The First Australians - ancient footsteps to the present time

 I have written an 'acknowledgement of country' at the end of this blog

Homo sapiens is believed to have walked out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, possibly because of a shortage of food resources. AI generated image

As Homo sapiens we can trace our history back in time to our humble beginnings in East Africa some 300,000 years ago. Archaeologists believe that sapiens began spreading out of Africa about 70,000 years ago. Remarkably they found their way to the distant continent of Australia in less than 10,000 years ago. Thus began the incredible story of the First Australians, who developed and refined the longest continuous culture on earth.

​It is believed that the first arrivals probably numbered 1,000 - 2,000 people and the population of Australia is likely to have remained small as they migraged into the southern parts of the continent. At that time the landscape was dominated by giant animals and the climate was becoming cooler and more arid.

As they moved south, the First Australians adapted to an extraordinary variety of climates and landscapes, some very physically demanding, so their cultures and languages diversified, however, they retained one important common goal: to protect and preserve Australia’s unique flora and fauna, the plants and animals that their survival depended upon.

​So began thousands of years of experimenting and learning about Australia’s very unusual plants. Their culinary and healing properties. Their value as food for the grazing animals that they hunted. The ecosystems that they supported. The best way to maintain and manage these ecosystems across the immense Australian continent. 

The First Australians were Animists and considered plants and animals to be their equals. They used totemism to create very close and intimate links with Australia’s fauna. Individuals were given a personal totem at birth and this totem animal was loved as if it was part of their extended family. They developed a very detailed knowledge of their totem’s ecological needs and it was their duty to protect both their totem and its habitat.

Animists were the first conservationists and they believed that the natural world wasn’t there just to provide for the needs of humans. They believed it should be protected and nurtured and failure to do so was wrong, and could also result in momentous consequences, like the extinction of species or loss of important habitats.

Yuval Noah Harari in his remarkable book ‘Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind’, describes animist culture and gives this example;

‘An animist hunter addressing a herd of deer and asking one of them to sacrifice itself. If the hunt is successful the hunter may ask the dead animal to forgive him’.

This gesture shows recognition and deep respect for one life that has been taken to nourish another. ​

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The view from Arthurs Seat reminded Murray of London from Greenwich Park. Painting, William Daniell 1804

Explorer's first impressions of Victoria were of 'open landscapes with widely spaced trees'

​Lieutenant John Murray was the first to sail into Port Phillip Bay and describe the Australian bush on 14th February 1802, after climbing (and naming) Arthurs Seat, on the Mornington Peninsula. From his vantage point he compared it to, “the beauty and experience of Greenwich Park in London.“ (Lady Nelson diary)
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Murray also described;
‘...open woodlands with stout trees of various kinds that were pleasant to walk through because they were well spaced with no thick brush to intercept travellers.’ as well as grass huts and evidence of burning under trees.

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Firestick farming by First Australians kept some woodlands open for hunting and foraging. Painting: Constitution Hill, Van Diemen's Land, Joseph Lycett, 1832

The transition was swift and ruthless

In Victoria in 1835, two very different cultures clashed. The First Australians who saw nature as central to their existence and spirituality. The invading culture that saw nature as a commodity given to them by god to exploit for income, wealth and power.

The Port Phillip Association, lead by John Batman and Joseph Gellibrand, had formed in Van Diemen’s Land, and were planning an unlawful and ruthless land grab of 250,000ha, starting on the Bellarine Peninsula, extending through Geelong and on to Melbourne. 

Batman arrived on the Bellarine Peninsula in May 1835 and walked 20km east from Point Henry. He couldn't have been more delighted when he wrote in his diary;

‘the whole (landscape), appeared like land laid out as a farm for some 100 years back.’

Within 9 days a bogus contract had been 'signed' and soon after the first settlers began arriving. 

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The untold story of the First Nations resistance in the Frontier Wars. Click on the image to listen to Phillip Adams on Late Night Live.

Swiftly removed and quickly forgotten

​The Victorian takeover was swift and ruthless. Within two years the Port Phillip colony was stocked with 300,000 sheep and by the late 1830's all the available good sheep pasture had been appropriated to support over six million sheep. The First Australians were either pushed into marginal lands or moved on to government reservations. 

The 250-year colonial history of modern Australia we learnt at school. The extraordinary 60,000 year history of the First Australians has been largely ignored as if of little important.

Remarkably, much of their culture has been preserved and is shared as stories, art, song and dance, though it is still largely unknown by the new races that have made modern Australia their home. One important part of their culture that has inspired a lot of interest recently, particularly after the devastating bushfires of 2019, is cultural cool buring.

This was an essential tool used by First Australains to manage the vegetation across the temperate and dry climates of Australia. Their strategic burning practices created widespread woodlands that were open with well-spaced mature trees, often compared to a 'noblemans park.'

​This openness, and the extensive and diverse grasslands were ideal for grazing, so that the colonisation of Victorian is considered to be one of the fastest in British imperial history. 

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Open hilltops like this near Keilor, Victoria, were maintained with fire. Eugene von Guerard, circa 1850's

The burning question - how did they do it? 

Explorer, Major Thomas Mitchel was one of the first to understand why the Australian landscapes were so open when the British colonists first arrived;

‘The native applies fire to the grass at certain seasons, so that a young green crop may subsequently spring up and so attract and enable him to kill or take the kangaroo with nets. In summer, the burning of the long grass also discloses vermin, birds’ nests, etc., on which the females and the children, who chiefly burn the grass, feed. 

​'But for this simple process, the Australian woods might have been as thick a jungle, like those of New Zealand or America, instead of open forests.’ (Mitchel, 1839)

Mitchel observed the superficial changes that burning made to the Australian landscape, but he didn't fully appreciated its level of sophistocation.

A comprehensive review of the effects of Aboriginal burning on biota was done by Bowman in 1998. In his review he shone a clearer light on its importance;

'Fire is a powerful tool that Aborigines used systematically and purposeflly over the landscape. There is little doubt that Aborigtianl burning was skillful and central to the maintenance of the landscapes colonised by Europeans in the 19th century.'

Though, it had many other benefits to them, such as preventing devastating wildfires, which according to studies of charcoal deposits in swamps, were very rare before modern settlement. (Gell, Stuart & Smith, 1993) 

The First Australians used fire to keep many of the hilltops open. This enabled communication over long distances using an advanced system of smoke signals. Open hilltops also enhanced personal safety and clan security, by providing 360 degree views of their territory. They could keep an eye on who was coming and going and if they were friend or foe. In William Buckley's memoir, he describes how neighbouring clans would come into camp seeking justice or revenge for a percieved wrongdoing that could result in injury or death.

Burning was used to prepare future camping sites, provided vermin control (Eg. mosquitos), and to enable convenient travel, potentially over long distances, along the many songlines that criss-crossed Australia. 

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Women digging yam daisy at Indented Head on the Bellarine Peninsula. Sketch, John Helder Wedge, August 17th 1835

Woodland & forest belts alternating with grasslands/pantrylands 

Bill Gammage in 'The Biggest Estate on Earth,' (2011), refers to early reports of grassland burning. He suggests that the First Australians aimed to create belts of grasslands alternating with woodlands or forests. These landscapes were ideal for both hunting and havesting plant foods.

The open woodlands were shaded hunting grounds that were often dominated by eucalypts and the Drooping Sheoak, Allocasuarina verticillata, which was highly valued by the First Australians in the southeastern states. One standout value of the sheoak to them (and to us) was its very low flammability. Its foliage chars and doesn't burn and its litter supresses grass growth. To read more about the Drooping Sheoak's cultural importance and it's uses click here.

The grasslands between belts of trees were important pantry lands that supplied desirable energy-rich root vegetables and selected grass seeds used for baking. On Victorian Volcanic Plains, 20% of the 550 species of plants were harvested for food and 50% of the food plants were thought to be root vegetables, which were conveniently available all year-round to harvest from the grasslands, providing an underground pantry. (Gott, 1993)

An important and common root vegetable was the yam-daisy (Microseris walteri). Major Mitchel describes a view from the Grampiens (Gariwerd) 'as a vast extent of open-downs, quite yellow with the flowers of the native yam, whose root, small as it is, constitutes the food of the native women and children, and we observed them digging in the ground for roots.'
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George Augustus Robinson, the Protector of Aborigines from 1849 described women havesting yams on the basalt plains, 'spread over the plain as far as I could see them, collecting roots, each had a load as much as she could carry.'

These grasslands also provide a variety of medicinal herbs, used for treating common injuries and ailments. ​

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Well spaced Drooping Sheoaks were a significant tree on the Bellarine Peninsula before 1835

Vegetation on the Bellarine Peninsula before 1835
- a landscape managed by the Bengalat clan of the Wadawurrung

Louis Lane, an archaeologist who studied the Wadawurrung of the Geelong region summed up their lifestyle;

‘They developed a sophisticated and disciplined society that utilised every element of their surroundings while practicing conservation strategies on their clans-land. Their yearly calendar was marked by the flowering of different trees and shrubs and the movement of birds.’ (Lane, 1988)

The Bengalat had a permanent camp in Boronggook (Drysdale), near Lake Lorne, which they called Balla:we:in (origin of Bellarine). It was a place with ample fresh water, fed by permanent springs of clear ice-cold water that ran into deep ponds. These ponds were shaded by ancient River Red Gums and protected from weather extremes by dense windbreaks of vegetation. In Lane’s archaeological studies of McLeod’s Waterhole, she described it as;
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‘A paradise for hunter and forager as well as bird and beast. Even after a long dry summer, there was abundant water for ‘Swan, duck, dabchick, water-hens, cranes and pelicans. The surrounding ridges were thickly covered with vegetation.’ (Lane, 1988)

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Drakes Bushland Reserve Drysdale is a remnant of an open landscape

Part 2 will reconstruct the landscape of the Bellarine Peninsula, as it was before 1835, and asks what were the benefits to the Bengalat clan creating this landscape?

What can we, as modern Australians, learn from this historic landscape model? Would some of their innovations benefit us today?

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Acknowledgement of country
I acknowledge that the Bengalat clan of the Wadawurrung people are the traditional owners of the country on which I live and work. I would like to pay my respects to all Traditional Owners, past, present, and future. I recognise that the lands of Victoria were never ceded and were taken from them by force. I would like to express my regret for all the tragedies and injustices that indigenous people have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of the governing peoples of Australia.