Aboriginal Dreaming Paths and Trading Routes
The Colonisation of the Australian Economic Landscape

Highlights the valuable contribution Aboriginal people made in assisting European explorers, surveyors and stockmen to open the country for colonisation, and explores the interface between Aboriginal possession of the Australian continent and European colonisation and appropriation.

Dale Kerwin provides a social science context for the broader study of Aboriginal trading routes by providing an historic interpretation of the Aboriginal/European contact period. His book scrutinises arguments about nomadic and primitive societies, as well as Romantic views of culture and affluence. These circumstances and outcomes are juxtaposed with evidence that indicates that Aboriginal societies are substantially sedentary and highly developed, capable of functional differentiation and foresight - attributes previously only granted to the European settlers. The hunter-gatherer image of Aboriginal society is rejected by providing evidence of crop cultivation and land management, as well as social arrangements that made best use of a hostile environment. This book is essential reading for all those who seek to have a better knowledge of Australia and its first people: it inscribes Aboriginal people firmly in the body of Australian history.

Common Sense &
Common Nonsense
Coming of the Aliens
Only the Learned Can Read
Maps, Travel &
Trade as a Cultural Process
To Travel is to Learn
Misrepresentation of the Grand Narrative -- 'Walk Softly on the Landscape'
Bibliography
Index.