Healthier times? revisiting indigenous Australian health history

Title: Healthier times? revisiting indigenous Australian health history
Creator: Blyton, Greg
Relation: Health and History Vol. 11, Issue 2, p. 116-135
Relation: http://www.historycooperative.org/hahindex.html
Publisher: Australian and New Zealand Society of the History of Medicine
Resource Type: journal article
Date: 2009
Description: The perception that Indigenous Australians were primitive hunters and gatherers who lived in a nomadic ‘Stone Age’ culture resonates through most narratives found on Indigenous people in pre-colonial times. This narrative is better placed in the realm of myth; I contest claims that the life expectancy of Indigenous Australians was only forty years in pre-colonial times, by providing suggestive evidence that there is a strong probability that longevity favoured Indigenous Australians in comparison to many poorer sectors of the European population living in slum habitats. As well, I will challenge notions that Indigenous Australians were more violent than supposedly ‘civilised’ nations. Finally I express the hope that future researchers will revisit archival sources to develop a more nuanced perspective on the past.
Subject: Indigenous Australians; hunters; gatherers; life expectancy
Identifier: uon:8331
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/917476
Identifier: ISSN:1442-1771
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