Transdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Past Australian Aboriginal Foodways
Global understanding of past food systems is based on many lines of evidence, involving complex multidisciplinary contributions. It has long been considered that since Australia’s first colonisation, now dated to 65,000 years ago, its peoples were supported largely through foraging as opposed to far...
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crequinoxpubl:10.1558/aff.18161 2024-06-02T08:06:45+00:00 Transdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Past Australian Aboriginal Foodways Westaway, Michael C. Wright, Nathan Crowther, Alison Silcock, Jennifer Carter, Rodney Moss, Patrick Henry, Robert 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/aff.18161 https://journal.equinoxpub.com/AFF/article/download/18161/28516 https://journal.equinoxpub.com/AFF/article/download/18161/28517 unknown Equinox Publishing Archaeology of Food and Foodways volume 2, issue 1, page 47-74 ISSN 2514-8389 2514-8370 journal-article 2023 crequinoxpubl https://doi.org/10.1558/aff.18161 2024-05-07T13:51:54Z Global understanding of past food systems is based on many lines of evidence, involving complex multidisciplinary contributions. It has long been considered that since Australia’s first colonisation, now dated to 65,000 years ago, its peoples were supported largely through foraging as opposed to farming. Recent research has challenged that perspective, contentiously proposing that Australia’s first nations peoples developed agricultural systems before European colonisation. This proposal has been subject to significant critique, but support of the food-producing nature of Aboriginal society has been boosted by new multi-disciplinary evidence for early aquaculture and possibly cultivation, as well as for the translocation of plants though trans-continental trade systems. While this analysis has generated new discussion and debate, it has also highlighted systemic empirical biases; archaeological data for pre-European plant exploitation remains sparse, and we consistently rely on potentially unrepresentative and historically shallow ethnographic information to fill that gap. We argue that by employing collaborative transdisciplinary research that incorporates Western scientific and Indigenous knowledge pathways, we can more effectively explore the diverse and complex nature of Aboriginal foodways in Australia’s past, from the earliest human arrivals to its current mosaic of different food systems. Article in Journal/Newspaper First Nations Equinox Publishing Archaeology of Food and Foodways 2 1 47 74 |
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Global understanding of past food systems is based on many lines of evidence, involving complex multidisciplinary contributions. It has long been considered that since Australia’s first colonisation, now dated to 65,000 years ago, its peoples were supported largely through foraging as opposed to farming. Recent research has challenged that perspective, contentiously proposing that Australia’s first nations peoples developed agricultural systems before European colonisation. This proposal has been subject to significant critique, but support of the food-producing nature of Aboriginal society has been boosted by new multi-disciplinary evidence for early aquaculture and possibly cultivation, as well as for the translocation of plants though trans-continental trade systems. While this analysis has generated new discussion and debate, it has also highlighted systemic empirical biases; archaeological data for pre-European plant exploitation remains sparse, and we consistently rely on potentially unrepresentative and historically shallow ethnographic information to fill that gap. We argue that by employing collaborative transdisciplinary research that incorporates Western scientific and Indigenous knowledge pathways, we can more effectively explore the diverse and complex nature of Aboriginal foodways in Australia’s past, from the earliest human arrivals to its current mosaic of different food systems. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Westaway, Michael C. Wright, Nathan Crowther, Alison Silcock, Jennifer Carter, Rodney Moss, Patrick Henry, Robert |
spellingShingle |
Westaway, Michael C. Wright, Nathan Crowther, Alison Silcock, Jennifer Carter, Rodney Moss, Patrick Henry, Robert Transdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Past Australian Aboriginal Foodways |
author_facet |
Westaway, Michael C. Wright, Nathan Crowther, Alison Silcock, Jennifer Carter, Rodney Moss, Patrick Henry, Robert |
author_sort |
Westaway, Michael C. |
title |
Transdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Past Australian Aboriginal Foodways |
title_short |
Transdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Past Australian Aboriginal Foodways |
title_full |
Transdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Past Australian Aboriginal Foodways |
title_fullStr |
Transdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Past Australian Aboriginal Foodways |
title_full_unstemmed |
Transdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Past Australian Aboriginal Foodways |
title_sort |
transdisciplinary approaches to understanding past australian aboriginal foodways |
publisher |
Equinox Publishing |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/aff.18161 https://journal.equinoxpub.com/AFF/article/download/18161/28516 https://journal.equinoxpub.com/AFF/article/download/18161/28517 |
genre |
First Nations |
genre_facet |
First Nations |
op_source |
Archaeology of Food and Foodways volume 2, issue 1, page 47-74 ISSN 2514-8389 2514-8370 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1558/aff.18161 |
container_title |
Archaeology of Food and Foodways |
container_volume |
2 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
47 |
op_container_end_page |
74 |
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1800751720273281024 |