Aboriginal people built water tunnels

[Little95]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...3/s1592560.htm

Last Update: Wednesday, March 15, 2006. 5:20pm (AEDT)
Aboriginal people built water tunnels: research
By ABC Science Online reporter Judy Skatssoon

Indigenous Australians dug underground water
reservoirs that helped them live on one of the world's
driest continents for tens of thousands of years, new
research shows.

The study, which is the first of its kind, indicates
Aboriginal people had extensive knowledge of the
groundwater system, knowledge that is still held
today, hydrogeologist Brad Moggridge says.

Some 70 per cent of the continent is covered by desert
or semi-arid land, which meant its original
inhabitants needed to know how to find and manage this
resource if they were to survive.

"Aboriginal people survived on one of the driest
continents for thousands and thousands of years," said
Mr Moggridge, who is from Kamilaroi country in
northern New South Wales.

"Without water you die - they managed that water
sustainably."

Mr Moggridge, currently a principal policy officer in
the New South Wales Department of Environment and
Conservation, did his research as part of a Masters
degree at the University of Technology, Sydney.

He based his work on oral histories, dreamtime
stories, rock art, artefacts and ceremonial body
painting as well as written accounts by white
missionaries, surveyors, settlers, anthropologists and
explorers.