Tag: Aboriginal

First-ever biomechanics study of Indigenous weapons shows what made them so deadly

First-ever biomechanics study of Indigenous weapons shows what made them so deadly

by | Jan 30, 2026 | | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
Archaeological evidence for interpersonal violence (injuries of skeletal remains) is rare in Australia, but when found, usually consists of depressions to the skull and “parrying fractures”. These are breaks to the arm bones above the wrist, resulting from the raising of the arm in defence against a weapon. This can be either from a direct blow or a glancing blow off a shield – like the one used in this experiment.

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New evidence confirms our Indigenous languages have a common source, but how they spread remains a mystery

New evidence confirms our Indigenous languages have a common source, but how they spread remains a mystery

by | Sep 29, 2025 | | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
Have you ever wondered how Australia’s many Indigenous languages relate to one another and how far back the connections go? The Australian continent has been settled by Indigenous people for at least 50,000 years, but just how old are the languages spoken today and where did they originate? Our research provides some answers to these questions – and the answers throw up new and interesting puzzles.

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60 years old, the Yirrkala Bark Petitions are one of our founding documents – so why don’t we know more about them?

60 years old, the Yirrkala Bark Petitions are one of our founding documents – so why don’t we know more about them?

by | Dec 23, 2024 | , , | 0

Reading time: 17 minutes
Each of these declamatory objects speaks back to power, a creative act of resistance to a perceived political injustice. Like the stories of the creation, presentation and reception of the Eureka Flag and the women’s suffrage petition, the story of the Bark Petitions takes us to a time when democratic inclusion, when basic entitlements of citizenship, could not be taken for granted by certain sections of the body politic.

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Farmers or foragers? Pre-colonial Aboriginal food production was hardly that simple

Farmers or foragers? Pre-colonial Aboriginal food production was hardly that simple

by | Nov 11, 2024 | , | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes
Farmers versus foragers is a huge oversimplification of what was a mosaic of food production. After all, Australian landscapes differ markedly, from tropical rainforest to snowy mountains to arid spinifex country. For many Aboriginal people, the terms “farming” and “hunter-gatherer” do not capture the realities of 60 millennia of food production.

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Our mapping project shows how extensive frontier violence was in Queensland. This is why truth-telling matters

Our mapping project shows how extensive frontier violence was in Queensland. This is why truth-telling matters

by | Oct 14, 2024 | , | 0

Reading time: 6 minutes The Native Mounted Police operated in Queensland for 80 years, starting in 1849. It consisted of small groups of between six and 15 Aboriginal troopers under the command of white officers. The troopers were typically recruited from areas far from where they were sent to serve. Detachments of troopers were regularly sent out on patrol, covering large areas along the frontier of the colony in pursuit of Indigenous people who were considered to be “problematic”. Their main job was to protect civilian settlers, the lands they had taken up, and their livelihoods – by whatever means necessary.

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We have revealed a unique time capsule of Australia’s first coastal people from 50,000 years ago

We have revealed a unique time capsule of Australia’s first coastal people from 50,000 years ago

by | Jun 18, 2024 | | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
Barrow Island, located 60 kilometres off the Pilbara in Western Australia, was once a hill overlooking an expansive coast. This was the northwestern shelf of the Australian continent, now permanently submerged by the ocean.
Our new research, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, shows that Aboriginal people repeatedly lived on portions of this coastal plateau. We have worked closely with coastal Thalanyji Traditional Owners on this island work and also on their sites from the mainland.

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‘Habits of civilised life’: how one Australian State forced Indigenous people to meet onerous conditions to obtain citizenship

‘Habits of civilised life’: how one Australian State forced Indigenous people to meet onerous conditions to obtain citizenship

by | Apr 17, 2024 | , , | 0

Reading time: 7 minutes
In the breakthrough High Court case Love and Thoms vs Commonwealth in 2020, the court ruled that First Nations people could not be considered aliens in Australia. As Justice James Edelman noted in the decision, whatever the other manners in which they were treated […] Aboriginal people were not ‘considered as foreigners in a kingdom which is their own’.

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In The Australian Wars, Rachel Perkins dispenses with the myth Aboriginal people didn’t fight back

In The Australian Wars, Rachel Perkins dispenses with the myth Aboriginal people didn’t fight back

by | Mar 18, 2024 | , , | 0

Reading time: 5 minutes
The Australian Wars is a new three-part TV series directed and produced by Arrernte and Kalkadoon nations filmmaker Rachel Perkins. Perkins travels across vast territory to capture key aspects of a war that lasted more than 100 years, from the landing of the First Fleet in 1788 until the 1920s.

The series traces some of the key phases, sites and underlying features of frontier wars here on home soil.

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