111–120 of 233 posts
Let’s hope these fuckers are stupid enough to post on social media. The punishment should be 10 years, not 6 months.
Eh, maybe that's taking it all a little too seriously. For all we know, the original art was the work of some ancient hooligans.
Oh wait...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Compare it to European attitudes Yeah... Can we swap? Or like find a middle ground? Here in slovenia, we have socialist buildings from 1970s that someone decided to culturally protect, and the owners cannot renew the leaking facade and add insulation, because the outside has to stay the same, and puting insulation on the inside would reduce the inside space and make walkways and doors too narrow to pass (or carry a…
It's important to preserve modernist and brutalist architecture, so I can sort of see their point. I'm surprised there isn't another option in that specific case though (Can they not just add doors to the stairwell? Or do they oppose that too?) Too much brutalist architecture is being covered in tacky "neo-classical" plaster facades.
Why?
I have a friend on a property with cave art here in the hunter valley of Australia. We really don't do enough to preserve it at all. He's responsible and ensures no harm but it's still weird to own private land with 10k+ year old art and have no one really give a damn about it. Compare it to European attitudes, eg. Lascaux where they closed off the cave completely and only allow tourists near the modern reconstructio…
This creates an incentive to destroy such artifacts (i.e. scarred trees, petroglyphs etc) and not tell anyone.
It also exists in a wider context of "history wars", where federal institutions take sides on quite controversial subjects, further alienating the stereotypical farmers.
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> "The vandals forced their way past barbed wire and dug under a steel gate to get into the Koonalda Caves" Can't really protect a cultural site in a fairly remote area any more than that.
You can't climb Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) as a tourist anymore. You can only look at it from miles away. And there are certain perspectives from which women can't look at it because the Aṉangu have rituals on certain parts of the rock that are exclusive to men, that women aren't even allowed to see.
The Australian government has begun a crackdown on white encroachment onto indigenous lands that is really quite welcome (and a model for emulation by other countries with significant indigenous populations like Canada, New Zealand, and the USA), though it seems to have arrived a bit too late.
Pretty unfortunate and disrespectful. Sort of emblematic of Australian bogan culture however. For some reason Australian teenagers are among the worst in this regard. As someone that grew up in country Australia this really doesn't surprise me at all. Contributing factor is that racism against indigenous Australians is somewhat fueled by the same sort of rhetoric that became popular in the Trump election campaign. No…
>Contributing factor is that racism against indigenous Australians is somewhat fueled by the same sort of rhetoric that became popular in the Trump election campaign. indigenous Australians have been the victims of racism and racist action for centuries. Trump's effect on them -- if there is any at all -- is a small blip in their history. Your attempt to shoe-horn your personal issues into this feels apparent to me.
I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion but I don't really think this is THAT big of a deal. Yea, I know the art is old and all that and it really is unfortunate but its also the nature for all things to change. Maybe in another 30k years, we'll be looking at the defacement as an amazing piece of art that tells the story of the current social climate at this point in time, or something along those lines.
Whether the vandalism was intentional is not entirely clear yet, but a natural disaster damaging or even destroying something is different from humans intentionally doing so through ignorance or malice.
Or let me put it this way: if some natural disaster destroys your car you'd be bummed out and curse at the world for a minute, and then move on as such things happen. The response would be different if I were to wreck your car with a baseball bat.
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You'd be surprised, especially since the security wasn't as tight to keep them out. There aren't as many archeologists or anthropologists as they are other types of researchers out there.
Out of interest, is that a matter of funding (not enough Archaeologist positions) or people actually going into the discipline? (Not enough applicants for positions)
edit: corrected a number. Also, I looked at "employed" meaning full time or part time research vs. just having a PhD in it. Like physics PhDs are 58K which sounds about right, just few actually get a faculty position, temporary (post-doc, staff scientist) or otherwise.
As for why I say both, the number of positions tends to also put downward pressure on number of applicants I think and makes it more likely people who study it or consider studying it consider other fields or jobs before even applying.
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> The climate change protestors did nothing wrong. They also did nothing right. Their stunt is 100% useless. > We desperately need more attention on climate change or the human race will die out. Yah, that's not even remotely true. Who is making you think that? There could be disruption, people will have to change what is farmed where, people might need to move, animals will have different ranges. But human race die…
Our genetics probably won't die out. (There are a lot of us, and we're pretty resilient as a species.) But our culture? Our ideas, stories, values, history, even our technology stack? Those seem likely to be far more fragile that mere survival. I think "could be disruption" is selling it short - as a species, we've invested thousands of years into a particular pattern of fairly stable climate. Now, we're going to see…
No, none of that is going to happen. Humans are incredibly adaptable, and climate change is incredibly slow.
There will be change, and everyone will be just fine.
G'damn irresponsible teenagers ... Pilbara mining blast confirmed to have destroyed 46,000yo sites of 'staggering' significance > "Deeply troubled" traditional owners in the western Pilbara have had their worst fears confirmed after Rio Tinto detonated explosives near culturally significant sites dating back more than 46,000 years. > A Rio Tinto spokesperson said blasting in Juukan Gorge occurred over the weekend, an…
Question for Australians here: is racism against aboriginals widespread in Australia? How does the govt work to prevent it?
I am not an Australian but I've been to Australia and have Australian friends and colleagues. "Racism" is not quite the right word for what's been done to the aboriginals, it's more like the genocide committed against indigenous people in the Americas. Aboriginals are "Black" but that's beside the point - the British did a very thorough job trying to wipe them off the face of the planet. Think Trail of Tears level ho…