Civilised people (i.e. from the culture of towns and cities) came to Australia, America etc and saw wilderness. They didn't see a managed environment; but it was there.
One aspect of aboriginal land management was and is 'cool burning' - the periodic deliberate starting of grass fires to clear away flammable debris and so prevent the kind of mega-blazes we saw recently in Australia, which killed perhaps 3 billion animals.
This has also been an ancient practice among Native Americans:
Similarly, in both countries there are sacred areas, some of which would seem to the ignorant eye to be simply wild places, missing the point that they are carefully kept that way:
https://theculturetrip.com/pacific/australia/articles/the-11-most-sacred-places-in-indigenous-australian-folklore/
https://www.indian-affairs.org/sacred-sites.html
There is the archaeology of relics, but there is also the archaeology of the human mind and its cultures. How old, for example, are the stories of the Dream Time?
As Yeats said:
'I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.'
Having said that, an archaeological dig in the Torres Strait has recently found concrete evidence of cultivation of bananas 2,000 years ago:
'Lead researcher Robert Williams said... the Torres Strait had been historically viewed as a "separating line" between Indigenous groups in New Guinea - now part of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea - who practiced agriculture, and those in Australia who were labelled "hunter gatherers".
'But the findings show that the strait was "more of a bridge or a filter" for horticultural practices across both regions.'
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