Ep. 47 – Australia

https://api.spreaker.com/v2/episodes/51732869/download.mp3 The name Australia (pronounced /əˈstreɪliə/ in Australian English) is derived from the Latin Terra Australis which means southern land. This was a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times.   The idea being that if there is land in the Northern Hemisphere then there has to be land in the Southern Hemisphere to balance out the globe.   I love that idea because it’s so simple. Like the smartest people alive at that time we’re like if there is land up here there has got to be land down there or the world would be lopsided? They thought this as far back as the 5th century. Other names for the hypothetical continent have included Terra Australis Ignota, Terra Australis Incognit' ("the unknown land of the south") or Terra Australis Nondum Cognita ("the southern land not yet known"). Other names were Brasiliae Australis ("the southern Brazil"),and Magellanica ("the land of Magellan"). Matthias Ringmann called it the Ora antarctica (antarctic land) in 1505, and Franciscus Monachus called it the Australis orę (Austral country). In Medieval times it was known as the Antipodes.   For the record Australia is both a country and a continent. The only of its kind. I think it was best described in one of the articles I read. It said “Australia is a country that is part of a continent also called Australia, all of which is part of a region known as Oceania. Make sense” Oceania is a created idea to classify all of the island nations in that area and they include Australia in that. It’s kinda weird. When I was growing up we were taught that Australia was a continent. Australia is a country that is part of a continent also called Australia, all of which is part of a region known as Oceania. Make sense? Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east. Aboriginees The indigenous people in Australia are broken down into 2 groups. The aboriginal people are from the mainland and Tasmania and then there are the Torres Strait people who are Melanesian.       For a long time in my life I didn’t know Tasmania actually existed. I thought it was something created by Looney Tunes. Imagine my surprise when I found out what a Tasmanian Devil actually looked like.     People have been living on Australia’s land for 65,000 years. They came over from land bridges and short sea crossing from Southeast Asia. This was 1000’s of years before humans made it to Europe. The land bridge thing is wild to me. I wish we could find one of those in present day. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continuous cultures on Earth. At the time of first European contact, Aboriginal Australians were complex hunter-gatherers with diverse economies and societies and about 250 different language groups. That’s not an insignificant number. 250 language groups?  There is evidence that about 3000 years ago there was contact between Indians and Aboriginees because they share about 11% of the same DNA. So aboriginal Australians are part Indian. I’m sure there’s a story there. The Rainbow Snake The indigenous people believe in something they call dream time. Which is a hard concept to articulate but it has to do with the fact that they don’t see time as a linear thing. Dreamtime or Dreaming for Australian Aboriginal people represents the time when the Ancestral Spirits progressed over the land and created life and important physical geographic formations and sites. It is sometimes called the Every-when.     They see past, present, and future as a cyclical thing. They also believe the world started as flat and then was carved out by what they call a rainbow sna...