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Comment by sohkamyung | Hacker News Reader

I prefer the version published in The Conversation [1] by the researches themselves. It contains more details including one part left out of the NYTimes version: that the work was done with the approval of the Aboriginal people who control the site:

"To make new research possible, a landmark agreement was reached between the University of Queensland (and associated researchers) and the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation representing the Mirarr traditional owners of the site.

The agreement gave ultimate control over the excavation to the Mirarr senior custodians, with oversight of the excavation and curation of the material. The Mirarr were interested to support new research into the age of the site and to know more about the early evidence of technologies thought to be present there."

[1] [ https://theconversation.com/buried-tools-and-pigments-tell-a... ]

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I really don't think they should have that level of control over something 65,000 which they may have no connection too.

More worrying is that I read previously that they had veto rights over any published findings as well, which creates all sorts of integrity problems.

> More worrying is that I read previously that they had veto rights over any published findings as well, which creates all sorts of integrity problems.

Then it should definitely be captured in the story. As a potential conflict of interest.

It was in this one (http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-07-20/aboriginal-she...) from the (Australian) ABC, which I assume is the nytimes source:

> Under the agreement, the Mirarr people have had a right to veto the excavation at any time, control over the artefacts and final say about findings announced about the site.

This leaves it open to abuse like we see in other fields where they can conduct an experiment 10 times and only publish the result that comes out how they want.

For the record, I have no reason to believe the scientists involved are being dishonest, but imposing these conditions should not be acceptable.

Careful here. I would by no means pretend to understand them, but I'm at least aware that there are a number of special sensitivities that must be considered when it comes to Aboriginal culture. So it's certainly not about abusing the research, but about respecting their culture (if I have it right).

Especially given that the British/Australians hunted them like animals, exterminated them by the thousands, displayed them in circus like fashion back in Europe, and forcibly sent their kids in concentration/"re-education" (whitening) camps up until the 80s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_of_Indigenou...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truganini

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/14/aboriginal-bon...

Yes, indeed - thanks. The history is horrible; a little respect is the least we can offer.

It seems a strange contradiction that someone would get flustered about the accurate preservation of a cultural history, and in the same breath demonstrate little interest in the conservation of that culture.

What's your motivation for wanting this information? Is someone's appetite for inconsequential information more important than a people's dignity? These aren't rhetorical questions, it seems there's an incompatible split in moral leanings on this thread and I want to get to the bottom of that.

Culture is one of the vitally important things which make us unique as humans.

Both as an Australian and as a linguist it's painful to understand how quickly indigenous culture here is being lost; my narrow and focused view is on language but the rate at which Aboriginal languages are dying at is absolutely alarming.

Protecting culturally significant sites here is of vital importance both for historical reasons as well as to the lives of modern indigenous Australians.

Everything changes. All those indigenous languages are going to be lost in the sense they won't be actively used anymore - and that's not a bad thing.

Even English will ultimately be lost, although it will likely be through the mechanisms of language evolution rather than first becoming moribund.

Trying to preserving language and culture for its own sake is somewhat selfish, because it restricts individuals' experience. Better to take the good parts and incorporate them into daily life. The rest can remain in the tomes of history.

> Better to take the good parts and incorporate them into daily life. The rest can remain in the tomes of history.

You can't do that when the culture is lost because of the social upheavals that colonisation and the subsequent history.

Preserving these things allow us to remember them, and improve today with them.

You think there's been none of that in 65000 years?

You're in a thread where we just discovered ancient tools that throws doubt on how long humans have been in an area.

Those records are still being found.

Trying to preserve culture is good because it leaves choice in the hands of the individuals; they get to choose what parts to pick.

It's incredibly easy to talk about "survival of the fittest" cultures from a Western point of view, but ask almost any other peoples that have had their culture irreparably damaged by colonial policies, and you'll find a different mindset.

The individuals are doing that choosing when they choose not to preserve certain parts. They're going to abandon the parts in favor of alternatives that work better. The abandoned parts will no longer be passed down because they lack practical value - but they can be recorded.

Trying to preserve a static and separate cultural identity is pointless when knowledge, technology and our environments are changing quickly. At best the efforts are well-meaning and harmless. At worst, they present as a fetish where post-colonial guilt tries to turn the West into a zoo of distinct cultures.

This is only true in the naive case where every decision is made in isolation, completely free of coercion. In the real world, this is coming after many decades of attempts to wipe out cultures, being overwhelmed by entertainment and other forms of pressure – want to guess the odds of an indigenous person successfully getting their music published, stories turned into movies, etc. prior to very recently? In most colonial countries attempts to convert people assimilate meant that schools prevented use of native languages and traditions, often even separating children from parents, leaving multi-generation gaps where people are truly learning those things for the first time at middle age from surviving elders.

None of that is a neutral choice, and especially not one to make a historically irreversible decision. Choosing not to preserve something means it's gone forever even if people in the future disagree.

My overall view is somewhat Darwinian, with selection based on merit rather than coercion. Overt oppression of other cultures is obviously to be opposed.

It seems to me that the idea that, aggregate individual choices always give the best results, should be discredited by now.

It's totally possible for individuals to be trapped in game theoretical situations where they will lost very valuable things to them little by little. Ecology is the most famous example.

Anyway, the efforts for "trying to preserve a static and separate cultural identity" is something done by individuals that choose so, too. How could be otherwise?

I see a pretty obvious contradiction here. You would think that the respect of ancient cultures that motivates such excavations would motivate the protection of those related and endangered cultures of today.

And if the only reasonable claim on a piece of dirt is sovereignty, not to mention that that sovereignty been placed back in the hands of aboriginal elders, the sovereignty alone isn't enough justification to go digging for the past - it would seem that curiosity is part and parcel of a respect for culture.

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