The common view of Aboriginal people falls under stereotypes of either terra nullus pre-civilisation hunter gathers or the romantic noble savage at one with nature. We know from first-hand accounts that the Eora had a legal system which included the morality of personal property. We also know that Aboriginal land management techniques changed the Australian landscape to the point that species have become dependent on fire for reproduction.

Prior to smallpox making its appearance on the Australian continent the coastal regions were the most heavily populated areas. And for good reason, even today, the ocean is an extremely important system of production and food.

Fishing requires considerable technological sophistication. It has to be done in a large enough harvest to support specialisation of labor to produce the precise tools that fishing needs to be performed efficiently.

The Aboriginal people used bulrush reeds to make string. Their fish nets were called fizgigs and of such good production that the most commonly stolen item from the Eora when the English arrived was their nets.

Fishing also requires considerable social organisation as it is a specialised task and those net-fishing need to be able to co-ordinate together to maximise the catch.

Aboriginal society is one that was already organised toward farming and was comfortable with transforming the environment to their advantage. If Australia had more domesticable species for early agriculture, other than the Macadamia nut, then the Aboriginal people were well positioned, socially, technologically and economically (labor specialisation) to transition to land based agricultural production.

Humanity is defined as a species by its mastery of technology and how it is used to enable humanity to live in ever larger social groups - to the point where our technologies allow us to live in mega-cites. The Greater Tokyo Area for instance contains a larger population than post-plague Europe from the 1300s.

The Aboriginal people are no different, and not an exception to the rule. Technology is the human condition.

More Reading on History

• History
• Fishing
• Aboriginal
• Historical Documents from DFAT
• Percy Spender and the Pacific Pact
• Without The Trappings Of Court
• Toward The Better Country
• The Problem And Fun of History
• The Task of an Historian
• Patent Application History
• First Prime Minister of Australia
• Options Trading in 1298
• Book Review: Genghis Khan