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It's an emotionally charged subject, which is unfortunate as it's objectively fascinating from a purely historical perspective. The simplified and (generally)
by Jedd 4y ago
It's an emotionally charged subject, which is unfortunate as it's objectively fascinating from a purely historical perspective.
The simplified and (generally) commonly accepted narrative is that a cohesive group arrived here 45-60,000YA, lived peacefully and in harmony with the land right up until Europeans arrived.
There's some debate about the megafauna extinctions, but no conclusive evidence either way. (I did appreciate Dr Yuval Noah Harari's summary of the phenomenon in his book Sapiens.)
If it turns out that the original population was partly / mostly replaced (linguistically, culturally, genetically) relatively recently, that potentially complicates a lot of the cultural positioning.
As I say, it's a shame, as the migration (including ethno & linguistic) paths over the past ~100k years are just amazing.
- ajross 4y ago> emotionally charged subject, which is unfortunate [...] The simplified and (generally) commonly accepted narrative [...] that potentially complicates a lot of the cultural positioning. [...] it's a shame Uh... what's a shame? None of that stuff happened. You've picked a fight with a strawman here. No one is engaging like that with the linked article, or here in the HN thread, except you.
- Zurrrrr 4y agoHe's talking about the fact that Aboriginals, not unlike Native Americans, reject any attempt to explain their origin via science as they stick to the story of their origin that comes from their religion, and see the science based origin as disrespectful.
- tjmc 4y agoGot a source for this fact? Generalising opinions to a whole race is rarely wise. Perhaps like anyone else with religious beliefs, those who are offended simply want their culture respected.
- girvo 4y ago> those who are offended simply want their culture respected Even more so, in this case, considering my country's historical "handling" of ATSI culture, and the mobs in general.
- Zurrrrr 4y ago[flagged]
- dragonwriter 4y agoIts not doing X to Y, its doing X to Z which is synonymous to Y is…a contradiction. IF Z is a synonym for Y, doing X to Z is doing X to Y.
- Zurrrrr 4y agoTrying to map natural language statements to formal logic doesn't work well, unless you make a ton of assumptions as you have here...and then it still doesn't work well.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago>My source is growing up there Where did you grow up that simultaneously had a large Aboriginals and Native American population?
- Zurrrrr 4y agoI never claimed such a thing. What a ridiculous takeaway.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago>He's talking about the fact that Aboriginals, not unlike Native Americans... They presumably asked for a source for both claims, your only provided one says you lived among them. Either you grew up among both populations or have provided no source for one of your claims.
- ajross 4y agoAnd I'm saying the place to have that fight is with the putative Aboriginals and not here on HN where everyone is just talking about the science. I mean, I get it. People are mean. People are unreasonable. Lots of good discussion can't happen because people are mean and unreasonable. But you're not making things better by assuming bad faith and throwing shade at everyone else preemptively. That's just being mean and unreasonable.
- yieldcrv 4y agoIt was very insightful for me to know that its common amongst Aboriginals there to have that view. I will corroborate it elsewhere now what I know what to look for.
- riatin 4y agoSuggest you look at most popular mastheads in Australia, in particular the state funded broadcaster to see the phenomenon play out in reality.
- Zurrrrr 4y agoNo reason to say that though. The person you replied to was saying it is a shame it is an emotionally charged discussion and he is right. That one particular discussion on HN might not be emotionally charged doesn't negate his point. Were you just pretending not to understand?
- s1artibartfast 4y agoThe best way to get an emotionally charged discussion on Hacker News is to put a caveat that it's unfortunate that a topic is emotionally charged. It's a lightning rod and discussion bridge for people who just want debate controversial issues. I certainly have been on both sides of it.
- girvo 4y ago> Aboriginals, not unlike Native Americans, reject any attempt to explain their origin via science as they stick to the story of their origin that comes from their religion, and see the science based origin as disrespectful. No, they do not all do this, and I'd caution you on speaking for a people that aren't a monolith within their mobs in the first place.
- thomasfromcdnjs 4y agoAha I thought about replying to the parent comment. (Long time no see)
- girvo 4y agoHaha hows it going mate! There's a lot of sweeping generalisations in this thread. Should be expected considering the audience, I guess, but it's still disappointing
- Zurrrrr 4y ago[flagged]
- girvo 4y agoRight, so you're allowed to spout whatever idiocy you want, but others aren't allowed to call you on it. Sounds about right. You grew up in Aus apparently, but seem to have very little understand of ATSI culture and how diverse it is. Come work with my partner at IUIH and then generalise the way you have been. Generalise disparate groups of people elsewhere. And shove off with your thought terminating cliches: it's not pearl clutching, it's educating you, because you apparently require it.
- dragonwriter 4y ago> Aboriginals, not unlike Native Americans, reject any attempt to explain their origin via science as they stick to the story of their origin that comes from their religion, and see the science based origin as disrespectful. I mean, if we are going to make these kinds of broad generalizations and comparisons, could we at least change “Native Americans” to “Christian fundamentalists”. It’s not any less true.
- Zurrrrr 4y ago[flagged]
- yesenadam 4y agoOk, I give up. That's about the 20th mocking, insulting comment of yours I've read on this page, while you pretend to occupy the high ground. Sickening stuff. HN deserves way better. Please refresh on the guidelines. There aren't many in the first 10 paragraphs of the "In comments" guidelines you haven't broken on this page, multiple times. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Zurrrrr 4y agoThanks for your input.
- yesenadam 4y agoNo problem, I'm sure it's not just me who felt that. Also, please consider that even if you were totally right about everything and everyone you interacted with totally wrong, that would be no justification at all for the way you've carried on on this page.
- Zurrrrr 4y agoThanks for letting me know.
- thoi3u4o2i34324 4y ago[flagged]
- Zurrrrr 4y agoI didn't know that, but yeah that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing that, that was interesting to learn.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- justatdotin 4y agowhat I've noticed in my lifetime is that the attempted narratives of mainstream science continue to edge towards original local knowledge. if locals abandoned their knowledge and accepted the 40,000ya story told when I was a kid, they'd be out by just as much given the 80,000ya now indicated by artefacts at M2, Madjedbebe; the oldest site of continual human habitation.
- Zurrrrr 4y agoIf I'm understanding you correctly, there are some things revealed by science that seem to match some kinds of ancient knowledge, but that could easily just be coincidence.
- ern 4y agoFrom the article: a legacy of distrust about biological research among Aboriginal groups means that genetic studies are viewed suspiciously and samples are hard to come by
- Jedd 4y ago> None of that stuff happened. Could you please be slightly more specific about what you're contesting?
- mehwoot 4y agoWhat they're talking about is a very active debate in Australia. The simplified and (generally) commonly accepted narrative is that a cohesive group arrived here 45-60,000YA, lived peacefully and in harmony with the land right up until Europeans arrived Is absolutely what a lot of, if not the majority of people, believe.
- Zurrrrr 4y agoDid you have to look up the name of the author of Sapiens or you have it committed to memory?
- Jedd 4y agoI enjoyed the book, though I used the audio version which I suspect skews my opinion upwards. Thoroughly enjoyed it, but I understand some HNers have cause to argue with some of his conclusions. Anyway, I looked up the author's name as I didn't trust my memory. Does this affect your interest in the book?
- Zurrrrr 4y agoNo it's on my list to read, I was just curious if you had looked it up or memorized the name. Just a random passing thought I decided to turn into a comment. Thanks for answering!
- ImaCake 4y ago> the original population was partly / mostly replaced Thats not what this data shows. What it does show is that some migrants from india joined the existing culture and left a genetic, and presumably, cultural mark. When a smaller population mixes genetically with a larger population they effectively add a small amount of novel genetic markers to the population in what we call introgression.
- Jedd 4y agoYou're right. I should have chosen better phrasing - perhaps gene pool instead of population, and diluted (but that still seems awkward) rather than replaced. Is an 11% genetic incursion a lot for ~ 150 generations? I don't know, TFA doesn't hint, and I suspect we don't have an abundance of natural experiments to compare with.
- ImaCake 4y ago> Is an 11% genetic incursion a lot for ~ 150 generations? I am not sure either. However, we do have a lot of natural experiments (and lab experiments) to explore this. The 11% number comes from a clustering analysis. The user supplies k = number of ancestry groups, and the algorithm estimates proportion of genetics specific to each of k ancestry groups. So basically fancy k-means clustering. I don't know how robust it is and I would suspect a biased estimate. As for over time... also complex. But I would imagine the best models would use exponetial distributions or similar as their basis (i.e. initially fast decrease in percentage followed by a slower rate of loss until equilibrium is reached).
- elliekelly 4y agoIt’s my understanding that while Harari’s books are fascinating and entertaining reads they’re mostly pop-science and lack much actual science. He’s a good storyteller but he presents his stories as though they’re fact when they are, at best, conjecture.
- nomilk 4y agoI got a few pages into Sapiens before thinking the same thing. I prefer a few rigorous ideas to a thousand flimsy ones.
- grecy 4y ago> The simplified and (generally) commonly accepted narrative is that a cohesive group arrived here 45-60,000YA, Isn't the fascinating question "How did they arrive" ? My understanding is that timeline vastly pre-dates any kind of ship to make that voyage.
- prawn 4y agoI think the gap between Asia and PNG (then connected to AU) has got down to 90km. Doable with bamboo rafts? Viewing a mountainous island from an elevated position would give them reason to attempt it. Timor to PNG is suggested as the water crossing needed.
- grecy 4y agoAnd enough people made that crossing successfully to create a stable population of 320,000 people [1] without in breeding problems? [1] https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/profile-of-indigenous-australians https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/profile-o...
- rippercushions 4y agoAboriginal Australian do, in fact, suffer from a disproportionate number of hereditary diseases: https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/212/5/lessons-learned-genetic-research-indigenous-australian-participants https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/212/5/lessons-learned-ge... While there is considerable genetic diversity between Aboriginals as a whole, the diversity of individual communities is often quite low, and in response many communities evolved elaborate kinship systems to avoid too much intermarriage.
- Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago> It's an emotionally charged subject Agreed, and for no good reason too. All these notions of "purity of the blood" and that nonsense are shown up to be completely false when studied. We all collectively share lots of genetic code from many diverse ancestors, so I don't see why folks get all worked up about it.
- lovemenot 4y agoWhat's the commonly accepted view on the origin of dingos? I imagined they were introduced along with those humans 50,000 ya.
- jojobas 4y ago>The simplified and (generally) commonly accepted narrative is that a cohesive group arrived here 45-60,000YA, lived peacefully and in harmony with the land right up until Europeans arrived. This theory went down the drain when Europeans discovered Aboriginal shields (i.e. very fast). Spears and clubs are useful for hunting, shields only help against homo sapiens. They were fighting over resources just like anybody else, and their everyday lives were violent as hell, evidenced by parry fractures and skull cracks on fossil bones. Also "living in harmony with the land" means watching your children starve to death after a dry spring.
- never_inline 4y ago> The simplified and (generally) commonly accepted narrative is that a cohesive group arrived here 45-60,000YA, lived peacefully and in harmony with the land right up until Europeans arrived. I thought it was generally accepted that IVC was an outside people too, from modern middle east, who emigrated less than 10,000 years ago (But much prior to Indo-European migrations). > That potentially complicates a lot of the cultural positioning. It should not. Most of the today's Indian culture formed in India despite some PIE roots.