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I'd agree it's odd - it wasn't called Australia until (well) after the Europeans arrived. But it does make sense. In the place we now call Australia, they were

I'd agree it's odd - it wasn't called Australia until (well) after the Europeans arrived. But it does make sense. In the place we now call Australia, they were here First. We could even use First Nations as the Canadians do; there were things we would (now, belatedly, apologetically) recognise as nations here before we butchered them all and made a mess of their civilisation. Sidenote to your sidenote: I like the thing that we're doing now of calling Perth by it's Noongar name: Boorloo. More of this, please, Australia.

worthless-trash 2y ago
It used to be called "New Holland" (and Vandimans land for tasmania). Sadly, I feel most of name change is simply virtue signaling, but not all. Perth itself likely has multiple names due to its size, although I guess you need to settle one one. There are factors of multiple tribes, multiple timelines, appeasing one group likely pisses off another, but thats a different problem.
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  Agree on the virtue signalling, but whatever works shrug. It makes no sense that it's called Perth, because that's already a place on the other side of the planet. They didn't even bother with "New Perth". And yeah, I suspect that Boorloo is one choice of many. But I think we let the Elders work that one out.
Amezarak 2y ago
"First" is very hard to demonstrate. Maybe, even probably, but it seems unwise to make this a definite ideological truth.
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  We've traced Aboriginal settlement of Australia back 60,000 years. It's possible there were humans here before them, I guess, but we haven't discovered any sign of them so far.
  - Amezarak 2y ago
    The fact we haven't discovered clear evidence yet is not at all surprising. Even the evidence of Aboriginal settlement that far back is very, very limited. It also of course depends on what you mean buy "we"; given the presence of other ancient hominids we could interbreed with in the region, it's not impossible others were there first by many millennia with nothing to show for it. We've got to keep in mind how incredible sparse the archeological record is for anything that far back - we didn't know a single thing about the existence of Homo floresiensis (itself very, very close to the ancient Sahul continent) and still wouldn't if it weren't for the discovery of a single site in 2003. Unfortunately, the importance of accepting the Aboriginals as "first" has likely politicized the science here and is so important as a fundamental tenet of some political claims that it will tinge future evidence one way or another.
    - marcus_holmes 2y ago
      I'm not sure that finding some ancient hominid remains here will actually invalidate their claims of being First. At what point do we stop classing ancestor hominids as "people"? I mean, Homo Floriensis was only 50K years ago. If we found evidence for a similar hominid in Australia, would we really class them as the First Australians? Agree about the politics, though. It would be nice if we could get past all the virtue signaling and agree that everyone has the best motives, etc, and just look at the evidence.

worthless-trash 2y ago

It used to be called "New Holland" (and Vandimans land for tasmania). Sadly, I feel most of name change is simply virtue signaling, but not all. Perth itself likely has multiple names due to its size, although I guess you need to settle one one. There are factors of multiple tribes, multiple timelines, appeasing one group likely pisses off another, but thats a different problem.

marcus_holmes 2y ago
Agree on the virtue signalling, but whatever works shrug. It makes no sense that it's called Perth, because that's already a place on the other side of the planet. They didn't even bother with "New Perth". And yeah, I suspect that Boorloo is one choice of many. But I think we let the Elders work that one out.

Amezarak 2y ago

"First" is very hard to demonstrate. Maybe, even probably, but it seems unwise to make this a definite ideological truth.

marcus_holmes 2y ago
We've traced Aboriginal settlement of Australia back 60,000 years. It's possible there were humans here before them, I guess, but we haven't discovered any sign of them so far.
- Amezarak 2y ago
  The fact we haven't discovered clear evidence yet is not at all surprising. Even the evidence of Aboriginal settlement that far back is very, very limited. It also of course depends on what you mean buy "we"; given the presence of other ancient hominids we could interbreed with in the region, it's not impossible others were there first by many millennia with nothing to show for it. We've got to keep in mind how incredible sparse the archeological record is for anything that far back - we didn't know a single thing about the existence of Homo floresiensis (itself very, very close to the ancient Sahul continent) and still wouldn't if it weren't for the discovery of a single site in 2003. Unfortunately, the importance of accepting the Aboriginals as "first" has likely politicized the science here and is so important as a fundamental tenet of some political claims that it will tinge future evidence one way or another.
  - marcus_holmes 2y ago
    I'm not sure that finding some ancient hominid remains here will actually invalidate their claims of being First. At what point do we stop classing ancestor hominids as "people"? I mean, Homo Floriensis was only 50K years ago. If we found evidence for a similar hominid in Australia, would we really class them as the First Australians? Agree about the politics, though. It would be nice if we could get past all the virtue signaling and agree that everyone has the best motives, etc, and just look at the evidence.