Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Simmons
... Just because a man may be naked and illiterate does not mean he makes tools that do not work however simple they appear to us. This Aus club is well balanced, weight and handle form to work smoothly in the hand. If you work with hand tools you know this. When first shown here this club was somewhat ridiculed by those not in the know until I could upload picture of Aus club of the same construction.
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Tim,
This is a very important observation. There are well documented instances when Europeans made first contact with indigenous Australians that the locals would look at European tools and reject them in favor of what they already had. Regardless of the "superiority" of iron or steel tools, they usually chose there own stone ones because the latter served the purposes for which they were made, and the European versions offered no clear advance over what they had and were familiar with using.
Indigenous Australians were no less "smart" than the Europeans who arrived. Their culture had adapted to their environment and had developed tools and weapons appropriate for a range of ecological niches. They had survived in the same manner for more than 50,000 years, gradually improving their technologies over time. Some of them had interactions with other Melanesian groups to the north (Torres Strait islanders, Papua-New Guineans), but there was little diffusion of technologies from outside the continent. For example, indigenous Australians never adopted the bow and arrow, although tribal groups in what is now northern Queensland would have been exposed to that technology through their northern neighbors.
I believe this pattern of adopting what works best for the culture was true for many indigenous groups around the world, if left to their own devices.
Regards, Ian