Australia’s desert Aborigines seem to have been making bread for at least 10,000 years.
Photo by Rusty Stewart.
However the archaeological record shows it only became a common practice about 2,000 years ago.
The latest research shows the key factor here was mobility.
People needing to stay in the same place for weeks at a time to preform ceremonies made bread because they did not have time to travel to new hunting grounds.
Science Network [read this story]
TEXT AND PICTURE BY GEOFF VIVIAN
Click on this image to read the story.
I love to do development stories because most local papers neglect this important area.
What is done with our physical environment affects us all once it is built, and I think it needs to be in the news beforehand.
The former caravan park featured a popular little shop on a beach 21 kilometres from Albany’s town centre.
It was all demolished in the last decade to make way for a resort that never eventuated.
[From The Great Southern Weekender, March 19 2015, p7.]
Photo Chris Langluddecke
The first edge ground stone axes were not invented in Europe.
They appeared in the central Kimberley at least 30,000 years ago.
“The suggestion that all innovation has to come from the Old World is not true because clearly ground-stone axes were created here,” archaeologist Prof Balme says.
She notes that they were also made in Japan at a slightly later date, by people who would have had no contact with either Australian Aborigines or people in Africa and Europe. Continue reading
A MURDOCH University molecular ecologist says “Judas camels” fitted with tracking devices greatly enhance the chances of finding and subsequently culling wild camels (Camelus dromedarius) in Australia’s deserts.
Photo by Jordan Hampton
His conclusions come after a close study of camel behaviour in the wild.
This is only possible in Australia because Arabian camels are technically extinct in their native habitat, Arabia and the Sahara.
Camels don’t spend their lives in the same family group – they constantly leave the groups they are in to socialise and mate with others.
Science Network WA [read this story]
ON your first trip to Bali you can expect to meet hundreds of Indonesians, some who grew up in the street you are in and some from other islands.
You can know a great deal about the people you meet, just by knowing their names.
This is my guide to peoples’ names in Bali.
inBali.org [read this story]
PICTURES BY GEOFF VIVIAN
These pics are not of an out of control bushfire, just a controlled burn in an Albany suburb pleasantly close to nature.
From The Great Southern Weekender March 26 2015
Photo by Geoff Vivian (c) The Great Southern Weekender
Photo by Geoff Vivian (c) The Great Southern Weekender
If you have every harboured the secret wish to study Bali’s traditional arts, this story is for you.
Kristi at the Sacred Monkey Forest. Photo by KiKi
I was lucky enough to catch up with four young people who are living the dream, studying in Bali.
Bali offers courses for all levels of committment: you can sign on for anything from a three-hour session to a PhD.
inBali.org [read this story]
WORDS AND PICTURES BY GEOFF VIVIAN
Goa Gajah is an ancient temple complex with Hindu and Buddhist carvings from Bali’s Bedehulu kingdom.
It is still a place of worship and meditation today.
Visitors are welcome for a small entry fee.
It is located just 4km from Ubud.
inBali.org [read this story]
The Dying Gaul, ancient Roman marble. Photo via University of Texas
Before Julius Caesar became Rome’s emperor, he ruled the province of Gaul.
This involved several wars with Celtic tribes, including the Helvetii who left their home in modern-day Switzerland and tried to invade Gaul.
Archaeologists are testing Caesar’s accounts of their population and strenght with Global Information Systems (GIS) technology and underground imaging techniques.
This story was Science Network WA‘s most read article for 2014. It has been accessed more than 14,000 times.
Indigenous rangers have been working with WA’s department of food and agriculture to eradicate an exotic plant.
Ornamental rubber vine, which first escaped from a garden, is threatening the purple-crowned fairy wren’s habitat.
This story first appeared in Science Network WA on 24 September 2014 [read this story]. The Kimberley Echo republished it on 4 December 2014.