Drawing from the accounts of early explorers, Bruce asks whether Australia's first people were really 'hunter-gatherers'.

Bruce is a prolific writer and editor of fiction for adults and young people; and he also writes essays and history.

His most recent work presents a radically different picture of Australia's original inhabitants, and how they maintained their culture over millennia.

From the journals and records of early explorers and surveyors, Bruce has accumulated astonishing descriptions of a pre-colonial Aboriginal life.

Mitchell, Sturt and others describe scenes all around the country of Aboriginal people engineering sophisticated dwellings and irrigation systems.

They also describe the cultivation of vast areas of land for yam fields; and the harvesting, storage and milling of grain crops.

Bruce is of Tasmanian, Bunurong and Yuin heritage and he lives on country, deep in the Victorian bush.

Further information and listening

Dark Emu: Black Seeds - Agriculture or Accident? is published by Magabala Books.

His Young Adult book, Fog a Dox, won the 2013 Prime Minister's literary award.

Buce's latest novel for Young Adults is Seahorse.

Sources referred to in Bruce's conversation include: The Biggest Estate On Earth by Bill Gammage (2011) and Australia and the origins of agriculture by Gerritson (2008).

Hear Richard's conversation with Jaky Troy, on Australia's Indigenous languages.

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