Other experts have also raised doubts, including Australian National University anthropologist Ian Keen, who described the evidence for farming as “deeply problematic”, and renowned historian Geoffrey Blainey, who said there was “no evidence that there was ever a permanent town in pre-1788 Australia with 1000 inhabitants who gained most of their food by farming”, as claimed in Dark Emu. Pascoe’s claims – including that Aboriginal people built homes, villages, parks, dams and wells, selected seeds for harvesting, sewed clothes, ploughed fields, irrigated crops and preserved food in vessels – have long come under fire from right-wing critics, including the magazine Quadrant and Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt. An influential Australian bestseller that painted a radically different view of Aboriginal history prior to colonisation has been “debunked” in a “damning” new book by two respected academics.ĭark Emu, author Bruce Pascoe’s smash hit 2014 book that argued Indigenous Australians were not just hunter-gatherers but engaged in agriculture, irrigation and construction, won numerous literary prizes, was adapted into a stage performance by Aboriginal dance company Bangarra and has even made its way into school curriculums.
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