I ran across this on one of the streaming services late in the evening when there was nothing else on and it looked sorta interesting. Boy, was I right.
This is the story of the Dreamtime, the 50,000 years of Australian aboriginal culture. They are the descendants of the first great human explorers who left Africa 70,000 years ago and followed the coastlines of Asia Minor, India, and Southeast Asia, before island hopping to northwestern Australia, and eventually spreading throughout the continent. At the time they arrived in Australia, Europe was still ruled by the Neanderthals, and the migration to the Americas was still 35,000 years in the future.
The documentary alternates between stories from aboriginal peoples and archeologists' discoveries, many recent, that support the aboriginal mythology. Far from being a primitive people with no culture, the ancient peoples of Australia had a rich and complex belief system, encyclopedic knowledge of their often extremely harsh environment, and time enough to leave millions of rock paintings and carvings throughout the continent. Viewed through the lens of deep time encompassed by the Dreamtime, some of the scenes are literally goosebump-raising and unexpectedly and powerfully emotional.
This is the story of the Dreamtime, the 50,000 years of Australian aboriginal culture. They are the descendants of the first great human explorers who left Africa 70,000 years ago and followed the coastlines of Asia Minor, India, and Southeast Asia, before island hopping to northwestern Australia, and eventually spreading throughout the continent. At the time they arrived in Australia, Europe was still ruled by the Neanderthals, and the migration to the Americas was still 35,000 years in the future.
The documentary alternates between stories from aboriginal peoples and archeologists' discoveries, many recent, that support the aboriginal mythology. Far from being a primitive people with no culture, the ancient peoples of Australia had a rich and complex belief system, encyclopedic knowledge of their often extremely harsh environment, and time enough to leave millions of rock paintings and carvings throughout the continent. Viewed through the lens of deep time encompassed by the Dreamtime, some of the scenes are literally goosebump-raising and unexpectedly and powerfully emotional.
