Ancient sites

'Australian' First Nations people are the longest living continuous culture on earth, but modern researchers have just started to look at the wisdom that comes with the many thousand years of residency, and that's especially true of astronomy. They tracked and predicted interstellar movements in highly sophisticated ways, looking up at the night with eyes intriguingly different to our own. To hear some examples of things that they could teach us, I met with Swinburne University's Dr. Alan Duffy, who specializes in Australian First Nations astronomy. [node:read-more:link]

The British have waged undeclared wars on First Nations peoples ever since 1788.

The murder and misery inflicted today reminds us of when settlers rode into communities on horse back and cut down extended families. In current times, the government does not only allow multi-national mining giants to rape the country and destroy ancient cultures, but they are trying to force First Nations people to live with the poisonous waste. [node:read-more:link]

A Croatian born artist Vesna Tenodi who has an Art Centre in NSW stole the sacred image of the Wandjina in 2009 and commissioned a Wandjina sculpture at the front of her gallery and has been misusing the sacred image ever since. Local First Nations people objected strongly and a Worora Tribal custodian of the Wandjina travelled over from the West Kimberley to tell her the statue seriously offended his people, but she discarded what he said by saying her actions were a "revival of Aboriginal spirituality", even though she was born on another continent and the culture of the sacred Wandina is still practiced by its peoples. [node:read-more:link]

Archeologists working on the Dampier archipelago off Australia’s north-west coast have found evidence of stone houses dating back 9,000 years – to the end of the last ice age – building the case for the area to get a world heritage listing.

A team from UWA are exploring the Dampier Archipelago (Murujuga). What they have uncovered so far is astounding, and pushes back the known occupation of this place to before the Last Ice Age. [node:read-more:link]