THE CULTURE OF THE ORIGINAL TRIBES OF THE GREAT SOUTH LAND
FIRESTICK FARMING.
Dr Peter Kershaw from Monash University has been studying ancient pollen and charcoal deposits at the edge of the Continental Shelf, 80 kilometers east of Cairns, Queensland. The Ngadjonji people inhabited one of the locations in which he conducted some of his research. Peter Kershaw has discovered evidence of human disturbance in rainforest pollen patterns which strongly indicate, that the First Nation practice of firestick burning took place in Northern Queensland 140,000 years ago. Paleontologist Gurdip Sing also found similar evidence of firestick burning in core samples from 130,000 years ago, at Lake George in NSW.1
Contrary to popular belief, the Sovereign Tribes of the continent and islands now known as Australia were not nomads. Every Sovereign nation had its own tribal country, with well defined borders. People lived in permanent villages, in houses, some of which were built of stone.
1 'Forest Fires Illuminate the past', Article about Peter Kershaw, Montage: News From The Campuses Of Monash University, vol.3, No. 4, June 1992, pp.1, 6. Available from: http://www.adm.monash.edu.au/records-archives/assets/docs/pdf/montage/vol3-issue4.pdf