyanax


Actually, I think it is a very interesting subject.

And I am not a racist, just a person who is interested.

So first we applu Occam's razor.

Which is easier to believe? That ancient humans came to Australia many tens of thousands of years ago, leaving behind a fair share of datable remains and artifacts to confirm their antiquity...

Or

It's all a fake. The aborigines and the "liberal academia" are in a grand conspiracy together to fake vast amounts of evidence for the nefarious, evil, and completely moustache-twiddling reason of asserting the Aborigines might have ownership rights, because they want to keep white Australians shorted.

The worst part is that Liddell does start with a factual scientific base. The Australian aborigines are closely related to papuans, as well as the Negritos of the Phillipines, and the other negritos of the Andaman islands. This is because these people are direct descendants of the first wave of human migration. There have also been multiple migrations - with the most recent being roughly 6,000 years ago (they brought the Dingo, and that's how we can tell)

However these latter colonists came from Papua, just as the previous immigrants did. The papuans and the Aborigines are essentially the same people - when humans arrived on the continent, it was connected. New Guinea, Australia, and tasmania were a single continent named Sahul. Humans migrated through papua, into Australia, and into Tasmania. The Ice Age ended, the Straits flooded, and the three regions were separated.

Papua got several waves of newcomers from Indonesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. Australia got immigration from Papua, and had some contact with Asia. Tasmania remained completely isolated, and when "discovered", Tasmanians were hte most technologically primitive people on the planet - they were stuck in the paleolithic, because they had no contact with anyone outside their island for at least forty thousand years.