How Aboriginal People Survived The Last Ice Age

Found on Sovereign Union's Facebook Page here: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1083452677155134&set=a.642304697936603

A 2013 published study revealed how First Nations people coped with the last Ice Age, roughly 20,000 years ago.

"Population numbers plummeted due to harsh conditions at the peak of the last Ice Age", says the study.

Researchers say that when the climate cooled dramatically, Aboriginal groups sought refuge in well-watered areas, such as along rivers, and populations were condensed into small habitable areas.

Professor Sean Ulm, lead author of the research at James Cook University in Townsville, says the vast majority of Australia was simply uninhabitable at this time. "Forests disappeared, animals went extinct; major areas of Australia would have been deprived of surface water."

To understand how Aboriginal people responded to the conditions, a team of experts from Australia, England, and Canada used the radiocarbon dates of thousands of archaeological sites to study the distribution of people across the landscape over time.

The findings, published recently in The Journal of Archaeological Science[1], suggest that about 21,000 years ago, almost all people in modern-day Australia migrated into smaller areas, abandoning as much as 80 per cent of the continent.

"In Lawn Hill Gorge in northwestern Queensland, at the coldest point of the last glacial period, all of the stone, raw materials and food remains are exclusively from the Gorge area," says Sean. "This indicated very limited or no use of the surrounding broader landscape."

This massive consolidation had drastic effects on the population as well. "There was likely a birth rate decline of over 60 per cent," says Alan Williams, a PhD student at the Australian Nation University who worked on the study. "It would have been very ugly."

Can humans cope with climate change?

Sean says the next step would ideally be to study the resulting cultural shifts, however, this may prove to be difficult given that close to one third of what was Australia at the time of the Ice Age is now underwater. "By 10,000 years ago, sea levels were visibly rising, sometimes on a daily basis," says Sean.

Extreme changes in the environment continued for thousands of years, and Aboriginal life readjusted in the process. Sean says this makes it unlikely that researchers will ever know the full societal ramifications of the Ice Age.

What the study does reveal, however, is that humans have withstood massive climate change on this continent in the past, and this might prove vital for preparing for future events.

"A lot of the current climate reports that we read about in Australia...their records only go back a couple of hundred years," says Sean. "That's a very short time span to base our model for future climate change on."

Sean adds that, thanks to studies like this, archaeologists may soon have the potential to extend these data sets.

- Article - Reasearch Paper review by Wes Judd 'Australian Geographic' 27 September 2013

[1] RESEARCH PAPER: 'Human refugia in Australia during the Last Glacial Maximum and Terminal Pleistocene: a geospatial analysis of the 25–12 ka Australian archaeological record'

- By ALAN N.WILLIAMS James Cook University,
- ANDREW R.COOK University of New South Wales;
- MICHELLE C. LANGLEY University of Oxford, UK;
- MARK COLLARDE Human Evolutionary Studies Program and Department of Archaeology, British Columbia, Canada:

[ Academic Paper: https://bit.ly/34Atr6L ]

IMAGES:
Top: Southeast Asia and Australia during the last Ice Age.
Bottom: Estimations the areas in which Aboriginal groups congregated during the last Ice Age. (Source of both images - the above academic article)

Ancient news roundup

Africa (Olduvai Gorge):

Research suggests that early man (c. 2 million years ago) was able to manage in a changing environment for 200,000 years. 

https://www.shh.mpg.de/1935810/petraglia-oldupai-gorge 

'The findings uncovered at Oldupai Gorge and across eastern Africa indicate that early human movements across and out of Africa were possible by 2 million years ago, as hominins possessed the behavioural ability to expand into novel ecosystems.' 

Part of this may be due to the use of stone tools, technology which (it is speculated) may have been employed by other hominin species such as australopithecines:

'... we know that the genus Paranthropus was present in Oldupai Gorge at this time.'

Tibet:

DNA from the hominin species knows as Denisovans has been found in sediment in Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan plateau - the first such find outside Siberia. The specimens date from c. 100,000 years ago, again from 60,000 years ago, and possibly also 50k-30k ya; in the latter case that may have overlapped with the arrival of modern humans and interbreeding there or elsewhere could explain why 'present-day Tibetans carry a gene variant that aids high-altitude survival'.

• https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-denisovan-dna-outside-siberia-found-tibetan-plateau-cave
• https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/dna-tracks-mysterious-denisovans-chinese-cave-just-modern-humans-arrived-nearby
• https://theconversation.com/how-midnight-digs-at-a-holy-tibetan-cave-opened-a-window-to-prehistoric-humans-living-on-the-roof-of-the-world-148927
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisovan
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baishiya_Karst_Cave

https://www.google.com/maps/place/35%C2%B026'53.0%22N+102%C2%B034'17.0%22E/@32.0753123,90.6411118,4.75z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d35.448056!4d102.571389?hl=en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisovan#/media/File:Early_migrations_mercator.svg

Conflict between Homo Sapiens and the Neanderthals

An academic at Bath University suggests there was a 100,000-year war between the two species that pitched modern humans against the Neanderthals that had preceded them out of Africa and were already thriving in Europe and Asia:

• https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1355432/archaeology-news-human-history-neanderthals-earth-evg
• https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201102-did-neanderthals-go-to-war-with-our-ancestors
• https://theconversation.com/when-did-humans-first-go-to-war-149637
• a revised view of Neanderthals: https://time.com/5904203/neanderthals-myths/

South Africa

Article on early man in southern South Africa 200,000 years ago, when sea levels were lower - the hunting grounds since partially inundated following the end of the Ice Age:

• https://eos.org/features/a-lost-haven-for-early-modern-humans
• https://www.heritagedaily.com/2020/05/drowned-paleo-agulhas-plain-was-an-eden-for-early-humans/129190

Peru

It seems prehistoric women could be hunters, as well as gatherers:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/11/prehistoric-female-hunter-discovery-upends-gender-role-assumptions/

Dogs and humans

Parallel DNA research into human and canine genomes is sketching an 11,000-year-long (or more) history of their relationship. The five separate dog genomes have expanded to 32:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/how-dogs-tracked-their-humans-across-ancient-world

Dingoes, on the other hand, seem to have arrived in western Australia some 3,500 years ago - far later than humans - and although some were recorded living with aboriginals in 1788 they don't feature much in ancient rock art; perhaps for roving hunter-gatherers dingoes were an unaffordable luxury?

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

What happened on Easter Island (Rapa Nui); a lesson for global overpopulation

'The demographic declines of the Rapa Nui are linked to the long-term effects of climate change on the island's capacity for the production of food... 

'We did not find traces of an idyllic equilibrium with nature, and we did not find traces of a huge collapse. Instead, we found traces of interactions between three factors: Climate change, human population size, and changes in the ecosystem. The climate change manifests itself as a long-term pattern of changes in rainfall over some 400 years. The population grew during this same period, and the islanders also increased and changed their use of natural resources and agricultural methods...

'The islanders were not only aware of the changes, but they were also able to change the way the lived on the island. They gradually changed from the quite complex society that raised the marvelous moai statues, to a later and simpler agrarian society with reduced family sizes and a new way of producing food in stone gardens...

'These three factors affected the population on Rapa Nui, and they are also important on a global scale. We studied Rapa Nui and its history because we are trying to understand what is happening with the planet. Everybody talks about climate change and the resulting problems, but very few people are talking about the rising global population and the problems it causes.'

https://phys.org/news/2020-09-growth-decline-rapa-nui-population.html

AUSTRALIA: Ancient aboriginal land management

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.'

TAIWAN, bridge to the Pacific islands; and the multiple impacts of climate change

Aside from archaeological finds, there are several other threads connecting prehistoric Taiwan with the spread of humans through the Pacific island chains.

One is the paper mulberry tree, native to Taiwan and Japan, which the Austronesian migrants took with them because they used its fibrous bark to make their cloth. A 2015 study of its genes supports the hypothesis that the species in Oceania are descended from those in Asia.
  https://raskisimani.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/broussonetia-paper-mulberry.pdf
  https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?post=26541&unit=20%2C29%2C35&unitname=Taiwan-Review&postname=Austronesian-Roots&fbclid=IwAR0rEsePB0aR71MtPstwKguoqx-ZFsHNlw9r5JM0N0h1PbGW1kfIk849PF4

Another is linguistics. Professor Robert Blust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Blust sorts the many languages of Taiwan into ten groups, only one of which (Malayo-Polynesian) developed into the Austronesian family of tongues.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_languages#Blust_(1999)
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayo-Polynesian_languages#Major_languages

A third is the study of human genes. A 2014 study of mitochondrial DNA from a c. 8,000-year-old skeleton unearthed on an island off the Chinese mainland links China to Taiwan and Austronesia.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3951936/

Figure 1: The Liangdao Man Skeleton (picture from here)

The same study suggests a prehistoric migration route as illustrated below, from an area where foxtail millet began to be cultivated (around what is now modern Beijing), to the region where rice was domesticated (surrounding modern Shanghai), to what is now Fuzhou on the mainland (1), on to Liangdao island (2), across to Taiwan (3) and then down to the Philippines (4) and beyond:

(Ibid., adapted from Figure 5)

How did these humans cross over from the mainland? At its narrowest, the Taiwan Strait is about 130 kilometres (80 miles) between Fujian and Taiwan.

Things were different in the last Ice Age. The Strait is now some 100 metres deep, but:
'Pleistocene glaciations lowered [the] sea level 140m in the East China Sea 15,000 years ago, forming a land bridge between Taiwan and the mainland, with Palaeolithic artifacts on both sides. In the initial Holocene 10,000 years ago, melting ice raised the East China Sea 100m, quickly forming the Taiwan Strait.' 
- from 'The Neolithic Taiwan Strait', by Kuang-chih Chang (1989)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120418153210/http://http-server.carleton.ca/~bgordon/Rice/papers/App.18ChangKC89.pdf

'Permafrost covered Asia as far south as Beijing,' says Wikipedia, so perhaps early humans were motivated to go further south, and some willing and able to walk over the exposed land between China and Taiwan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum#Asia

The end of the Ice Age saw rising sea levels: 'After the last ice age about 20,000 years ago, sea level initially rose due to the melting of the glaciers. That peaked around 4,000 to 5,000 years ago,' says geologist Chip Fletcher in this 2017 interview:
https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-seas-rise-tropical-pacific-islands-face-a-perfect-storm

One might think that this flooding was a spur to the development of boats, but although the earliest found by archaeological excavation date back 7,000 - 10,000 years, other evidence suggests that they existed tens of thousands of years earlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boat#History
Indeed, recent finds in Central America suggest that homo sapiens may have arrived by sea 20,000 - 30,000 years ago and spread north and south from there, rather than coming though the Alaskan/Canadian ice corridor as previously thought:
http://polynesiantimes.blogspot.com/2020/07/origins-americas-first-colonised-in.html

Contrary to what one might assume, the post-glacial flooding was not uniform in all times and places. As the vast weight of ice was lifted from the land the continental plates started to shift about and rise up further from the Earth's mantle, like a ship being emptied of cargo. 'At the same time that Polynesians were undergoing their journeys of exploration and discovery, 1,000 to 3,000 years ago, sea level was falling and exposing coastal plains that then became habitable, where previously the sea was up against clay banks or cliffs,' says Fletcher. 'In the Pacific region [after c. 4,000-5,000 years ago], sea level started to fall until a few centuries ago. And now global warming is causing sea levels to rise again.'
https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-seas-rise-tropical-pacific-islands-face-a-perfect-storm

Although falling sea levels may have made it easier to land boats, 'around AD 1300 there was rapid global cooling, which was followed shortly by rapid sea-level fall – perhaps as much as 50-70 cm within 100 years in the Pacific [...]
   'In almost every island group in the Pacific - from Solomon Islands and Fiji in the west to Rapa and Easter Island in the east – the first signs of collapse appear around AD 1300 with almost all hill forts beginning to be occupied around AD 1400. [...] 
   'Rapid sea-level fall along Pacific island coasts would have lowered coastal water tables, slowed water circulation within lagoons and killed (through exposure) the most productive parts of coral reefs. A food crisis would have resulted for coastal dwellers. Conflict followed. So people fled inland where they stayed, more or less, for several hundred years.'
https://theconversation.com/rise-and-fall-social-collapse-linked-to-sea-level-in-the-pacific-56268

So the interaction between geography, climate and human history is unexpectedly complex.

TAIWAN: Pacific migration and the paperbark tree

'New evidence gleaned from the study of a common plant species lends further credence to the theory that Taiwan is the ancestral homeland of the Austronesian-speaking peoples,' says this 2015 article in Taiwan Today reporting on research that links Taiwan to a tree now found across the Pacific, the paper mulberry, used to make tapa cloth.



So on their skilled and dangerous voyages across the ocean, the Austronesian migrants must have taken not just food, tools and domestic animals but seeds and cuttings of the precious tree.

Photo taken from https://raskisimani.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/broussonetia-paper-mulberry.pdf

An interesting article on the tree, its history and uses can be found here:
https://raskisimani.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/broussonetia-paper-mulberry.pdf

SOLOMON ISLANDS: Anuta - the smallest Polynesian community in the world

Reposted from Broad Oak Magazine:

Anuta tempts the philosopher and moralist. Its 300 Polynesian people live on the smallest inhabited island in the South Pacific and sustain themselves by carefully harvesting their natural resources. Fragile, precious, beautiful life in utter isolation - a metaphor for planet Earth in a universe where we may still turn out to be alone.

The BBC sent ex-Royal Marine Bruce Parry there in 2007; he said afterwards, "If I had to pick one tribe to go back and live with permanently — and I hate doing this, it’s not a contest — it would be the people of Anuta [...] It’s got white beaches, blue seas, good food and gentle, friendly people who have a wonderful philosophy of sharing." The communal ethic is calleed "aropa" in their language.

In 2009 the BBC returned to include the story in their stunningly-shot series "South Pacific", contrasting Anuta with Easter Island, where the tribes' competition and reckless exploitation of their ecology led to catastrophe. (The Easter Islanders are the starting point for Belgrano whistleblower Clive Ponting's 1991 book, "A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations", reissued in 2007.)

BBC reporter Huw Cordey was part of the 2009 visit and made a radio programme for the Nature series, called "Anuta - An Island Governed By Love". He found that even in Anuta there are discontents, like anywhere else.

Yet we're still haunted by the myth of the happy land. As the poet Elizabeth Jennings says, "Sickness for Eden was so strong."

RAPA NUI / EASTER ISLAND: Polynesians did NOT ruin the island

A counter to the greenstory about humans triggering ecological collapse on Rapa Nui is here:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/04/07/easter-islands-ecological-suicide-myths-and-realities/

For example:

"Easter Islanders never cut their palm trees at all! According to their cultural legends, when the Polynesians’ canoes reached Easter about 1000 AD, the island was covered in grasses. There were only a few palms. Modern pollen studies confirm this, showing that the island did have palm trees in the ancient past – but most died in the cold droughts of the Dark Ages (600–950 AD). The few surviving palms died during the Little Ice Age after the Polynesians colonized the island. The last palm died about 1650."

AUSTRALIA / SCIENCE: A salute - and solution - to the Australian bush fly

Demonstrating the Aussie wave, aka Australian salute: http://i.imgbox.com/achP9bim.gif

Reporting on the experimental use of a virus to control burgeoning numbers of European carp Down Under, the Wall Street Journal lists "five animals that have gone wild in Australia". Four species are also European imports, but the fifth - flies, of the "bush" type that pesters everyone outdoors  - certainly isn't:

"... it's likely the fly got to Australia in an Aboriginal boat, the same way the dingo got here. In that case, the bush fly might have arrived in Australia as long as 45,000 years ago," says Jim Heath in his Seuss-like-titled 1989 book "The Fly In Your Eye"*

Heath explains that the bush fly needs protein to develop its eggs and is quite happy to find it in human tear ducts, noses, saliva and sweat, not to mention blood and raw meat; hence the plague of them at barbecues. As beef farming grew so did the fly population, feeding and breeding on the droppings of Australia's 28 million cattle. At up to 12 cowpats daily per animal, times up to 2,000 larvae per pat, the herds are potentially fostering quadrillions of flies.

Not just bush flies. Initial efforts to control flies focused on agricultural pests such as the blood-sucking buffalo fly and involved chemicals, to which the insects are increasingly becoming immune. 

So attention turned to biological controls, and this is where the dung-beetle comes in. Dr. George Bornemissza of the Australian CSIRO looked at native beetles and determined that they couldn't cope, so in April 1967 he began a project to import other species:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/131790650?searchTerm=Bornemissza&searchLimits=l-category=Article

The first foreign beetles were from Hawaii, released in Queensland on 30 January 1968. The dung-beetles disrupt fly-larval development by shredding and burying manure - which also improves soil quality and helps reduce contamination of run-off water, say the Kiwis, who are using the same strategy.

Because of Australia's diverse climate it was originally estimated that 160 different species would be required; in practice, "a total of 53 species were introduced and of these 23 have established," says CSIRO.

Unfortunately these species tend to cease their activity in early spring before the new season's flies begin to arrive, so two more kinds that are active at that time were introduced in 2012 from France and Spain to southern Australia by Dr Bernard Doube. The entomologist has been calling for a $50 million program to introduce 25 additional species, money which he says will multiply into several billions-worth of extra pastural productivity.

The real salute, then is reserved for the dung-beetle:

http://2bgreener.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Dung-Beetle.jpg

* Full text and illustrations on-line at: http://www.viacorp.com/flybook/fulltext.html

HAWAII: Is sovereignty the wrong issue?

As the poster above for today's meeting shows, the debate over Hawaiian sovereignty is hot. Last month, a draft constitution for Native Hawaiians was agreed - behind locked and guarded gates - by an organisation called Nai Upuni. Although they are supported financially by the State’s Office of Hawaiian Affairs, their claim to be representative of indigenous groups is vigorously opposed by another association called ʻAha Aloha ʻĀina(1). In response to a lawsuit and U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the proposed ratification vote has now been cancelled(2).

There are wrongs to be righted. The campaigning site Cultural Survival outlines some of the difficulties of the marginalised and exploited "first nation" Hawaiians(3). Many have had to move to mainland USA for a better life - there are some 90,000 in Las Vegas aka "the ninth island"(4). In their own ancestral lands, Native Hawaiians are now a minority - exactly how small, depends on how you define them; maybe 10% - 20% of residents. There is more than one reason for this: numbers of Native Hawaiians crashed after European contact in the late eighteenth century, as imported diseases swept through the population, but also there has been a large influx of Asians and Americans in modern times, especially since the illegal(5) annexation of the country by the US following a coup by sugar businessmen(6, 7, 8).

Even compensatory help for Native Hawaiians is limited, as Amy Sun explains: "In 1921, Congress passed the 'Hawaiian Homes Commission Act,' which [set aside merely] 3% of the total land for Native Hawaiians. [...] 'Native Hawaiian' is defined as a person who is at least 50% Native Hawaiian. So if you [have less than this proportion], you lose your right to homestead." Sun also notes that Native Hawaiians are over-represented among the State's homeless(9). The need for a collective voice is obvious.

But there could be as much danger as opportunity in seeking a separate kind of citizenship - the example of Native Americans is not heartening. Besides, as President of the Grassroots Institute Keli’i Akina commented, "This [constitutional exercise] represents a significant waste of funds that could have been better used on the projects that Hawaiians truly care about–like health care, job training, housing, and education."(10) In addition, sovereignty activists must surely be aware of the possibility of legal (or tactical) traps in constitutional processes - think of the 1959 Hawaii plebiscite, in which residents voted on whether to remain a territory or become a US State (11). Crucially, independence for Hawaiians was not on offer in 1959, and to have voted either of the two given choices could be taken as implicit abandonment of claims to national freedom. It's been argued that this subtle stratagem cuts across a UN Resolution made some years before, so perhaps international legal challenge is still possible(12).

Having said that, is it geopolitically realistic to expect the USA to relinquish its hold on the islands, especially at a time when China is forging closer links with one Pacific nation after another?

Irrespective of the machinations of empires, the status quo is not an option in the long term, for a far greater factor for change is involved: sustainability. This is a global issue, which impacts heavily on Hawaii. The State has a population of around 1.4 million; even without 50,000 military personnel and an average 200,000 tourists at any one time, there are well over a million permanent residents. Estimates of numbers in 1778 vary widely - between 200,000 and anything up to a million(13) - but whatever the actual figure, the lifestyle then was dramatically less resource-intensive per capita. How much longer can a large, high-burn civilisation last in Hawaii?

Take energy: despite having the third-lowest per capita energy use in the USA in 2013, Hawaii imported 91% of its needs in that year(14). The goal is to move to 100% renewable energy by 2045, but even now this is beginning to look like wishful thinking(15). Besides, the devices involved in renewable energy production imply a vast network of enterprises, just as with Adam Smith's 1776 example of pin manufacture(16)  - except that those modern enterprises also mostly consume non-animal/non-human energy. The foundation of the world's technological network is vulnerable.

Then there's food: again, 90% is imported and modern agriculture and food management is also highly energy-intensive(17).

How long have we got, to make changes for survival? "If the world continues to consume fossil fuels at 2006 rates, the reserves of oil, coal and gas will last a further 40, 200 and 70 years, respectively," said a survey in 2007(18). There's lots of ifs and buts in arriving at such an estimate, yet the message clearly is: not forever.

Does that 200 years of coal sound reassuring? Polynesians came to Hawaii at least 800 years ago. We need a perspective reaching beyond our own brief personal lifetimes. After all the desperate attempts at technical fixes, human societies will have to simplify their way of life and shrink their numbers. It is perhaps not too much to suggest that the successors of the tribes that today are oppressed, exploited, undermined, pitied, patronised and romanticised could one day simply be what is left of humanity, provided all is not consumed in some Rapa Nui-like madness. While addressing issues of social justice now, we must also plan for that great transition.

Traditional societies are not relics of the past: they are our ultimate future.
________________________________________
(1) http://ahaalohaaina.com/
(2) http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f438807567d4430299fb2e864bfe5a2e/native-hawaiian-group-wont-hold-vote-ratify-constitution
(3) https://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/article/tourism-and-the-prostitution-of-hawaiian-culture
(4) http://www.mauinews.com/page/blogs.detail/display/5308/Las-Vegas-and-Why-90-000-Former-Hawai-i-Residents-Live-There.html
(5) See this interview with Professor Williamson Chang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIOh5KMqXfA
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii#Population
(7) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Hawaiians#Demographics
(8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1887_Constitution_of_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii
(9) http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/01/myths-about-native-hawaiians/
(10) http://new.grassrootinstitute.org/2016/03/breaking-news-grassroot-institute-questions-nai-aupunis-avoidance-of-the-democratic-process/
(11) Remaining a territory could have been worse: only this week, American Samoans - who are ruled by, yet not citizens of the US - have asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether they should be granted birthright citizenship: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-samoa-comment-ef8cca54-eab0-11e5-a9ce-681055c7a05f-20160315-story.html
(12) "One of the many obligations as stated in U.N. Resolution 742 in 1953 declares that one of the 'factors indicative of the attainment of independence or of other separate systems of self-government,' is 'freedom of choosing on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples between several possibilities including independence.' - http://statehoodhawaii.org/2009/05/12/the-statehood-plebiscite/
(13) https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/482/1/JL28007.pdf
(14) http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=HI
(15) http://www.civilbeat.com/2016/03/is-hawaii-hampering-efforts-to-reach-renewable-energy-goal/
(16) http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/current/smith.aspx
(17) http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/06/29/hawaii-local-food
(18) S. Shafiee & E. Topal, "An overview of fossil fuel reserve depletion time", University of Queensland - www.iaee.org/en/publications/proceedingsabstractdoc.aspx?id=1092 

AUSTRALIA / ISSUES: Who owns Australia's Great Barrier Reef?

Image: NASA (from  UNESCO page: http://www.environment.com.au/?p=229)

The Australian Government's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority lists 45 tribes and groups that assert an interest in the world's greatest living natural formation:

http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/our-partners/traditional-owners/traditional-owners-of-the-great-barrier-reef