Chapter 16 Chapter 15 Yeli's Clan
While vacationing in Australia one summer with my wife Mary, we decided to visit a well-preserved Aboriginal rock art site in the desert near the town of Menindee.While I've heard that Australian deserts are famous for their dryness and hot summers, I've worked in hot, dry conditions in the California desert and New Guinea savannah for a long time before this, so I think I have enough experience To meet the little challenges we may face while traveling in Australia.With plenty of water to drink, Mary and I set out at noon to hike the several miles of trails leading to the petroglyphs.
The trail we took started from the Hill Patrol station and went up through open country under a cloudless sky.We breathe hot, dry air that reminds us of what it's like to sit in a Finnish sauna and breathe.
By the time we reached the cliff with the petroglyphs, we had run out of water.Our interest in art was gone, so we continued to climb the hill hard, panting slowly and regularly.Soon, I saw a bird that was clearly a Babbler, but much larger than any known.At this time, I realized that for the first time in my life, I was dizzy from the heat and had hallucinations.Mary and I decided it was best to return at once.
The two of us stopped talking.As we walk, we listen to our breath, count the distance to the next milestone, and estimate how much time is left.Our mouths were parched and Mary's face was flushed.When we finally got back to the air-conditioned patrol station, we immediately collapsed into chairs next to the cooler bucket, drank the last half-gallon of water in the cooler bucket, and asked the patrol for another bottle of water.We sat there, exhausted and depressed, and I ruminated on how the indigenous people who painted those petroglyphs managed to spend their entire lives in the desert without air-conditioned shelter, and managed to find not only water, but got food.
To white Australians, Menindi is famous for being the base camp used as a supply base by two white men suffering from the dry heat of the desert more than a century ago.These two white men were the Irish policeman Robert Burke and the English astronomer William Wells, ill-fated leaders of the first expedition to traverse Australia from south to north.Burke and Wells used 6 camels to carry enough food for 3 months when they set out, but they ran out of food in the desert north of Menindi.Three times in a row, the two explorers came across well-fed natives and were rescued by them.Their home was in that desert, and they piled fish, bracken cakes, and roast rats before the two explorers.But then Burke foolishly shot one of the natives with a pistol, and the whole group ran away in terror.Although Burke and Wells had a huge advantage over the natives because of their hunting guns, they starved to death within a month of the natives' departure.
What my wife and I experienced at Menindee, combined with the fate of Burke and Wells, gave me a strong sense of how difficult it is to create a human society in Australia.Australia stands out among all the continents: the differences between Eurasia, Africa, North and South America are insignificant compared with the differences between Australia and any of these other land masses.Australia is the driest, smallest, flattest, barren continent with the most variable climate and the rarest biological diversity.It was the last continent occupied by Europeans.Before European occupation it was already sustaining the most distinctive human society and the smallest population of any continent.
Australia thus provides a decisive test of theories about social differences between continents.It has the most distinctive environment and the most distinctive society.Did the former create the latter?If yes, how?Australia is the logical continent to start our trip around the world with and we will use the experiences described in Part II and Part II of this book to understand the different histories of the continents.
Most laypeople would speak of the apparent "backwardness" of Aboriginal Australian society as its most important feature.Australia is the only continent where the various aboriginal groups still live in modern life without any of the features of so-called civilization--no agriculture, no cattle-breeding, no metal, no bows, no solid houses, no settled villages, There was no writing, no chiefdoms, and no states.Aboriginal Australians are mobile or semi-mobile hunter-gatherers who form groups, live in makeshift dwellings or huts, and still rely on stone tools.Australia has accumulated less cultural change over the past 13,000 years than any other continent.The popular European view of the aborigines of Australia is typified by the words of an early French explorer, who said, "They are the most wretched people in the world, no less than irrational beasts."
However, until 40,000 years ago, Aboriginal Australian societies still had a huge head start over European and other continental societies.Aboriginal Australians invented some of the world's earliest known stone tools with polished edges, the earliest hilted stone tools (that is, stone axes with wooden handles), and the earliest watercraft.Some of the earliest known petroglyphs are also from Australia.Anatomically, modern humans may have settled Australia before settling western Europe.Despite this head start, why did the Europeans eventually conquer Australia and not the other way around?
There is another problem within this question.During the Pleistocene Ice Age, when vast amounts of seawater were enclosed in continental ice sheets, sea levels were much lower than they are today, and the shallow Arafura Sea, which now separates Australia from New Guinea, was then a dry lowland.As the ice sheets melted about 12,000 to 8,000 years ago, sea levels rose, the lowlands were submerged, and the original large Australian continent was divided into two and a half continents, Australia and New Guinea (Figure 15.1).
The human societies on these two land masses that were originally connected together have become very different from each other in modern times.Contrary to everything I have just said about the Aboriginal Australians, most New Guineans, like Yeli's people, were farmers and swineherds.They lived in settled villages, and their administrative organization was tribes, not ethnic groups.All New Guineans had bows and arrows, and many used pottery.New Guineans generally had much stronger dwellings, more seaworthy ships, and a greater number and variety of utensils than Australians.Because New Guineans are food producers, not hunter-gatherers, their average population density is much higher than that of Australians: New Guinea is only one-tenth the size of Australia, but it feeds the local population But several times that of Australia.
Why were human societies on the larger landmass that broke off from Pleistocene Great Australia consistently "backward" in their development, while societies on the smaller landmass "progressed" so much faster?Why didn't all those New Guinea inventions spread to Australia, when the Torres Strait between it and New Guinea is only 90 miles wide?
From a cultural anthropological point of view, the geographical distance between Australia and New Guinea is not even 90 miles, because the Torres Sea Mass is dotted with islands inhabited by people who use bows and arrows and are culturally similar to New Guinea. similar farmers.The largest island in the Torres Strait is just 10 miles from Australia.The islanders traded vigorously not only with the New Guineans but also with the Australian aborigines.How could two worlds with different cultures, separated by a calm strait only ten miles wide, and accessible by canoes, remain as they are?
Compared with the aborigines of Australia, New Guineans can be said to be culturally "advanced".But most other modern humans consider even New Guineans "backward."Before Europeans began colonizing New Guinea in the late 19th century, all New Guineans were nonliterate, still dependent on stone tools, and had not yet formed political states or (with a few exceptions) chiefdoms.Even if the "progress" of the New Guineans surpassed that of the Australian aborigines, why are they still not as "progressive" as many Eurasians, Africans and Indians?The people of Yali and their fellow Australians have come up with a mystery within a mystery.
When many white Australians were asked to explain the "backwardness" of Aboriginal society and culture in Australia, they had a simple answer: probably due to the shortcomings of Aboriginal people themselves.In terms of facial structure and skin color, the Tuying people were certainly different from Europeans, which led some writers in the late 19th century to see them as the missing link between apes and humans.White British immigrants created a literal, food-producing industrial democracy within a few decades of establishing a colony on a continent whose inhabitants, after more than 40,000 years, still lived as hunter-gatherers.Could there be any other explanation for this fact?Most notably, Australia is not only rich in copper, tin, lead and zinc, but also has some of the richest iron and aluminum deposits in the world.So why are Aboriginal Australians still ignorant of metal tools and living in the Stone Age?
It seemed like a completely controlled experiment on human society.The mainland is still the same continent, but the people are different.Therefore, the explanation for the differences between Aboriginal Australian societies and European-Australian societies must be due to the different people who made up the two societies.The logic behind this racist conclusion seems compelling.However, as we shall see, this conclusion involves a simple error.
As a first step in testing this logic, let us examine the origins of the men themselves.Australia and New Guinea have been inhabited at least 40,000 years ago, when they were joined together as Greater Australia.One need only glance at a map (Figure 15.1) to see that the settlers must have finally come from the nearest mainland, Southeast Asia, and proceeded island by island through the Indonesian archipelago to greater Australia.This conclusion is supported by the genetic relationship between modern Australians, New Guineans, and Asians, as well as the surviving few ancestral populations in the Andaman Islands off the coast of what is today the Philippines, the Malay Peninsula, and Burma. A group of similar physical features.
Once these settlers reached the coast of Great Australia, they spread rapidly over the whole continent, occupying even its most remote and inhospitable quarters.Some 40,000-year-old fossils and stone tools confirm their presence in the southwestern corner of Australia; by 35,000 years ago, they reached the east and west corners of Australia and Tasmania, which is Australia. The most distant corner of the landing site (the place closest to Indonesia and Asia); and by 30,000 years ago, they reached the cold plateau region of New Guinea.All of these areas are accessible by land from some landing point in the west.However, by 35,000 years ago, colonization of the Bismarck and Solomon Islands northeast of New Guinea would have required dozens of miles of water.The rate of occupation of greater Australia may have been even more rapid than the apparent spread in some ages from 40,000 to 30,000 years ago, since these different The years make little difference.
In the Pleistocene, when Australia and New Guinea were first inhabited, the Asian continent extended eastward, absorbing the modern islands of Java and Bali, so the distance between the Asian continent and Australia and New Guinea at that time was farther than today’s edge of Southeast Asia to Australia and New Guinea The distance is almost 1000 miles closer.However, to reach Pleistocene Great Australia from Borneo or Bali still had to cross at least eight straits up to 50 miles wide. 40,000 years ago, crossing these straits may have relied on bamboo rafts, a low-tech but seaworthy means of water transportation that is still used today along the South China coast.Nevertheless, crossing the straits must have been difficult in those days, since after the earliest landfall 40,000 years ago, the archaeological record does not provide any convincing evidence for further human arrivals from Asia in the subsequent tens of thousands of years Great Australia.We then have clear evidence that pigs from Asia did not appear in New Guinea and dogs from Asia in Australia until the last few millennia.
Thus, the human societies of Australia and New Guinea developed in substantial isolation from the Asian societies that founded them.This isolation is reflected in the language spoken today.After these thousands of years of isolation, neither the modern Australian Aboriginal languages nor the languages of the major groups in modern New Guinea (so-called Papuan languages) have shown any apparent relationship to any modern Asian language.
This isolation is also reflected in genetic and physical anthropology.Genetic studies have shown that Aboriginal Australians and New Guinea highlanders resemble modern Asians slightly more than they do other continental peoples, although the relationship is not close.The aborigines of Australia and New Guinea also differed from most Southeast Asians in anatomy and physical appearance, and this becomes apparent if photographs of Australians or New Guineans are compared with those of Indonesians or Chinese.Part of the reason for all these differences is that the earliest Asian settlers in Greater Australia parted ways with their fellow Asians at home over an extended period of time, with only limited genetic exchange occurring most of the time.Perhaps a more important reason, however, is that the original ancestors of the great Australian immigrants in Southeast Asia had by this time been largely replaced by other Asians expanding outward from China.
Aborigines of Australia and New Guinea were also differentiated genetically, physically and linguistically.For example, among the major (genetically determined) human blood groups, the so-called B in the ABO system and S in the MNS system, occur in New Guinea as in most other parts of the world, but the two Blood types are almost non-existent in Australia.The thick, curly hair of most New Guineans is distinct from the straight or curly hair of most Australians.The languages of Australia and the Papuan languages of New Guinea are not only not related to Asian languages, but also not related to each other, except that certain words are exchanged in both directions across the Torres Strait.
This differentiation between Australians and New Guineans reflects long-term isolation in very different environments.Since the Arafura Sea finally separated Australia from New Guinea about 10,000 years ago due to rising sea levels, genetic exchange has been limited to rare contacts across a series of islands in the Torres Strait.This allowed the inhabitants of the two half-continents to adapt to their respective environments.While the savannahs and mangroves of coastal southern New Guinea share considerable similarities with those of northern Australia, other habitats of the two semi-continents differ in almost all major respects.
Here are a few different places.New Guinea lies close to the equator, while Australia extends far into the temperate zone, reaching almost 40 degrees south of the equator.Whereas New Guinea is mountainous and extremely rugged, rising to 16,500 feet, with glaciers covering the highest peaks, Australia is mostly low-lying—94 percent of the country is below 2,000 feet.New Guinea is one of the wettest places on Earth, while Australia is one of the driest places on Earth.Most of New Guinea receives 100 inches of annual showers, a large portion of the highlands receives more than 200 inches, and most of Australia receives less than 20 inches of annual rainfall.Whereas New Guinea's equatorial climate has only modest seasonal variations, which vary from year to year, Australia's climate is highly seasonal, varying from year to year, far more variable than any other continental climate.Therefore, the large rivers in New Guinea criss-cross and flow continuously, while Australia's permanent rivers are limited to the eastern region in most years, and even Australia's largest water system (Murray-Darling River system) will stop when drought occurs. Flowed for several months.While most of New Guinea is covered in dense rainforest, most of Australia has only deserts and open, dry woodlands.
New Guinea is covered with fertile soils that have not yet eroded. This is the result of volcanic activity, the repeated advance and retreat of glaciers and erosion of plateaus, and mountain streams that carry large amounts of sediment to the lowlands.Australia, by contrast, has some of the oldest, poorest, and most leached soil of any continent, because it has very little volcanic activity, and no mountains or glaciers.Although the area of New Guinea is only one tenth of Australia's, because New Guinea is located near the equator, with abundant rainfall, uneven terrain and fertile soil, it has become the habitat of almost as many mammals and birds as Australia. place.All these environmental differences have influenced the very different cultural histories of the two half-continents, which we shall now examine.
The earliest and most intensive food production and densest population in Greater Australia occurred in the high valleys of New Guinea at altitudes between 4,000 and 9,000 feet.Archaeological excavations have uncovered not only terraces used to retain soil moisture in drier regions, but also complex drainage systems dating to 9,000 years ago and becoming common by 6,000 years ago.This system of ditches is similar to those still used today in the highlands to drain marshes into gardens.Pollen analysis showed widespread deforestation in the highland valleys by about 5,000 years ago, reminiscent of forest clearing for agriculture.
Today, the main crop in the New Guinea highlands is the recently introduced sweet potato, plus taro, banana, yam, sugar cane, some edible grass stems and several leafy vegetables.Because taro, bananas, and yams are indigenous to Southeast Asia, which is an undisputed site of plant domestication, it has traditionally been assumed that crops in the New Guinea highlands, with the exception of sweet potatoes, came from Asia.However, it was eventually recognized that the wild ancestors of sugar cane, leaf vegetables, and edible grass stems were all New Guinea species, that the wild ancestors of certain species of bananas that grow in New Guinea were in New Guinea rather than in Asia, and that Taro and some yams are native not only to Asia but also to New Guinea.If New Guinea's agriculture had really come from Asia, one might have expected to find unmistakably Asian crops in the highlands, but they did not.For these reasons, it is now generally accepted that agriculture in the New Guinea highlands arose locally through the domestication of wild New Guinea plants.
New Guinea thus became, along with the Fertile Crescent, China, and several other areas, one of the world's centers of origin for the independent domestication of plants.At some archaeological sites no remnants of the crops that were actually grown in the highlands 6,000 years ago have survived.However, this is not surprising, because except in special cases, the main crops in the modern plateau area are the kind of plants that do not leave obvious archaeological traces.It therefore seems likely that some of these plants were also ancestor crops of agriculture in the highlands, especially since the preserved ancient drainage systems are so similar to those used to grow taro today.
The three definitive foreign elements in food production in the New Guinea highlands seen by the earliest European explorers were chickens, pigs, and sweet potatoes.Chickens and pigs were domesticated in Southeast Asia and introduced to New Guinea and most other Pacific islands by Austronesians about 3,600 years ago.These peoples originated from an ethnic group in South China, and we will discuss them in Chapter Seventeen. (The introduction of pigs may have been earlier.) As for the sweet potato, native to South America, it apparently arrived in New Guinea only in the last few centuries, brought to the Philippines by the Spaniards, and from the Philippines to New Guinea.Once transplanted in New Guinea, the sweet potato replaced taro as a staple crop in the highlands because of its shorter time to maturity, higher yields per acre, and greater tolerance to poor soil conditions.
The agricultural development in the highlands of New Guinea must have been triggered by a huge population explosion thousands of years ago, because after the extinction of the original large groups of large marsupials in New Guinea, the highlands could only support hunter-gatherers with a very low population density. people.The introduction of the sweet potato has sparked yet another population explosion in recent centuries.When Europeans first flew over the Highlands in the 1930s, they were amazed to find that the landscape below resembled that of the Netherlands.Broad valleys were cleared of forest, dotted with villages, and the entire valley floor was cleared and fenced in fields for intensive food production.The landscape is evidence of the population densities achieved by stone tool farmers in the highlands.
Steep terrain, year-round cloud cover, malaria prevalence, and the risk of drought at lower altitudes limit agriculture in the New Guinea highlands to altitudes of about 4,000 feet.In fact, the New Guinea plateau area is just an isolated island with a dense agricultural population, with blue sky above and sea of clouds below.Villagers in the lowlands along the river and coast of New Guinea mainly make a living from fishing, while the drylands away from the coast and rivers have a very low population density and rely on slash-and-burn agriculture for their livelihood. They mainly grow bananas and yams, supplemented by hunting and gathering.In contrast, lowland swamp dwellers of New Guinea live an itinerant hunter-gatherer life, subsisting on the starchy pith of wild sago palms, which produce three times more calories in an hour's gathering than cultivated plants .The swamps of New Guinea thus provide a clear example of an environment where people still lived as hunter-gatherers because agriculture could not yet compete with hunter-gatherers.
The lowland swamp subsistence sago palms are a classic example of the mobile hunter-gatherer organization that must have previously characterized New Guinea.For all the reasons we discussed in Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen, farmers and fishermen were the ones who invented more complex technical, social, and political organisations.They live in settled villages and tribal societies, often headed by a great man.Some tribes also had huge, elaborately decorated houses for ceremonies.Their great artistic wooden figures and masks are held in museums all over the world.
In this way, New Guinea became part of Greater Australia, with state-of-the-art technology, social and political organization, and the arts.However, from the point of view of an American or European accustomed to city life, New Guinea was still "primitive", not "advanced".Why are New Guineans still using stone tools instead of developing metal tools, still without writing, and unable to form themselves into chiefdoms and states?It turns out that New Guinea had several biological and geographical factors working against it.
First, while indigenous food production did emerge in the New Guinea highlands, it yielded very little protein, as we saw in Chapter 8.The local staple food is low-protein root crops, and the yields of the only domesticated animals (pigs and chickens) are too low to provide people with significant amounts of protein.Since it was impossible to harness pigs or chickens to pull carts, the inhabitants of the highlands still had no source of power other than the strength of their arms, and they failed to develop epidemic diseases to repel the Europeans who finally invaded.
A second limitation on the population size of the highlands was the limited land available: only a few broad valleys in the New Guinea highlands (most notably the Waji and Balim valleys) could support dense populations.A third limitation is the reality that the middle montane forest zone, between 4,000 feet and 9,000 feet, is the only elevation in New Guinea suitable for intensive food production.There is no food production at all in New Guinea's alpine habitats above 9,000 feet, little on slopes between 4,000 and 1,000 feet, and low-intensity slash-and-burn agriculture in the lowlands.Consequently, large-scale economic exchange of food between societies that specialized in different types of food production at different altitudes never developed in New Guinea.In the Andes, Alps, and Himalayas, this exchange not only provided a more balanced diet to people at all altitudes, thereby increasing the population density of these regions, but also promoted the economic and political integration of the regions.
For all these reasons, the population of traditional New Guinea never exceeded 1 million people until European colonial governments brought Western medicine and put an end to tribal warfare.Of the nine or so earliest centers of agriculture in the world that we discussed in Chapter 5, New Guinea remained the least populous.With a population of only one million, New Guinea could not have invented the kind of technology, writing, and political institutions that arose among tens of millions of people in China, the Fertile Crescent, the Andes, and Central America.
The population of New Guinea is not only small in total, but is also divided into thousands of groups living in specific areas due to the rugged terrain-here is a lot of swamps in the lowlands, alternating steep mountains and mountains in the highlands. Narrow gorges and dense jungle surround the lowlands and plateaus.When I led a team of New Guinea assistants in the field on biological surveys in New Guinea, I thought 3 miles a day was a pretty quick pace, even though we followed existing trails.Residents of the traditional New Guinea highlands never traveled more than 10 miles from their homes in their lives.
These topographical difficulties, combined with the intermittent state of warfare that characterizes relations between New Guinean ethnic groups or villages, illustrate this linguistic, cultural, and political fragmentation of traditional New Guinea.New Guinea has the greatest concentration of languages in the world: 1,000 of the world's 6,000 languages are packed into an area only slightly larger than the state of Texas, divided into dozens of language families and some mutually exclusive languages as different as English and Chinese. independent language.Almost half of all New Guinea languages have fewer than 500 speakers, and even the largest cohesive groups (still only 100,000 speakers) are politically divided into hundreds of villages, Fight viciously, just as you would fight with someone who speaks another language.Each of these small societies was too small in itself to support chiefs and specialized craftsmen, or to invent metallurgy and writing.
In addition to a small and dispersed population, another constraint on New Guinea's development was its geographical isolation, which prevented the flow of technology and ideas from elsewhere into New Guinea.New Guinea's three neighbors were all separated from New Guinea by ravines flowing through them, and until a few thousand years ago these neighbors were even more technologically advanced and food producing than New Guinea (especially the highlands of New Guinea) Still lagging behind.Of these 3 neighbors, the Australian aborigines were still hunter-gatherers, providing almost everything that the New Guineans did not have.New Guinea's second neighbors are the much smaller Bismarck and Solomon Islands to the east.New Guinea's third neighbor is the islands in eastern Indonesia.But the region has also been a culturally backward area occupied by hunter-gatherers for most of its history.From the time when New Guinea was first settled more than 40,000 years ago, until the expansion of Austronesian people around 1600 BC, nothing can be confirmed to New Guinea via Indonesia.
With this expansion, Indonesia was taken over by food producers from Asia, who brought livestock, farming and technology at least as sophisticated as New Guinea's, and New Guinea's seamanship was a much more efficient means.Austronesians settled on some of the islands to the west, north, and east of New Guinea, and further westward, on the northern and southeastern coasts of mainland New Guinea.Austronesians introduced pottery, chickens, and possibly dogs and pigs to New Guinea. (Earlier archaeological surveys had announced the discovery of pig bones in the New Guinea highlands no later than 4000 B.C., though these claims have remained unconfirmed.) For at least the past few millennia, trade has linked New Guinea with the The much more technologically advanced Javanese and Chinese societies were linked.In exchange for exporting bird-of-paradise feathers and spices, New Guineans received goods from Southeast Asia, which even included luxuries such as bronze drums and Chinese porcelain.
In time, this Austronesian expansion will surely have a greater impact on New Guinea.Western New Guinea may have ended up being politically incorporated into the territory of Sudan in eastern Indonesia, and metal tools may have been introduced to New Guinea through eastern Indonesia.But this did not happen until AD 1511, when the Portuguese arrived, shortening the sequence of stages of Indonesian development.Shortly thereafter, when Europeans arrived in New Guinea, the local population still lived in groups, or small, isolated villages, and still used stone tools.
While the New Guinea semi-continent of greater Australia has thus developed livestock and agriculture, the Australian semi-continent has not developed either.During the Ice Age, Australia had even more marsupials than New Guinea, including marsupials (the marsupial equivalent of ox and rhinoceros), wallabies and hairy-nosed wombats.But all those marsupials that would have been available for husbandry were lost in the wave of extinctions that came with humans moving back to Australia.This left Australia, like New Guinea, without any native mammals that could be domesticated.The only exotic domesticated mammal adopted in Australia was the dog, which was introduced from Asia around 1500 BC (presumably in Austronesian canoes) and colonized the Australian wilderness to become into Australian dingoes.Australian natives captured and bred wild dogs, using them as companions, watchdogs, and even as living blankets, hence the phrase "five dog's night" to describe the cold nights.But they did not use dingoes/dogs as food like the Polynesians, nor did they use them as hunting aids like the New Guineans.
Agriculture is another dead end in Australia, which is not only the driest continent but also the poorest.In addition, Australia has one aspect, which is unique, in that the overriding influence on the climate over most of the continent is an irregular, non-annual cycle—the ENSO phenomenon (ENSO is "El Niño"). An acronym for moving southward), rather than the regular annual cycle of seasons familiar to most other parts of the world.Severe and unpredictable droughts last for several years, followed by equally unpredictable downpours and flooding.Even with today's European crops and the trucks and rails used to transport produce, food production remains a risky business in Australia.During good years, herds proliferate, and when droughts occur, they die off.Some of Australia's early Aboriginal farmers may have encountered a similar cycle.In good years they settled down in the village, planted crops, and had children, but in dry years this vast population died of starvation, for that little land could support more than that. Much fewer people.
Another major obstacle to developing food production in Australia is the lack of wild plants that can be domesticated.Even modern European plant geneticists have bred no crops other than macadamias from native Australian wild plants.在世界上潜在的最佳谷物——籽粒最重的56种禾本科植物——的名单中，只有两种出产在澳大利亚，而且这两种又几乎位居名单的最后（粒重仅为13毫克，而世界上其他地方最重籽粒的重量可达40毫克）。这并不是说，澳大利亚根本就没有任何潜在的作物，也不是说澳大利亚土著从未发展出本地的粮食生产。有些植物，如某些品种的薯蓣、芋艿和竹芋，是在新几内亚南部栽培的，但在澳大利亚北部也有野生的，是那里土著的采集对象。我们将要看到，在澳大利亚气候条件极其有利的地区，土著在沿着最终可能导致粮食生产的方向演进。但任何在澳大利亚本地出现的粮食生产，都可能会由于可驯化的动植物的缺乏以及土壤贫瘠和气候恶劣而受到限制。
流浪的生活、狩猎采集的生活方式以及对住所和财物的最小的投资，是因受澳大利亚厄尔尼诺南移影响而无法预知可以得到何种资源时的明智的适应行为。在当地条件恶化时，土著居民只是迁往一个暂时条件较好的地区。他们不是依赖几种可能歉收的作物，而是在丰富多样的野生食物的基础上发展经济，从而把风险减少到最低限度，因为所有这些野生食物不可能同时告乏。他们不是使人口在超过资源时挨饿而发生波动，而是维持较少的人口，这样在丰年时固然有丰富的食物可以享用，而在歉收时也不致有饥馁之虞。
澳大利亚土著居民用来代替粮食生产的是所谓的“火耕农业”。土著居民把周围的土地加以改造和整治，以提高可食用植物和动物的产量，而不用借助栽培和养殖。特别是，他们有意识地把周围很大一部分土地放火焚烧。这样做可以达到几个目的：火把立即可以杀来吃的动物赶出来；火把茂密的植丛变成了人们可以更容易通行的稀树草原；稀树草原也是澳大利亚主要的猎物袋鼠的理想的栖息地；火还促使袋鼠吃的嫩草和土著居民自己吃的蕨根的生长。
我们把澳大利亚土著看作是沙漠居民，但他们中的大多数不是这样的人。他们的人口密度随雨量的变化而变化（因为雨量决定着陆地野生动植物食物的产量），也随着江河湖海水产的丰富程度的不同而有所不同。土著人口密度最高的，是在最潮湿的、物产最丰富的地区：东南部的墨累—达令河水系、东部和北部海岸和西南角。这些地区也开始养活了现代澳大利亚人口最稠密的欧洲移民。我们所以把土著看作是沙漠居民是因为欧洲人或者把他们杀死，或者把他们从最合意的地区赶走，这样，最后的完好无损的土著人群体也只有在那些欧洲人不愿去的地区才能找到了。
在过去5000年内，在那些物产丰富的地区中，有些地区发生了土著强化食物采集方法和土著人口密度增加的现象。在澳大利亚东部发明了一些技术，用滤掉毒素或使毒素发酵的办法，使大量的含有淀粉然而毒性极强的铁树种子变得可以食用。澳大利亚东南部以前未得到开发的高原地区，开始有土著在夏季经常来光顾，他们不但饱餐铁树的坚果和薯蓣，而且还大吃特吃大群潜伏不动的移栖飞蛾，这种蛾子叫做博贡蛾，烤了吃有炒栗子的味道。另一种逐步形成的强化了的食物采集活动，是墨累—达令河水系的鳗鲡养殖，这里沼泽中的水位随着季节性的雨量而涨落。当地的澳大利亚人修建了长达一英里半的复杂的沟渠系统，使鳗鲡的游动范围从一个沼泽扩大到另一个沼泽。捕捉鳗鲡用的是同样复杂的鱼梁、安故在尽头边沟上的渔栅和在墙洞里故上鱼网的垒在沟渠上的石墙。在沼泽中按不同水位安放的渔栅随着水位的涨落而发生作用。虽然当初修建这样的“养鱼场”必然是一项巨大的工程，但它们以后却养活了许多人。19世纪的一些欧洲观察者在鳗鲡养殖场旁边发现了由十几间土著的房屋组成的村庄，一些考古遗迹表明，有些村庄竟有多达146间的石屋，可见这些村庄的季节性居民至少有几百人之多。
澳大利亚东部和北部的另一项发展，是收获野生黍子的籽实，这是与中国早期农业的一种主要作物蜀黍同属的一种植物。黍子用石刀收割，堆成了垛，用摔打来脱粒教，然后贮藏在皮袋或木盘里，最后用磨石磨碎。在这过程中使用的几种工具，如石头镰刀和磨石，类似于新月沃地为加工其他野生禾本科植物的种子而独立发明出来的那些工具。在澳大利亚土著所有的获取食物的方法中，收获黍子也许是最有可能最终演化为作物种植的一种方法。
同过去5000年中强化食物采集一起产生的，是一些新型的工具。小型的石片和三角石刀若按重量计算，每磅石器所提供的锋刃长度大于被它们所取代的大型石器。锋刃经过打磨的短柄石斧，一度在澳大利亚只有局部地区才有，这时已变得普遍了。在过去的几千年中，贝壳做的渔钩也出现了。
为什么澳大利亚没有发展出金属工具、文字和复杂政治结构的社会？一个主要的原因是那里的土著仍然以狩猎采集为生，而我们已在第十二到第十四章看到，这些发展在别处只有在人口众多、经济专业化的粮食生产者社会里出现。此外，澳大利亚的干旱、贫瘠和气候变化无常，使它的狩猎采集人口只能有几十万人。同古代中国或中美洲的几千万人相比，那意味着澳大利亚潜在的发明者要少得多，采用借助新发明来进行试验的社会也少得多。它的几十万人也没有组成关系密切相互影响的社会。土著的澳大利亚是由一片人口十分稀少的沙漠组成的，沙漠把它分闲成几个物产比较丰富的生态“孤岛”，每一个这样的孤立地区只容纳这个大陆的一小部分人口，而且地区与地区之间的相互影响也由于间隔着的距离而减弱了。甚至在这个大陆东侧相对湿润和肥沃的地区内，社会之间的交流也由于从东北部的昆士兰热带雨林到东南部的维多利亚温带雨林之间的1900英里距离而受到了限制，这个距离无论在地理上还是在生态上都相当于从洛杉矾到阿拉斯加的距离。
在澳大利亚，地区性的或整个大陆的某些明显的退步现象，可能是由于它的一些人口中心与世隔绝和居民相对稀少所致。回飞镖是典型的澳大利亚武器，但却在澳大利亚东北部的约克角半岛被弃置不用。欧洲人碰到的澳大利亚西南部土著不吃有壳的水生动物。澳大利亚考古遗址中出现的大约5000年前的那种小型三角石刀究竟有什么用途，还仍然难以确定。虽然有一种方便的解释认为，它们可能被用作矛头和箭头倒钩，人们猜想它们和世界上其他地方用在箭上的三角石刀和箭头倒钩是同样的东西。如果这就是它们的用途，那么现代新几内亚有弓箭而澳大利亚却没有弓箭这个谜就更加难解了。也许在整个澳大利亚大陆曾经有—阵子采用过弓箭，但后来又放弃了。所有这些例子使我们想起了日本放弃过枪支，波利尼西亚大部分地区放弃过弓箭和陶器，以及其他一些与世隔绝的社会放弃过其他一些技术（第十二章）。
澳大利亚地区最大的技术损失发生于澳大利亚东南部海岸外130英里的塔斯马尼亚岛。今天的塔斯马尼亚岛与澳大利亚之间浅水的巴斯海峡，在更新世海平面低的那个时候还是干燥的陆地，居住在塔斯马尼亚岛上的人是先后分布在整个扩大了的澳大利亚的人口的一部分。当巴斯海峡在大约1万年前终于被海水淹没时，塔斯马尼亚人和澳大利亚太陆人之间的联系中断了，因为这两个群体都没有能够顺利渡过巴斯海峡的水运工具。从那以后，塔斯马尼亚岛上4000个以狞猎采集为生的人就失去了同地球上所有其他人类的联系，而生活在只有从科幻小说才能读到的一种与世隔绝的状态之中。
塔斯马尼亚人终于在公元1642年接触到了欧洲人，那时他们只是世界上物质文化最简单的民族。他们同大陆上的土著—样，也是没有金属工具的以狩猎采集为生的人。但他们也缺乏在大陆上已很普遍的许多技术和人工制品，包括有倒钩的矛、各种骨器、回飞镖、打磨的石器、有柄的石器、鱼钩、鱼网、有叉尖的矛、渔栅，以及捕鱼和吃鱼、缝纫和生火的习俗。在这些技术中，有些可能只是在塔斯马尼亚与大陆隔绝后引进大陆的，或者可能就是在大陆发明的。根据这种情况，我们可以断定，塔斯马尼亚的极少的人们并没有为自己独立地发明了这些技术。这些技术中还有一些是在塔斯马尼亚仍是澳大利亚大陆一部分的时候被带到塔斯马尼亚来的，不过随后又在塔斯马尼亚的文化孤立中失去了。例如，塔斯马尼亚的考古记录用文献证明了在公元前1500年左右渔场消失了，骨钻、骨针和其他骨器也消失了。至少还有3个较小的岛（弗林德斯岛、坎加鲁岛和金岛）在大约1万年前由于海平面上升而脱离了澳大利亚或塔斯马尼亚，在这3个岛上，原来可能有大约200人到400人的人口已全部灭绝了。
因此，塔斯马尼亚和这3个较小的岛屿，以极端的形式证明了一个对世界史具有广泛的潜在意义的结论。只有几百人的群体在完全与世隔绝的状态下是不可能无限期地生存下去的。一个有4000人的群体能够生存1万年，但在文化上要失去相当多的东西，同时也引人注目地没有什么发明创造，剩下的只是一种无比简单的文化。澳大利亚大陆上的30万以狩猎采集为生的人，在数目上比塔斯马尼亚人多，也不像塔斯马尼亚人那样与世隔绝，但它的人口仍然是各大陆中最少的，也是各大陆中最与世隔绝的。关于澳大利亚大陆有文献证明的技术退步的例子和关于塔斯马尼亚的这个例子表明，同其他各大陆民族的全部业绩相比，澳大利亚本地人的有限业绩，可能一部分来自与世隔绝状态和由于人口太少而对技术的发展与保持所产生的影响——就像对塔斯马尼亚所产生的那些影响一样，只是影响的程度没有那么大罢了。不言而喻，这种影响可能就是最大的大陆（欧亚大陆）与依次较小的大陆（非洲、北美洲和南美洲）之间在技术上产生差异的原因。
为什么较先进的技术没有从邻近的印度尼西亚和新几内亚传入澳大利亚？就印度尼西亚而言，它与澳大利亚西北部隔着大海，生态环境差异很大。此外，直到几千年前，印度尼西亚本身也是—个文化和技术落后地区。没有任何证据可以证明，从4万年前澳大利亚最早有人定居时起到公元前1500年左右澳洲野犬出现时止，有任何新技术或动植物新品种是从印度尼西亚传入澳大利亚的。
澳洲野犬在南岛人对外扩张的极盛时期从中国华南通过印度尼西亚传入澳大利亚。南岛人成功地在印度尼西亚各个岛屿定居下来，其中包括离澳大利亚最近的两个岛屿——帝汶岛和丹宁巴群岛（分别距离现代澳大利亚仅为275英里和36英里）。由于南岛人在其横渡太平洋进行扩张的过程中走过了非常远的海上距离，因此我们可能不得不假定他们曾多次到过澳大利亚，即使我们没有澳洲野犬这个证据来证明这一点。在历史上，每年都有一些张帆行驶的独木舟从印度尼西亚的苏拉威西岛（西里伯斯岛）的望加锡地区到澳大利亚西北部来访问，直到澳大利亚政府于1907年禁止了这种造访。考古证据表明，这种访问可以追溯到公元1000年左右，很有可能更早。这些访问的主要目的是要得到海参。海参是海星的亲缘动物，作为一种著名的催欲剂和珍贵的汤料从望加锡出口到中国。
当然，在望加锡人一年一度的访问期间发展起来的贸易，在澳大利亚西北部留下了许多遗产。望加锡人在他们的海岸营地种下了罗望子树，并同土著妇女生儿育女。布、金属工具、陶器和玻璃带来作为贸易物品，然而土营居民却没有学会自己来制造这些物品。土著居民从望加锡人那里学到了一些外来词、一些礼仪以及使用张帆行驶的独木舟和用烟斗吸烟的习俗。
但这些影响都没有能改变澳大利亚社会的基本特点。由于望加锡人的到来，一些事情发生了，但更为重要的却是没有发生的事。这就是望加锡人没有在澳大利亚定居下来——这无疑是因为印度尼西亚对面的澳大利亚西北部地区过于干旱，不适于发展望加锡的农业。如果印度尼西亚的对面是澳大利亚东北部的热带雨林或热带草原，望加锡人可能已定居下来了，但没有证据表明他们到过那么远的地方。既然只有很少的望加锡人到这里来作短暂停留而从未深入内陆腹地，他们所能接触到的就只有生活在沿海一小片地区的几个澳大利亚人群体。甚至这少数澳大利亚人也只是看到一小部分的望加锡文化和技术，而不是一个有稻田、猪、村庄和作坊的全面的望加锡社会。由于澳大利亚人仍然是四处流浪的以狩猎采集为生的人，他们所得到的就只有那几种适合他们的生活方式的望加锡产品和习俗。张帆行驶的独木舟和烟斗，得到了；锻铁炉和猪，没有得到。
比澳大利亚人抵制印度尼西亚的影响显然更加令人惊异的是他们抵制新几内亚的影响。说新几内亚语并且有猪、有陶器和弓箭的新几内亚农民，在叫做托雷斯海峡的一衣带水的对面就是说澳大利亚语、没有猪、没有陶器和弓箭的澳大利亚狩猎采集族群。而且，托雷斯海峡不是一道水面开阔的天然屏障，而是星里点点地散布着一系列岛屿，其中最大的一个岛（穆拉勒格岛）距离澳大利亚海岸不过10英里之遥。澳大利亚和这些岛屿之间以及这些岛屿和新几内亚之间都有经常的贸易往来。许多土著妇女嫁到了穆拉勒格岛，她们在岛上看到了园圃和弓箭。新几内亚的这些特点竞没有传到澳大利亚来，这是怎么一回事呢？
托雷斯海峡的这种文化障碍之所以令人惊讶，仅仅是因为我们可能错误地使自己构想了澳大利亚海岸外10英里处的一个有集约型农业和猪的成熟的新儿内亚社会。事实上，约克角土著从未见过任何一个大陆新几内亚人。不过，在新几内亚与离它最近的岛屿之间、然后在这些岛屿与托雷斯海快中途的马布伊格岛之间、再后在巴社岛与穆拉勒格岛之间、最后又在穆拉勒格岛与约克角之间，都有贸易关系。
沿着这个岛群向前，新几内亚的社会就显得每况愈下。在这些岛上猪很少或者根本没有。沿托雷斯海峡的新几内亚南部低地居民不从事新几内亚高原地区的那种集约型农业，而是刀耕火种，主要靠海产、打猎和采集为生。甚至这种刀耕火种的习惯，从新几内亚南部沿着这个岛群到澳大利亚，也变得越来越不重要了。离澳大利亚最近的穆拉勒格岛本身也因干旱而不适于农业，所以只能养活很少的人口，而这些人主要靠海产、野生薯蓣和红树果子来维持生存。
因此，新几内亚和澳大利亚隔着托雷斯海峡的相互联系使人想起了小孩子的传话游戏：孩子们坐成一圈，一个孩子凑着第二个孩子的耳朵把一个词轻轻地说给他听，第二个孩子又把他认为他听到的那个词轻轻地说给第三个孩子听，这样，最后一个孩子最后轻轻地再说给第一个孩子听的那词就同原来的那个词毫不相干。同样，沿托雷斯海峡话岛进行的贸易也是一种传话游戏，最后到了约克角土著手中的是一种与新几内亚社会完全不同的东西。此外，我们也不应把穆拉勒格岛民同约克角土著之间的关系想像成一种从未间断的友好聚餐，土著迫边不及待地从海岛老师那里汲取文化。实际上，贸易和战争交替进行，而战争的目的则是割取敌人的首级做战利品和把女人捉来做老婆。
尽管新几内亚文化由于距离和战争而受到了削弱，但新几内亚的某种影响还是到达了澳大利亚。通婚给约克角半岛南部带来了某些新几内亚体貌特征，如卷发而不是直发。约克角的4种语言有澳大利亚罕见的音素，这可能是由于受到新几内亚一些语言的影响。传进来的最重要的东西中，有澳大利亚内陆普遍使用的新几内业贝壳鱼钩，还有在约克角半岛南部流行的带有舷外浮材的新几内亚独木舟。新几内亚的鼓、举行仪式时戴的面具、葬礼柱和烟斗，也在约克角被采用了。但约克角的土著并没有采用农业，这一部分是因为他们在穆拉勒格所看到的农业已经微不足道了。他们也没有选择养猪，因为在那些岛上猪很少或者报本没有，也因为无论如何没有农业就不可能养猪。他们也没有采用弓箭，而是仍然使用他们的长矛和掷矛器。
澳大利亚很大，新几内亚也很大。但这两个巨大陆块之间的接触，只限于几小批只有很少新几内亚文化的托雷斯海峡岛民与几小批约克角土著的相互影响。约克角土著群体不管出于什么原因而决定使用长矛而不使用弓箭，以及不采纳他们所看到的已经削弱了的新几内亚文化的某些其他特点，从而妨碍了新几内亚这些文化特点向澳大利亚其余所有地区的传播。结果，除了贝壳鱼钩，再没有任何其他新几内亚文化特点传播到澳大利亚腹地了。如果新几内亚气候凉爽的高原地区的几十万农民与澳大利亚东南部气候凉爽的高原地区的土著有过密切的接触，那么，集约型粮食生产和新几内亚文化向澳大利亚的大规模传播就可能接踵而来。但新几内亚高原地区同澳大利亚高原地区之间隔着2000英里的生态环境差异很大的地带。就澳大利亚能有多少机会看到并采用新几内亚高原地区的做法这一点来说，新几内亚高原地区不妨说就是月亮里的山。
总之，虽然澳大利亚石器时代的四处流浪的狩猎采集族群与石器时代的新几内亚农民及铁器时代的印度尼西亚农民都有过贸易往来，但他们始终保持自己的生活方式不变，这初看起来似乎是表明了澳大利亚土著出奇的顽固不化。但更进一步的考察就可发现，这不过是反映了地理条件在人类文化和技术传播中的无处不在的作用。
我们仍然需要考虑一下新几内亚和澳大利亚石器时代的社会同铁器时代的欧洲人相遭遇的情况。1526年，一个葡萄牙航海家“发现了”新几内亚；1828年，荷兰宣布对它的西半部拥有主权；1884年，英国和德国瓜分了它的东半部。第一批欧洲人在海岸地区定居下来，他们花了很长时间才深入内陆，但到1960年，欧洲人的政府已经对新几内亚的大部分地区建立了政治控制。
欧洲人到新几内亚去殖民，而不是新几内亚人到欧洲来殖民，其原因是显而易见的。欧洲人有远洋船只和罗盘，可以用来帮助他们前往新几内亚；他们有书写系统和印刷机，可以用来印刷地图、描述性的报告和有助于建立对新几内亚的控制的行政文书；他们有政治机构，可以用来组织船只、士兵和行政管理；他们还有枪炮，可以用来向以弓箭和棍棒进行抵抗的新几内亚人射击。然而，欧洲移民的人数始终很少，今天新几内亚的人口仍然以新几内亚人为主。这同澳大利亚、美洲和南非的情况形成了鲜明的对比，因为在那些地方，欧洲人的殖民地数量多、时间久，在广大地区内取代了原来的土著人口。为什么新几内亚却不同呢？
一个主要的因素在19世纪80年代之前挫败了所有欧洲人想要在新几内亚低地地区定居的企图：这个因素就是疟疾和其他热带疾病，虽然其中没有一种是第十一章讨论的那种急性群众性流行传染病。在这些未能实现的对低地地区殖民的计划中，最雄心勃勃的计划是法国侯爵德雷伊于1880年左右在附近的新爱尔兰岛组织的，结果1000个殖民者在不到3年的时间里死掉了930人。即使在今天能够得到现代医药治疗的情况下，我的许多美国朋友和欧洲朋友还是由于疟疾、肝炎和其他疾病而被迫离开，而新几内亚留给我个人的健康遗产则是我得了一年的疟疾和一年的痢疾。
在欧洲人正在被新几内亚低地地区的病菌击倒的时候，为什么欧亚大陆的病菌没有同时击倒新几内亚人？有些新几内亚人的确受到了传染，但并没有达到杀死澳大利亚和美洲大多数土著那样大的规模。对新几内亚人来说，幸运的是在19世纪80年代前新几内亚没有永久性的欧洲人殖民地，而到了这个时候，公共卫生方面的发现已经在控制欧洲人口中的天花和其他传染病方面取得了进展。此外，南岛人的扩张在3500年中已经把一批又一批的印度尼西亚的移民和商人带到了新几内亚。由于亚洲大陆的一些传染病已在印度尼西亚滋生繁衍，新几内亚人因此而长期地接触到这些疾病，所以逐渐形成了比澳大利亚土著多得多的抵抗力。
在新几内亚，欧洲人不为严重的健康问题而苦恼的唯一地区，是超过发生疟疾的最大海拔高度的高原地区。但高原地区已为人口稠密的新几内亚人所占据，欧洲人直到20世纪30年代才到达这里。到这时，澳大利亚政府和荷兰殖民政府不再愿意像以前几个世纪欧洲殖民主义时期那样，通过大批杀死土著族群或把他们赶出他们的土地，来开放土地供建立白人殖民地之用。
对想要成为移民的欧洲人来说，剩下的一个障碍是，在新几内亚的环境和气候条件下，欧洲的作物、牲口和生存方法没有一个地方取得成功。虽然引进的美洲热带作物如南瓜、玉米和马铃薯现在已有少量种植，茶和咖啡种植园也已在巴布亚新几内亚高原地区建立起来，但欧洲的主要作物如小麦、大麦和豌豆一直未能占主导地位。引进的牛和山羊也是少量饲养，它们同欧洲人一样，也为一些热带疾病所折磨。在新几内亚的粮食生产中占主导地位的仍是新几内亚人在过去几千年中予以完善的那些作物和农业方法。
所有这些疾病、崎岖的地形和生存问题，是使欧洲人离开新几内亚东部（现在的独立国家巴布亚新几内亚）的部分原因，这个地区为新几内亚人所占有和管理，不过他们却把英语作为他们的官方语言，用英语字母书写，生活在以英国为模本的民主政治制度之下，并使用在海外生产的枪炮。在新几内亚西部结果就不一样，印度尼西亚于1963年从荷兰人手中接管了这个地区，并被更名为伊里安查亚省。这个省现在为印度尼西亚人治理和享有。它的农村人口的绝大多数仍是新几内亚人，但由于政府鼓励印度尼西亚移民的政策，它的城市人口是印度尼西亚人。由于长期接触疟疾和其他一些与新几内亚人共有的热带疾病，印度尼西亚人没有像欧洲人那样碰到了一道强大的病菌障碍。对于在新几内亚生存问题，他们也比欧洲人有更充分的思想推备，因为印度尼西亚的农业已经包括香蕉、甘薯和其他一些新几内亚农业的主要作物。伊里安查亚省正在发生的变革，代表了在中央政府的全力支持下继续进行3500年前开始到达新几内亚的南岛人的扩张。印度尼西亚人就是现代的南岛人。
欧洲人在澳大利亚殖民，而不是澳大利亚土著在欧洲殖民，其原因同我们刚才在新几内亚这个例子上看到的一样。然而，新几内亚人和澳大利亚土著的命运却是不同的。今天的澳大利亚为2000万非土著所居住和管理，他们大多数都是欧洲人的后裔，同时由于澳大利亚于1973年放弃了先前的白人澳大利亚的移民政策，有越来越多的亚洲人来到了澳大利亚。土著人口减少了万分之八十，从欧洲殖民地时代的30万人左右下降到1921年最低点6万人。今天的土著构成了澳大利亚社会的最底层。他们有许多人住在布道站或政府保留地里，或者为白人放牧而住在畜牧站里。为什么土著的境况比新几内亚人差得这么多？
根本的原因是澳大利亚适于（在某些地区）欧洲人发展粮食生产和定居，再加上欧洲人的枪炮、病菌和钢铁在消灭土著中所起的作用。虽然我已着重指出了澳大利亚的气候和土壤所造成的种种不利之处，但它的一些最富饶或最肥沃的地区仍然有利于欧洲的农业。现在在澳大利亚温带农业中占主导地位的，是欧亚大陆温带的土要作物小麦（澳大利亚的主要作物）、大麦、燕麦、苹果和葡萄，再加上原产非洲萨赫勒地带的高梁和棉花以及原产安第斯山脉的马铃薯。澳大利亚东北部热带地区（昆士兰）已超出了新月沃地作物的最佳生长范围，来自欧洲的农民在这些地区引进原产新几内亚的甘蔗、原产热带东南亚的香蕉和柑橘和原产热带南美的花生。至于牲口，欧亚大陆的绵羊使粮食生产扩大到澳大利亚的不适于农业的贫瘠地区成为可能，而欧亚大陆的牛则成为较湿润地区饲养的牲口之一。
因此，澳大利亚粮食生产的发展必须等待非本地作物和牲口的引进，这些作物和牲口是在世界上气候相似的地区驯化的，而这些地方过于遥远，如果没有越洋船只的运输，那里的驯化动植物是到不了澳大利亚的。和新几内亚不同，澳大利亚大部分地区都没有严重到可以令欧洲人望而却步的疾病。只有在热带的澳大利亚北部，疟疾和其他热带疾病迫使欧洲人在19世纪放弃了他们建立殖民地的企图，只有随着20世纪医药的发展，这种企图才得以实现。
当然，澳大利亚土著是欧洲人发展粮食生产的障碍，尤其是因为可能是最富饶的农田和产奶地区当初曾养活澳大利亚土著中人口最稠密的狩猎采集族群。欧洲人的拓殖用两种办法减少了土著的人数。一个办法就是开枪把他们打死，在19世纪和18世纪晚些时候，欧洲人认为这是一种可以接受的选择，到20世纪30年代他们进入新几内亚高原地区时，他们就很少这样考虑了。最后一次大规模的屠杀于1928年发生在艾利斯斯普林斯，共杀死了31个土著。另一个办法就是欧洲人引进的病菌，对这些病菌土著居民还没有机会获得免疫力或形成自然的抵抗力。1778年，第一批欧洲移民到达悉尼，不到一年，死于流行病的土著居民的尸体便随处可见。有案可查的主要的致命疾病有天花、流行性感冒、麻疹、伤寒、斑疹伤寒、水痘、百日咳、肺结核和梅毒。
在所有适于欧洲人发展粮食生产的地区，独立的土著社会就被用这两种办法消灭了。唯一的或多或少完好无损地幸存下来的社会，是对欧洲人无用的澳大利亚北部和西部地区的社会。在欧洲人殖民的—个世纪内，有4万年历史的土著传统基本上被消灭殆尽。
现在我们可以回到我在本章开始后不久提出的那个问题了。英国白人殖民者在对一个大陆进行殖民的几十年时间内创造了一个有文字的、从事粮食生产的工业民主，而这个大陆上的居民在经过了4万多年之后仍然过着四处流浪的狩猎采集生活。除了假定土著本身的种种缺点，我们怎样才能对这个事实作出解释呢？这是否就是对人类社会演化的一个完全的对照实验，使我们不得不接受一种简单的种族主义的结论？
对这个问题的解答很简单。英国白人殖民者并没有在澳大利亚创造出一个有文字的、从事粮食生产的工业民主。他们不过是把所有这些成分从澳大利亚以外的地入引进罢了。这些成分包括家畜、各种作物（澳洲坚果除外）、冶金知识、蒸汽机、枪炮、字母、政治机构、甚至病菌。所有这些都是在欧亚大陆环境下1万年发展的最后产物。由于地理的偶然因素，1788年在悉尼登陆的那些殖民者继承了这些成分。欧洲人从来没有学会在没有他们所继承的欧亚大陆技术的情况下如何在澳大利亚或新几内亚生存。罗伯特·伯克和威廉·威尔斯聪明得能学会写字，但要在土著生活的澳大利亚沙漠生存下去，他们的聪明就不够用了。
在澳大利亚创造社会的人是澳大利亚的土著。当然，他们所创造的社会不是一个有文字的、从事农业生产的工业民主的社会。其原因是由澳大利亚的环境特点直接造成的。
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Notes: