History Revisited - tough change for Aborigines

Winter, 21,000 years ago. The temperature is colder, the wind stronger, drier. The little valley huddles under the gusty westerly winds. There are few trees. To the northwest, the peak of Mount Duval is coated by snow that lasts for extended periods.

Five thousand years have passed. Average temperatures are eight degrees below today’s level. The westerly winds are absolutely biting; the wind chill factor brings temperatures far below zero. There are no trees, only snow covered coarse grass. The snow covering on Mount Duval is thick. Further north in the high country to the east of Guyra, mini glaciers are marking the country.

To the west, the cold, strong winds are creating sand dunes. The global rise of ice cap and glacier has led to sea levels perhaps 120 meters below today’s levels. Groaning, the North American continent is pressed down by the weight. Here in New England, the sea line has retreated east by twenty kilometers. The rivers rush down the steeply sloping continental shelf, carving paths to a sea many degrees colder than that we know today.

A further five thousand years have passed. Temperatures have risen significantly. The continent is a little hotter and wetter than today. The giant glaciers have melted, leading to rapid rises in sea levels that have reclaimed the land lost during the Late Glacial Maximum period.

On the coast, silt deposited from the eastern flowing rivers has begun rebuilding the land, creating a pattern of lagoons and swamps. The coastline we know today is being born.

On the Tablelands, trees have spread across the previously open Patagonia like country. The ground is wet; marshes, ponds and lagoons are common. Snow is rarely seen on Mount Duval.

We don’t know when the Aborigines first arrived in New England. We know from dating at Warren Cave in Tasmania that the Aborigines had reached Tasmania around 35,000 years ago, while dates from Willandra Lakes in South West New South Wales suggest occupation as early as 41-40,000 years ago,. Given these dates, it seems reasonable to assume that Aboriginal people were at least visiting New England some 40,000 years ago.

We do not have hard evidence to support this assumption. The earliest confirmed date I know of in New England itself comes from a dig by Graham Connor at Stuarts Point in the Macleay Valley. This places human occupation at 9,320 +/- 160BP. Further north in South-East Queensland, the Wallen Wallen Creek site shows continuous occupation from about 20,000 years ago.

Regardless of the exact date, it seems likely that the Aborigines lived through all the environmental changes I described. How they responded or might have responded provides one of the fascinating questions in our history.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 13 February 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

History Revisited - looking back on the industrial age

I wonder how many Armidale residents know of Armidale’s industrial past? Yes, the city does have one!

You find hints of it today in street names such as Brewery Lane (Simpson’s Brewey) or Tancredi Steet (B A Moses’ tannery), in the brick pits and in some of the buildings.

Most of the city’s early workshops and manufacturing operations relied on local markets and used local raw material. They serviced the building industry (brickworks and sawmills), transport (blacksmiths, leatherwork, coach or buggy building) and supplied consumer products (meat, beer, flour, cordials, butter, soap or boots and shoes).

Operations were generally small, although some grew to be substantial businesses. In 1882, Barnet Moses’ Armidale tannery and boot factory had 100 employees, was exporting to Britain and producing up to 1,500 pairs of boots and 500 sides of leather a month.

The civic minded Moses built houses for his workers and contributed to various local causes. He also experienced the region’s first serious industrial action outside the railways when his workers struck because Moses had reduced wages to counter cheap Sydney product coming in via the new railway.

The city’s industries rose and fell with changes in management, transport, technology, local supplies and Government regulation.

Armidale’s civic leaders spoke proudly, but mistakenly of the Tablelands’ future as a premier wheat producing area. By the 1890s, Armidale’s five flour mills had shrunk to two in the face of competition from other areas, including cheap flour coming in by rail from South Australia. Tamworth’s experience was very different. There with greater supply, scale and entrepreneurial flair, Fielders grew to become one the largest miller and baker in Australia.

Flour milling was not the only Armidale industry affected by the railway. Brewing stopped. “Golden Bar” and “Champion Cleaner and Pumice Sand” soap produced by Mallaby’s New England Soap Works vanished from the shelves.

The combination of the railways with changing technology and increasing economies of scale affected local industry across the broader New England. However, the immediate impact appears to have been greatest in Armidale, in part because the city lacked the local entrepreneurial culture to be found elsewhere and in Tamworth in particular.

The coming of the railways was only the first in a series of rolling changes affecting New England industrial activity, culminating in the economic and structural changes of the 1980s and 1990s. In 1981, for example, abattoir closures led to the loss of some 800 direct Tablelands’ jobs, a loss that passed without ripple in the metro press.

Some new industries did open, but the net effect was a further hollowing out of the Northern NSW economy.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 6 February 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

History Revisited - DNA link connects us to India

In 2003, then University of New England archaeologist Mike Morwood and colleagues announced the discovery of a potentially new human species on the Indonesian island of Flores. Dating suggested that that species had survived until perhaps 12,000 years ago. The discovery created controversy that continues to this day.

This year, a group of researchers associated with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in  Leipzig, Germany released the results of DNA studies suggested a genetic link between the Australian Aborigines and groups in Southern India and Sri Lanka.

This was not the first such discovery. In 2009, DNA analysis by a group of Indian researchers suggested that there was a genetic connection between the Australian Aborigines and certain tribal groups in Southern India that dated back to between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. This date range supported the idea that the first Aborigines came to Australia along a southern route via the Indian sub-content.

The Max Plank study along with an earlier 2002 study introduced a new dimension to the Indian connection, for DNA dating techniques suggested that the biological link dated back a bit over 4,000 years. In other words, new settlers had arrived in Australian and mixed with the local population.

This date has significance for another major debate in Australian history.

Around 5,000 years ago, significant changes began to appear in the Australian archeological record. The Aboriginal population grew, the dingo appeared for the first time, while there were significant changes in technology including new stone tools.

The stone tools included small backed blades whose purpose was initially unclear. Archeologists concluded that the blades were probably mounted on war spears. Added support for this view was provided by University of New England pre-historian Isabel McBryde’s discovery at Graman near Inverell of two backed blades with hafting still attached. At Wombah near the mouth of the Clarence, Isabel also discovered dingo bones associated with backed blades that were over 3,000 years old, one of the oldest dingo dates in the country.

The photo shows UNE History tutor Mick Moore and the author, right, on one of Isabel's survey missions at the time. 

Former UNE pre-historian Harry Lourandos called the whole process intensification, a term previously applied only to the shift from hunter-gathering to farming. But were these changes of indigenous origin, or were new ideas introduced by new settlers?

The real answer could well be a bit of both. The dingo was certainly introduced, but some of the changes in technology shown by the archaeological record were probably local developments.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 30 January 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the Express columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013