Australian Aboriginal Agriculture

What is "agriculture"? (choose the BEST answer)

• Managing plants & animals for food & resources

• Growing plants

• Bioengineering

• Collecting plants & animals for food

Answer explanation

AGRICULTURE is all about MANAGEMENT. The Aboriginals did not practice agriculture and farm in the usual European way, but in a way that suited the Australian environment.

The advantages that Aboriginal agriculture had over European methods were: (choose as many as you want)

• Aboriginal methods didn't need extra water

• Aboriginal methods didn't need fertilisers

• Aboriginal methods didn't need any work

• Aboriginal methods didn't harm the environment

• Aboriginal methods produced food only Aboriginals could eat

Answer explanation

Aboriginal agriculture methods were SUSTAINABLE - they could keep going year after year and not wear out the soil or run out of resources. The Aboriginal peoples practised them for thousands of years.

What type of vegetable was grown and harvested by many Aboriginal peoples?

• yam

• potato

• oranges

• turnip

Answer explanation

The yam is the root of a dandelion-type flower. It is 8 times more nutritious than a potato. Most Aboriginal tribes ate yams, but many of them also deliberately grew them in fields for later harvest.

After Europeans arrived, a lot of the soft soil carefully managed by Aboriginal peoples over thousands of years was ruined by....

• sheep and cattle

• ploughing

• vandals

• wheat and cotton

Answer explanation

The sheep & cattle brought in by Europeans were suited to damp European soil. They were very hard on the soft, dry delicate Australian soil. They trampled it, scattered it and compacted it, ruining it for native agriculture.

The trampling and compaction of the soil into a hard layer caused bigger floods, because

• the rain ran right off it and into the rivers

• the rain was attracted to it

• it caused more rain

• it made rivers flow backwards

Answer explanation

The hardening of the soil meant that it couldn't soak up the rain as well as before, so a lot more rain went into rivers, causing floods bigger than the Aboriginals had ever seen before.

Aboriginal peoples would take seeds from one area and trade or give them away in other areas, causing some types of plant to...

• spread across the country

• die out

• stay in one area

• feed the birds

Answer explanation

Aboriginal peoples traded seeds, so some types of useful plants spread right across the country.

Grain grindstones over 30,000 years old have been discovered in NSW, meaning that the Australian Aboriginals were the world's first...

• bakers

• butchers

• sailors

• stonemasons

Answer explanation

These grindstones were used to make flour for damper, a kind of bread. Aboriginals invented baking!

What animals did many Aboriginal tribes harvest from the Australian Alps at the same time every year?

• Bogong moths

• kangaroos

• emus

• bunyips

Answer explanation

The Bogong Moth Harvest was huge! many moths were collected and eaten, and many more processed into cakes or other forms and kept for later.

What did Aboriginals use to clear land and create new forests and hunting grounds?

• fire

• ploughs

• tractors

• axes

Answer explanation

Aboriginals used carefully laid fires to clear the land so that the plants would re-grow the way they wanted - attractive to animals and full of food.

Some scientists think that the evidence of stone shelters, fireplaces and stone fish traps means that up to 10,000 Aboriginal people lived semi-permanently near..

• Brewarrina

• Bathurst

• Bogong

• Brisbane

Answer explanation

The fish traps and other evidence of Aboriginal settlement near Brewarrina, NSW is slowly changing views of the traditional lifestyle of the Aboriginal peoples.