The spreading Denisovans

This short piece by  Meilan Solly, in the Smithsonian ,The Hominins We’ve Been Calling Denisovans Are More Diverse Than Previously Thought, provides a very useful summary of current thinking.

So far the only Denisovan remains that have been found are from a cave in Siberia. But the DNA analysis suggests that their influence was wise spread, with several Denisovan groups.

The significance for New England history and the history of the Australian Aborigines in general is that while we now know that Aboriginal ancestors interacted with the Denisovans we do not know when and where. Had the Denisovans actually reached Sahul, prehistoric Australia, or was the interaction earlier. The second is the current view, in South East Asia.

The further back the dates of human occupation of Sahul are pushed, the more complex the story becomes. At 62,000 years, all things are (I guess) on the table.

Battling settlement and separation

 May Freame wrote: “Sorry to say the parrots are beginning to pick it too so I don’t know what there will be to harvest when ready." (Sheila Goodyear collection). This is the tenth in a series on Australia's early intelligence activities, the sixth on the life of Harry Freame.  

Our understanding of post natal depression is quite recent.

After the birth of their son, May Freame seems to have become quite depressed. Finally, it became imperative for May to return to England and her mother.

Harry pleaded with her to stay, to wait until the following year when he might be able to go with her, but May needed mother and home.

On 2 July 1922 May, along with seven months old baby Harry and mother’s-help Josephine Clarke, sailed for England on board the Benalla. The Freames had found the money to hire Josephine, although it must have been a battle given that they were still trying to establish the farm.

Harry was now alone and would be for the next fourteen months. He missed his family. “I haven’t has the pleasure of watching my little man …. changing out of babyhood to a little boyhood” he wrote to May’s family in England.

Harry threw himself into developing their little 43 acre block. He also continued to play an active role in the developing Kentucky community, trying to build the social infrastructure and facilities necessary for the community to prosper.  

This series was triggered by Harry’s colourful life and his role as spy. However, looking at this part of our story, I think that his community life was just as important.

Harry was seeking to establish a stable place for himself and his family, an acceptance as a part Japanese Australian whose own life was complicated, into a new world where he and his family had a secure place.

Despite the sadness that is coming, I think that Harry achieved that.

On 28 August 1923, May sailed from London for Australia, accompanied by Josephine and Harry Jnr. Her mother was worried about her silent moods, although sister Emily though that she was much better.

The party arrived back in Kentucky on 9 October 1923, an event duly recorded in the Uralla Times. Josephine remained with the family as housekeeper.

May seems to have slotted back into the rhythms of life on the Kentucky Settlement.

It had been a bad winter, one that forced some of the settlers off the land. Harry was active on his block and in social, church and Settlement activities. We know this from the Uralla Times whose short Kentucky reports frequently mention Harry.

My fancy was especially tickled by a report (29 November 1923) on a Uralla Cricket Club Social. There we learn that the Kentucky Sausage King (Mr H Freame) won the prize for the most original fancy dress costume!

I wonder what it looked like?

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 17 April 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019   

Building a new life book-ended by war

Kentucky, May 1922: Possibly Harry Jnrs christening. Reverend George Comie, Miss J. Clark with Harry, May and baby Henry.This is the ninth in a series on Australia's early intelligence activities, the fifth on the life of Harry Freame.  

A few years back, I was surprised at the sudden emergence of 1950s nostalgia. I shouldn’t have been. I had just forgotten just how tumultuous the first half of the twentieth century had been.

A 1950s older Australian had been through much. They or their parents had experienced the economic crash of the 1890s, the Federation drought, the First World War, the Great Depression and then the Second World War.

Families had been torn apart, hopes destroyed, as brief periods of calm, of prosperity, were followed by further catastrophes. No Australian family, locally born or part of the new post war immigration intake, had been spared.

The 1950s marked the start of the longest period of relative peace and prosperity that Australia had seen in more than sixty years. Perhaps it’s not surprising that many now wrap that time in the haze of nostalgia.

I mention this now because the story we are exploring of the development of Australia’s intelligence services in general, the story of Harry Freame in particular, was bookended by two great wars with a depression in the middle.

In April 1921, May Freame wrote to her bother in sister-in-law in Failsworth in the UK. It’s a long newsy letter, full of local Kentucky detail.

The couple seemed happy. Henry (the family always called Harry Henry) was working hard, as indeed he would do all his life.

While the potato price had been low for the latest crop, Henry had avoided going into debt as so many of the Settler families had had to do.  He was worried that he would not be able to pay for May to go home for a visit as promised.

“I tell him not to worry”, May wrote, “we cannot order things just as we would like.” She went on: “I consider there is still hope & will not worry about it. I have only been here two years & the promise was in five years.”

In the midst of local activities, May is clearly missing some of the routines of home and especially church.

Since Minister Comie left they had not even had the regular monthly church services. Still, another minister had been given the Call and May hoped that he might accept.

It is clear from May’s letter and the irregular reports in the Uralla Times that Harry was building a life not just for his family but for the local community and his family in that community.

In December 1921, May gave birth to their son, Henry Wykeham Freame, always known as Harry within the family. This happy event marked the start of a new set of troubles.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 10 April 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019   

Settlement for soldiers: half the new farms would fail

 Kentucky Soldier Settlement block: Settlers had to build homes and develop their blocks with limited resources.This is the eighth in a series on Australia's early intelligence activities, the fourth on the life of Harry Freame.  

The idea of soldier settlement, the settling of returned soldiers on the land, emerged quite early during World War One. It was a way of rewarding returned soldiers that fitted with the desire for closer settlement.

South Australia acted first, passing legislation in 1915. In February 1916, Australian Governments agreed to establish a national scheme under which the Commonwealth would select and acquire land, while the States would process applications and grant land allotments.

Later in 1916, NSW passed the Returned Soldiers Settlement Act in 1916.

Land was to be made available to the soldiers on affordable terms and they could receive advances of money to make improvements to the land, which was often in poor condition. They could also use the money for equipment, plants, stock and seeds.

It was quite a complex process. Land had to be acquired, broken into blocks and then allocated. The blocks were generally small with the intention of creating smaller scale farming such as horticulture, poultry, dairying or piggeries.

Many of the new farmers had no direct experience and little capital. They had to build houses, develop their land and create new communities.

Government managers were appointed to coordinate the process, organize facilities and training. Government stores and post offices were created to support the settler endeavours.

By July 1924, there were 6,448 farms covering 8.1 million acres. Half of the new settlers would fail, driven down by work and debt.

Harry Freame was an early applicant for the scheme. On 20 November 1916, the day he was officially discharged from the Army, he was awarded a 40 acre block.

Development of the Kentucky Soldier Settlement began in 1918 on land acquired from Kentucky Station. As with other settlements, everything had to be created from scratch.  

It is not clear when Harry actually moved to Kentucky, although late 1919 or early 1920 seems the most likely date. There he became Government storekeeper and postmaster. This gave him an income at the same time as he began development of his block.

Around April 1919, May joined her husband in Australia.

They had married in July 1906 but had never really lived together. First Harry was away at sea and then came the War. During this time May seems to have lived at home with her family.

Now after almost thirteen years of marriage, they were creating their first household in what was, for May, a strange place far away from home.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 3 April 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019   

Harry in the frame for new agency

In August 1915, Harry Freame was badly wounded at Gallipoli and finally repatriated to Australia. By 20 November 1916, the day he was officially discharged from the Army, he was living at 2 Bondi Road, Bondi.

Freame’s return to Australia coincided with the attempts to establish a new intelligence network to monitor Japan whose translation efforts were headed by James Murdoch. 

Murdoch. a journalist and teacher, had been appointed as a professor at Sydney University to allow him to take up the role.

Harry Freame in Sydney c1920. It is likely he was recruited to intelligence activity as a Japanese speaker.This is the sixth in a series on Australia's early intelligence activities, the second on the life of Harry Freame.  

 Murdoch had a major problem in finding sufficient Japanese speakers and began to recruit from Japan. His recruits entered the country despite the then White Australia Policy. Murdoch’s wife was Japanese too. It seems from immigration records that the White Australia policy was bent to allow all this to happen.

 This was neither the first nor the last time that this happened. The White Australia Policy was never an absolute, but more a barrier that could be relaxed when circumstances demanded it.

It seems likely that Harry Freame was recruited to this intelligence effort. We have no direct evidence for this. However, intelligence historian John Fahey mounts a fairly convincing case.

Fahey shows first that Freame was linked through the Army to two of the people involved in the creation of this new intelligence network. He has also found references to an unnamed Japanese speaking Australian ex-serviceman who was being used by the group.

Freame was a native Japanese speaker. We know of no other Japanese speaking ex-serviceman at this point, so the connection seems likely.

In all this, it also seems likely that the newly appointed Japanese consul in Sydney was well aware of Australian activities including Freame’s possible involvement.

Australia was in many ways a very small goldfish bowl. The newspapers covered new arrivals, while the Japanese or Japanese speaking community was very small that they were known to everyone including the Consul.

There is no evidence that I know that either Japan or the Consul were especially worried about Australian activities at this point. However, it does seem possible that files were created that might later prove fatal to Harry Freame. 

As I described in an earlier column, political infighting led Prime Minister William Morris Hughes to cancel this first Australian intelligence operation targeting the Pacific in general, Japan in particular.

By the time Freame became involved again, Australia was in the position it had been in 1916. It had a renewed interest, but no structure and very few Japanese speakers.

I am jumping forward. Even before Hughes closed the Pacific Intelligence Branch that had been carrying out Australia’s Pacific intelligence activities, Harry Freame had decided to return to New England.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 27 February 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019   

‘Spy’ a hero of Gallipoli

Harry Freame at Gallipoli. This is the sixth in a series on Australia's early intelligence activities, the second on the life of Harry Freame.  

In my last column in this series on Australia’s early spies, I referred to two stories about Harry Freame that became built into the Freame legend.

The first was that in 1904 he served as part of an international band of mercenaries hired to help suppress a revolt in German East Africa, the second that he worked as an intelligence office for President Porfirio Diaz during the Mexican wars.

The legend also says that with the collapse of the Diaz Government in 1911, Freame fled Mexico by pack horse with a price on his head, escaping to Australia via Chile.  

In his book Australia’s First Spies, John Fahey points to evidence that suggesting that that these stories are just not possible. That said, events would now occur that do make we wonder. Just how did a merchant seaman acquire some of the skills Freame apparently possessed?

When war broke out in 1914, Harry was working as a horse breaker at Glen Innes with wife Edith still in England.  Horse breaking is a skilled trade. If Harry spent all his time at sea, where did he learn to break horses? Was he just a quick learner? He could certainly bluff.

Harry enlisted and in late October 1914 sailed with the 1^st  Infantry Battalion for the Middle East. He arrived on Gallipoli on 25 April as lance corporal and was subsequently promoted to sergeant.

On Gallipoli, Harry worked as a scout, Here, writer Darryl Kelly suggests,” Harry's skill and knowledge of previous campaigns began to surface.” Perhaps not, Mr Kelly accepts the legend, but Harry was clearly very brave and adopted a swashbuckling style that fitted with his claimed past.

The army uniform was modified. Leather pads were fitted to elbows and knees, the .303 rifle was replaced by pistols worn on both hips, a third pistol was carried in a small shoulder holster under his shirt, a bowie knife in a boot scabbard. A black and white bandana worn around the neck completed the outfit.

In service, Harry earned Australia’s first Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and was mentioned in dispatches for his bravery under fire. Australia was in need of heroes and his exploits were reported in local newspapers and later in Bean’s official history of the war.

On 14 August 1915, Harry was badly wounded and was evacuated and finally repatriated to Australia. A new chapter in the Freame story was beginning. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 20 February 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019   

Creating the Freame legend

Osaka 1800s: This was the world in which Harry Freame grew up. This is the fifth in a new series on Australia's early intelligence activities, the first on the life of Harry Freame. 

In my last column, I spoke of Australia’s efforts towards the end of World War I to establish an intelligence service capable of spying on the Japanese Empire.

That effort failed because it became embroiled in political disputes that had little to do with the objectives, and much to do with the personality and power position of then Prime Minister William Morris Hughes.

However, it did (we think) introduce a New England character to the world of spies and spying.

I say think because that figure wrapped himself in so much myth and conflicting stories that none of us can be absolutely sure. Even his own family could not be sure.

Wykeham Henry (Harry) Freame was born in Osaka Japan about 1880 to William Henry Freame, an English sailor, and Kitagawa Sei, the daughter of Kitagawa Yasuaki, a local samurai from Shiga Prefecture.

According to John Fahey, the marriage was an historic event in its own right because it was the first in Japan where a Japanese head of family officially sought to instigate a marriage to a foreigner.

This was not welcome and it took time to arrange. Finally, approval was granted in June 1873 by the main office of the Great Council of State.

I doubt that the office would have adopted the same position if they had known that William was already married. He had, in fact, married Ellen Coker on June 20, 1867 in Melbourne and already had a son. 

Harry always lied about his age depending on purpose, creating confusion.

When he enlisted in the Australian Army in August 1914, he gave his age as 29, then lowered it later depending on the position he was seeking. However, we know that he was born before his father died at the end of 1881.

It appears that Harry was educated in Osaka until the age of 15 or 16, learning to speak fluent Japanese. He then left for England and entered the merchant marine.

"He (Harry) was clearly a better husband than his father for his wages were paid to his wife."

In England in 1906, Harry met and married Edith May Soppitt from Middlesbrough. He was clearly a better husband than his father for his wages were paid to his wife. Later, he would nurse her on the family farm at Kentucky until her death.

From this period in the merchant marine would come two stories that became part of the Freame legend.

The first is that in 1904 he served as part of an international band of mercenaries hired to help suppress a revolt in German East Africa, the second that he worked as an intelligence officer for President Porfirio Diaz during the Mexican Wars.

Looking at the dates, I have always thought that the first was unlikely, the second just possible. But whichever way, they would become part of the Freame legend.  

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 13 February 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019   

Politics burns spy moves

Not happy: Australian Prime Minister William Morris Hughes dismantled Australia's first civilian intelligence branch focused on Asia and the Pacific. This is the fourth in a new series on Australia's early intelligence activities

The story of Australia’s first spies is a fascinating if sometimes ramshackle story in which progress was finally destroyed by political disputes. 

During the First World War, Japan was part of the Entente fighting the German led Central Powers. Japanese warships guarded the Australian troopships on the way to Europe. But it was clear from the beginning that Japan’s core objective was the establishment of its own Empire in China and the Pacific.

As War continued, British Naval intelligence began looking at ways of improving their Japanese intelligence gathering activities. Australian Naval Intelligence under Captain Walter Thring was also looking at ways of better collecting and interpreting Japanese intelligence. 

Both navies suffered from a similar problem. They did not have the Japanese language speakers to translate public material, let along the growing volume of radio and cable intercepts. 

In 1916, Edmund Piesse as head of Australia Military Intelligence and Thring agreed that something needed to be done. 

"Hughes was deeply resentful of Acting Prime Minister William Watt and was determined to re-assert his authority"

The subsequent process was complicated because of political tensions as well as the White Australia Policy which created certain recruitment difficulties. Nevertheless, in July 1916 James Murdoch was offered a three year contract to teach Japanese at the princely sum of £600 plus first class steamer tickets.

Murdoch, a friend of Piesse’s, was an interesting man. Born in Scotland and educated at the University of Aberdeen and Oxford, he had come to Australia as headmaster of the new Maryborough Grammar School in Queensland. There he fell under the influence of William Lane, later joining Lane's 'New Australia' commune in Paraguay.

Following Paraguay, Murdoch had moved to Japan where he had been living and teaching in for many years. He arrived in Sydney in February 1917, teaching Japanese at the University of Sydney and at the Duntroon Military College. From this position he recruited a cadre of Japanese teachers to build the language training effort.  

In May 1919, the Australian Cabinet agreed to the creation of a Pacific Branch in the Prime Minister’s Department headed by Piesse to oversight the collection of intelligence and information on the nations and relationships within the Far East. 

Australia now had both a developing Japanese language program and the first dedicated civilian unit focused on intelligence and analysis in the Asian region. From this point, things unravelled.

The Pacific Branch had been created while Prime Minister William Morris Hughes was overseas. Hughes was deeply resentful of Acting Prime Minister William Watt and was determined to re-assert his authority.

This might not have mattered if Edmund Piesse had played to Hughes’ deep distrust of the Japanese, but Piesse had formed the view that Australian policy towards Japan was wrong. Hughes promptly got rid of both Piesse and the Pacific Branch.

It would be almost two decades before Australia again took action to really study Japan and Japanese. But in the meantime, our New England spy had entered the scene.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 6 February 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019   

Early Royal Australian Navy intelligence makes a difference

Captain Meyer and crew, SS Greifswald: The capture of the German maritime code books on the Greifswald were part of Australia's first and greatest intelligence success.This is the third in a new series on Australia's early intelligence activities. 

As the world headed into World War One, the British navy was arguably the best and most sophisticated international intelligence service in the world. In a way it had to be, for it was operating in a global environment and needed to know what was happening. 

From its ships and bases a constant stream of intelligence fed back to London. It was already an early expert in what we now call SIGINT, intelligence based on the interception of signals. 

When the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was created, it became an integral element in this global network. It not only provided information, but had access to the global Royal Navy information flows. 

In December 1912, Lieutenant Commander Walter Thring from the Royal Navy was recruited to the RAN oversight, among other things, naval intelligence. 

An energetic man, Thring quickly had a major impact. Among other things, he created a War Book for the RAN based on the Royal Navy version. This set out the actions to be taken should War break out and played a major role in the RAN’s subsequent fast response. 

As the possibility of war became closer, the RN developed plans to attempt to seize German naval code books.

 As the possibility of war became closer, the RN developed plans to attempt to seize German naval code books. 

On 2 August 1914, two days before Britain’s formal declaration of war, the RAN received instructions to activate the Examination Service, the name used for search and seizure operations on vessels entering or leaving Australian ports. 

SS Greifswald Freemantle following seizure.

By 8 August, the RAN had identified seven German targets, By 10 August, a copy of the German maritime codes had been seized. This meant that the RAN and Admiralty were able to read German maritime traffic within a week of the war started. 

By 3 September, the RAN had captured multiple sets including the signal book of the German Imperial Navy. This effect was that the entire global German naval communications system had been compromised within a month of the war starting.

Initially, all the intercepted traffic was sent to the RAN station in Perth where the first code book had been captured. There Captain CJ Clare, the District Naval Officer, had commissioned George A Pfizer, the Senior Master of Modern Languages at Perth Modern School to translate and make copies of the captured books.

Working hard, Pfizer completed his task by 15 August 1914. On that day, copies were despatched to RAN HQ in Melbourne and to the Admiralty by ship. Until they arrived in London, the RAN remained the centre of the global British decryption effort. 

You would think that the German navy would have changed its codes after the early loss of ships. In fact, in an astonishing display of complacency, it did not do until early 1916. The early Australian naval intelligence triumph therefore had long term impact on the war. 

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 30 January 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015, here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019  

New evidence on the Neanderthal/Denisovan overlap

Summary timeline for the archaeology, hominin fossils and hominin DNA retrieved from the sediments at Denisova Cave. All age ranges are shown at the 95.4% confidence interval. Bert Roberts,

Interesting paper by Zenobia Jacobs, Bo Li, Kieran O'Gorman and Richard Roberts all from the University of Wollongong in The Conversation:  Fresh clues to the life and times of the Denisovans, a little-known ancient group of humans (31 January 2018) .

The Denisova site is interesting because it is the only known site so far for the Denisovan species of hominin, the only site where Denisovans and Neanderthals overlapped. The latest dating results are summarised this way.

 The new studies show that hominins have occupied the site almost continuously through relatively warm and cold periods over the past 300,000 years, leaving behind stone tools and other artefacts in the cave deposits. 

Fossils and DNA traces of Denisovans are found from at least 200,000 to 50,000 years ago, and those of Neanderthals from between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago. The girl with mixed ancestry reveals that the two groups of hominins met and interbred around 100,000 years ago.

Both the Aborigines and Papuans have significant traces of Denisovan DNA suggesting that their ancestors met and mixed with the Denisovans on their journey to Sahul. An alternative but still less likely explanation is that the Denisovans had already reached Sahul at least in small numbers and the admixture occurred here.

I say this only because there is now an apparent tension that I do not understand between the archaeological dates and those generated by DNA analysis. The first presently suggests earliest occupation of perhaps 62,000 years ago based on archaeological dating, while the second suggests an out of Africa date for the Aborigines and Papuans of perhaps 51-72,000 years based on DNA modelling. There is still an overlap, but it has become too small for my comfort. .

I think that what is clear is that the new evidence is progressively changing our understanding of the human pattern of settlement in Eurasia and that this will necessarily change our understanding of Sahul's history.