Foragers or Farmers: Dark Emu and the Controversy over Aboriginal Agriculture

Abstract

Bruce Pascoe's book Dark Emu, which has been a publishing phenomenon in Australia, argues that Aboriginal people were not 'mere' hunter-gatherers in 1788, but were farming. This article sets the argument of the book within the context of the views of archaeologists and anthropologists, as well as other historians, about Aboriginal agriculture. Some have argued that Aboriginal people were hunter-gatherers and asked why they did not adopt agriculture, while others have suggested that at least some groups were practicing farming. The article finds that while the boundary between foraging and farming is a fuzzy one, Aboriginal people were indeed hunters, gatherers and fishers at the time of the British colonisation of Australia.

Putting the Dark Emu debate into context

“…Very different conclusions have been reached about the character of Aboriginal plant exploitation practices from effectively the same body of ethnographic and historical data (contrast Pascoe, 2014 andSutton &Walshe, 2021). While some have argued for "domiculture" (Hynes & Chase, 1982), "experimental horticulture" (Jones & Meehan, 1989) or "agriculture" (Gerritsen, 2008;Pascoe, 2014), Aboriginal exploitation of plants is generally considered consistent with forms of hunting and gathering (Lourandos, 1997;Keen, 2003) or low-level food production (Keen, 2021following Smith, 2001, which can range from adventitious exploitation of wild plants to more intensive forms of land management and resource intensification (Jones, 1969to Gammage, 2012. Grasses, like other plants (and even some faunal resources) have been managed using fire (Bowman et al, 2001;Gott, 2005;Russell-Smith et al, 1997;Vigilante & Bowman, 2004).…”

“…Sutton and Walshe (2021) challenge the main conclusion of Pascoe's book and also its evidential foundations. Other critiques have gone through the reliability of the lines of evidence used in Dark Emu (such as Keen, 2021). We do not reiterate the detailed criticisms here, especially we do not dwell on errors of record or differences of interpretation (Chapter 11 in Sutton & Walshe, 2021; also see Keen, 2021), rather we focus on substantive issues raised by Sutton and Walshe with the intention of moving the debate onto more fertile ground.…”

“…We then review Sutton and Walshe's (2021) stringent critique, focussing on the lines of evidence used and propositions made. We do not seek – as Sutton and Walshe have done, as well as other commentators (such as Keen, 2021) – to undertake a forensic exposition of ethnographic and historical sources that Pascoe among others (most notably Gerristen, 2008) used to justify claims for pre‐European agriculture on the Australian mainland. It will hopefully be clear to the reader that ethnographic and historical sources, as well as existing archaeological and linguistic lines of evidence, are insufficient to address the issue at this time.…”

The use of Australian native grains as a food: a review of research in a global grains context

“…The definitions of these terms relate to the way the species and their growing environments were modified to suit human food needs, particularly when plant selection intentionally or unintentionally increased genetic traits favourable to human food production, such as large seed size and lack of shattering, rendering them uncompetitive in non-cropping environments (Purugganan and Fuller 2009). Some research classifies Aboriginal people as hunters, gatherers and fishers (Keen 2021), whereas others use the terms 'farming' and 'agriculture' to describe examples of intentional food production by Aboriginal people (Gammage 2012;Pascoe 2014). Despite this debate about the nature of food production practices before the arrival of Europeans in Australia, considerable potential exists for farming and domestication of these grains using modern practices in the future (notwithstanding social perspectives; see Section The importance of Aboriginal perspectives in research and development of native grains for the modern food industry).…”

Becoming a Settler Descendant: Critical Engagements with Inherited Family Narratives of Indigeneity, Agriculture and Land in a (Post)Colonial Context

“…This is a departure from what has been a fairly consistent understanding of Aboriginal people's lifeways as being hunter-gatherer, reliant not on the domestication of plants and animals but on the continued (sustainable) harvesting of plants and animals from the landscape. Finding a ready public audience, and lauded by many scholars, Pascoe's work has continued to be contested both for its use and presentation of evidence, and its co-opting of schemas of progress that some argue diminish the complexity of hunter-gatherer lifeways (Griffiths 2019;Keen 2021;Neale, in press). As Griffiths (2019) notes, the adoption of the 'template of agriculture' is nonetheless understandable as it 'is turning a political tool of oppression and disdain into a case for dignity and respect'.…”