hello again

[Logos]

The seventh continent which should be called Oceania, or Australasia consists of the sub continental mass known as Australia and then all the unimportant bits like Tasmania and New Zealand and so on and so on. (As well as being a geologist my wife comes from the undiscovered country known as Tasmania.{She is now scowling at me, I think I am in trouble. Can I get asylum in Melbourne Hughesie.})

 

[gafftaper]

The seventh continent which should be called Oceania, or Australasia consists of the sub continental mass known as Australia and then all the unimportant bits like Tasmania and New Zealand and so on and so on. (As well as being a geologist my wife comes from the undiscovered country known as Tasmania.{She is now scowling at me, I think I am in trouble. Can I get asylum in Melbourne Hughesie.})

Ahh I see the problem now. All the lesser land masses you have mentioned are so unimportant that they have been rounded down to zero in our text books and Australia has been rounded up to one.

Actually I found this interesting quote: "Many modern atlases and geography experts now consider the long-established continent of Australia to be better defined as Australia/Oceania, which then combines and includes all of (Australia), the large island groups of New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomons, and the countless volcanic and coral islands of the south Pacific Ocean, including those of Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia."

Any changes to world history and/or geography will not take effect in U.S. textbooks and school maps for several decades. My last classroom had a world map with East Germany, the U.S.S.R., and half of Africa had different names.

 

[gafftaper]

I'm wasting too much time here on this continent of Oceania/Australia but it's kind of interesting. First off every definition I can find of continent involves a large continuous mass of land surrounded mostly by water. Which of course Oceania isn't. It's a group of islands. I looked at the tectonic plate maps for an answer but that just made it worse as India and Australia are on the same plate while many of the small islands of Oceania are on separate plate. It appears that Oceania started out as more of a geographic people grouping relating to the lands of the Polynesian people. I believe that the native australian people were NOT Polynesian... correct? Thus, some people don't consider Australia part of Oceania. Some consider Hawaii part of Oceania. At the other extreme it appears some people consider the islands of Alaska part of Oceania.

So Australia is a sub continent part of a larger unconnected group of thousands of islands that are a continent? What is Oceania anyway? How is New Guinea part of the Australia/Oceania continent but the Indonesian half of that island is part of Asia? Why isn't Indonesia part of Australia/Oceania continent? How is a continent defined? Until about 20 years ago everyone seemed to agree that Australia was a continent on its own. It sort of looks to me like the Polynesian cultural society lobbied the geography people to get a piece of Australia's "continenthood". I'm curious what your wife's scientific geological explanation of all this is, because the more I read the more confused I get. Some how I have the feeling a bunch of Geographers (who are a lot less scientific than geologists) are at fault for this mess.

 

[Logos]

Actually this is quite interesting. I was taught Lo these many years ago when we slaved at our slates by the light of candles that Australia was the worlds largest Island not it's smallest continent and my wife (who really only did geology at secondary school but who has kept reading in the area all her life) says she was similarly taught this.
My son who is now also grumpy at me because I disturbed his favourite TV show by ringing up with stupid questions says he was taught that Australia is a continent.
I'm going to bed.

In answer to another question, the indiginous (sp?) population of Australia are not polynesian. They fall into three racial groupings, the mainland aboriginal races, the Torres Strait Islanders and the Tiwi. The latter group are a very small group who live on some tiny islands to the North of Aus. It is possible that the Tasmanian aboriginal race was a different grouping but as the last full blood member of that group (Truganinni) died a very long time ago (over a 100 years) it is now difficult to establish that.
These groups seem to have split from the original racial group who seem to have crossed a land bridge from Asia about 40,000 years ago. Incidently they would seem to have brought the dingo with them from Asia. Bored yet?

 

[gafftaper]

Not at all bored. Ancient history and Dingos... it's a breathtaking combination.

So you had a landbridge from Asia to Australia many years ago? I didn't know that.

That reminds me of the turmoil here in the Americas over ancient people. It's been a well known "fact" that the first Native Americans crossed a land bridge from Asia in the last Ice age... at least that's what we've been teaching our kids in school for years (along with Australia being the 7th continent). Except we have now found multiple sites that predate that ice age by 10,000 years or more. The archaeological evidence is overwhelming at this point that there were two waves of migration... one by boat and one by land bridge.

 

[Van]

Not at all bored. Ancient history and Dingos... it's a breathtaking combination.

So you had a landbridge from Asia to Australia many years ago? I didn't know that.

That reminds me of the turmoil here in the Americas over ancient people. It's been a well known "fact" that the first Native Americans crossed a land bridge from Asia in the last Ice age... at least that's what we've been teaching our kids in school for years (along with Australia being the 7th continent). Except we have now found multiple sites that predate that ice age by 10,000 years or more. The archaeological evidence is overwhelming at this point that there were two waves of migration... one by boat and one by land bridge.

Oddly enough, this is one of my favorite areas of interest. If I had my druthers, I'd go back to school and get my degree in PaleoAnthropology. If you take a look at Kennewick Man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man
You'll find that in Facial reconstruction he looks a lot more like Jean-Luc Picard than Sitting Bull, and most folks who have examined him seem to think he has ancestry similar to the Ainu < Eye-nu > or the indigenous peoples of Japan. One way or another He way pre-dates the "piedmont" layer so stupidly imposed on modern American Anthro and Archaeologist. I believe he probably shares a common ancestor or two with both the Ainu and the Indigenous peoples of Australia.
Right after Politics and right before Religion this has got to be one of my favorite topics.

 

[Logos]

The prehistoric landbridge came down from the Malay peninsula through modern Indonesia and across the Timor Sea. Tasmania was at that time also a part of the landmass and Bass Strait (between Melbourne and Devonport) was dry.
I have actually exhausted my knowledge of the background and history of prehistoric Australian Indigenes. I am a modern historian by interest. This is the stuff I picked up in my readings relating to the treatment of Aboriginals by white folks, a truly contentious subject here as no doubt it is with you.
Your earlier guess Gafftaper about the creation of Oceania being a geographer rather than geologer driven concept is probably correct. I had not heard that clims went as far as the Alaskan islands though although I knew that the inclusion of Hawaii was an issue.
The racial mix throughout Oceania is stunning, Indonesia and the Phillipines seem to have a basic racial mix related very closely to SE Asia while Papua New Guinea and the Timorese are yet another group also apparently unrelated to the Australian Aboriginal. The Maori of New Zealand are Polynesian and related to the residents of Tahiti Samoa Tonga and Hawaii but I am not sure where the Fijians fit in all this, they seem to be a different group.
I've run out again.

 

[Van]

The prehistoric landbridge came down from the Malay peninsula through modern Indonesia and across the Timor Sea. Tasmania was at that time also a part of the landmass and Bass Strait (between Melbourne and Devonport) was dry.
I have actually exhausted my knowledge of the background and history of prehistoric Australian Indigenes. I am a modern historian by interest. This is the stuff I picked up in my readings relating to the treatment of Aboriginals by white folks, a truly contentious subject here as no doubt it is with you.
Your earlier guess Gafftaper about the creation of Oceania being a geographer rather than geologer driven concept is probably correct. I had not heard that clims went as far as the Alaskan islands though although I knew that the inclusion of Hawaii was an issue.
The racial mix throughout Oceania is stunning, Indonesia and the Phillipines seem to have a basic racial mix related very closely to SE Asia while Papua New Guinea and the Timorese are yet another group also apparently unrelated to the Australian Aboriginal. The Maori of New Zealand are Polynesian and related to the residents of Tahiti Samoa Tonga and Hawaii but I am not sure where the Fijians fit in all this, they seem to be a different group.
I've run out again.

Hmm Sounds like we might have to start a whole new forum area, "History,Politics & Religion for the Amateur: no fighting allowed" just to satisfy all we could share on these subjects.

 

[cutlunch]

The seventh continent which should be called Oceania, or Australasia consists of the sub continental mass known as Australia and then all the unimportant bits like Tasmania and New Zealand and so on and so on. (As well as being a geologist my wife comes from the undiscovered country known as Tasmania.{She is now scowling at me, I think I am in trouble. Can I get asylum in Melbourne Hughesie.})

As I come from one of your so called "unimportant bits", New Zealand, I am now also scowling at you.

Some recent research suggest the Maori may have a connection to Taiwan.

 

[gafftaper]

Hmm Sounds like we might have to start a whole new forum area, "History,Politics & Religion for the Amateur: no fighting allowed" just to satisfy all we could share on these subjects.

Forget that. This is the most intelligent hijack in the history of the booth. Let it Roll!!

I believe I remember reading somewhere that the first wave of native people were probably fisherman who followed the coast line from somewhere in the neighborhood of Japan.

Another interesting point is that there are ancient statues in South America that have facial features typical to sub Saharan African. They have broader flat noses, more sloping foreheads, round eyes and even braided hair all of which combine to look very African... and not the least bit Native American or Asian. So some speculate there were people who came by boat from Africa to South America LONG ago.

Finally when Louis and Clark first reached Van's Backyard in the Willamette valley they found Native Americans with RED hair. Theory is that Vikings came over explored and merged into native society after 100's of years.

 

[Logos]

As I come from one of your so called "unimportant bits", New Zealand, I am now also scowling at you.
Some recent research suggest the Maori may have a connection to Taiwan.

I was being ironic but never mind.

That is interesting about the Maori. I hadn't heard that. I know we can trace the diaspora of the Polynesians out from Tahiti to Hawaii and I thought also to the land of the long white cloud. Does this mean that all the Polynesian peoples may have come from Taiwan. Pushed out perhaps by proto chinese.

Gafftaper: There was of course Thor Heyerdahl and his reed boat that he crossed the Atlantic in. I'm not talking about Kon Tiki. He suggested that African and Egyptian peoples were able to sail that far and as far as the Norse go we know that they regularly sailed to Vinland from Greenland for timber is there any reason that some of them could have decided to go exploring. Despite their interesting reputation we know that the Vikings were primarily farmers and herdsmen who went out sailing during the winter. Maybe they liked the look of the country and decided to settle. No women, interbreed. Voila red hair. That's how it got to Ireland.

 

[Hughesie]

Tasmania was at that time also a part of the landmass and Bass Strait (between Melbourne and Devonport) was dry


Thank god there is now water

 

[Van]

Well, There are also quite a few statues, and statuettes found in South America that have distinctively "Asian" characteristics. There is also a story from China, of a Court Clerk who was caught in a storm and dissappeared for severals years, upon his eventual return he told a story of a land where gold was extremely plentiful, the people were dark skinned. They Emperor had him executed for lying. Unfortunately "Science" often locks itself into decisions which are simply unfounded. Again the Peidmont Layer in American Anthro-Archeology limits scientists to what I believe is a false assumption that "If an artifact is found in North America and it's found in a layer of earth older than 5k years ago, it is an anomoly." I think there have been enough discoveries over the last few years to poke plenty of holes in that little theory. Besides Kennewick Man, there is Crystal cave Man, and a womans remains that were found somewhere in the mid-north all of which date to well over 5k years ago. < I believe Kennewick Man was dated to at least 9k> Recently there were spear points discovered in North Carolina < I believe> that are exact copies of ones found in Northern Europe and date to the Early Stone age, late Neanderthal period.
I find the "caucasion" facial characteristics of Kennewick Man, the Ainu of Japan, and the Aboriginal peoples of Austrailia to be to coincidental to be genetic drift. I think there was an earlier migration that perhaps sience has missed. I feel the foolish clining to an artificially imposed date at which people moved to certain area, truly limits the potential of human beings. Now to get really wierd I also find it fascinating that all the Pacific Rim peoples have a word for the "lost" continent of Mu, and that that word is consistent theough most of those cultures. It is heartening, however, that more individuals are begining to emerge from modern schools that are much more willing to push those boundaries, and push into areas that might have been considered "outside the norm" just a few years ago.

 

[Hughesie]

wow this became a bit historic for the "new" members section

 

[gafftaper]

Van many of my Professors while I was getting my History Degree 15+ years ago were very comfortable saying that there was a much earlier wave of migration. It's certainly interesting to hear the geologists and archaeologists not agreeing on this. But even in the early 90's it was definitely becoming acceptable to say that there were perhaps several pre-ice age waves of migration from multiple locations.

 

[Logos]

Actually there is quite a wide range of facial charcteristics among the Australian Aboriginals. They tend to range from fairly straight nosed high forehead through too wide nosed with lower forehead. And it's not always the influx of Anglo saxon genetics. Although it's getting harder and harder to find a genuine full blooded australian aboriginal.

 

[Hughesie]

way to factual for the new members area