The First Inventors: A Coastal Perspective
The SBS TV series “The First Inventors” (2023) has now appeared as a book (2026, published by Allen & Unwin). The authors are Billy Grifiths, Larissa Behrendt and Sean Ulm. Each author brings their own special interests to what was a fascinating TV show and very stimulating book capturing what is said in the sub-title “How people shaped a continent”.
I first encountered Billy as a reader of his remarkable book “Deep Time Dreaming” (Black Inc, 2018). Here he explored insights gained from archaeological discoveries in Australia and how all that builds on traditional knowledge to provide an extraordinary deep history of the continent. We recently met and discussed this new book with particular reference to coastal Australia and his continuing research on marine pre-history.
First Inventors celebrates around 65,000 years of Indigenous connection to Country. This length of time remains somewhat contentious. The book brings together modern science and Indigenous stories, cultures, actions (e.g. fire) and works demonstrating how the continent has been “terraformed”, that is made by First Peoples. The aim is for the reader ”to experience revelations, small and large, in every chapter, to learn different ways of seeing Country and to form a deeper understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island histories” (p.4). This involves an appreciation of the dynamic nature of the continent’s cultural and environmental complexity with a focus on “invention” as a culturally embedded process. We are told in no uncertain terms to dismiss the false narratives of colonial and post-colonial histories and appreciate the First Peoples as the world’s first inventors.
The book follows four main themes: Ancestors, Creating Country, Country as Family, and Resilience. In total there are 12 chapters. Our eyes should not be closed to the sheer scale of landscape transformation, the complex interactions across regions, and the careful curation of Country involving a diversity of peoples. The authors take us back to the depths of the Last Glacial (Ice Age) and ways in which the “Old Peoples” dispersed, encountered mega fauna, and adapted to changing environmental conditions as the planet got colder then warmed up. This is “deep time” history stretching over as much as 3000 generations. In the words of one elder we have a history which “is in the land, the footprints of our Creation Ancestors are on the rocks…we remember it all, in our minds, our bodies and feet as we dance the stories” (p.25). They hear the songs and so connections unfold across the continent. Many of these relate to the coast and to the inventions that have been created.
Drowning of the continent with postglacial sea-level rise features in this history. This has been the subject of studies of stories that have been told and retold to keep Indigenous histories alive (e.g. P. Nunn and N. Reid, 2016, “Aboriginal memories of inundation of the Australian coast during more than 7000 years ago”, Australian Geographer, 47, 11-47). We learn from diverse places such as Ningaloo, the Kimberley coast, Dampier Archipelago, Gulf of Carpentaria (e.g. Mornington Island), Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, and islands in the Torres Strait. From these and other places there are histories of adaptation to the forces of the sea.
The chapter on “Storywaters” discusses how the memory of sea-level rise is embedded in different languages, in stories of drowning of lands and conversion to Sea Country, and through cultural expressions such as rock art. The archaeology of coastal inundation is dramatically displayed on the Dampier Archipelago at a place known as Murujuga. Underwater discoveries in the intertidal zone were portrayed in the TV production. The question arose as to how the artifacts got there; for instance were they “discarded by the Old People in some distant time, before the waters rose, when this was a coastal plain” (p.57). This area is the subject of further research using aerial and remote sensing techniques. Diving is difficult in murky waters, but a discovery confirmed that at Flying Foam Passage there is an underwater archaeological site. This reinforces the stories in the Murujuga rock art of ancient coastal transformation. There remains the need to convince policy makers of the importance of protecting underwater Indigenous heritage and not just that of non-Indigenous origin.
The connection of First Peoples to the coast and sea comes to light in other places. One is about the underwater caves and canyons beyond Rottnest Island (Wadjemup) that captures the songs of whales. Another is the construction of the vast maze of earthen channels in western Victoria described in the diaries of George Robinson in 1841. These were designed to capture eels (kooyang) that travel from freshwaters to the sea and return. Here the people “dug kilometers of earthen channels to manipulate waterways and create growing ponds, some the size of football stadiums, all carefully tailored to support the migrations and life cycles of eel populations” (p.87). Sadly much of what Robinson recorded has been destroyed and transformed from a diverse wetland environment into a “relatively dry, monocultural landscape” (p.91). However, recent research using GPR and LiDAR suggests the Indigenous cultural landscapes are far more extensive than previously known. There is some evidence that the channels go back nearly 7000 years (i.e. since sea level been around its present position). There is now World Heritage listing of what is the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape. Other examples of Indigenous hydrological engineering occur elsewhere in Australia.
I was fascinated by the account of stone-walled fish traps in Lardil Country of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Around Wellesley Islands there are more than 500 of these structures. These express Indigenous actions as harvesters of marine life: “we farmed the sea” through what was described as “a succession of walled-in paddocks of many acres in extent” (p.108). There is evidence that they were established 3500 years ago. Over 40 kilometres of Bentinck Island possess these intersecting walls extending into the sea; in the words of the authors “the sheer volume of stone to create these reefs is staggering” (p.109). Similar traps occur around Mer in the Torres Strait. Artists on Mornington Island today are capturing the memories of the fish traps on a huge canvas. There is a push for World Heritage listing. Protection is offered to Sea Country through a Ranger Unit.
In 1973 I visited Lizard Island (Jiigurru) on the Great barrier Reef and noted the existence of a midden and also silica-rich sands over a granite hill, a relic of dune activity when sea level was lower. The book contains the story of Gunyah and the Sacred Fish when the Reef would have been limestone hills, marshlands and mangrove swamp with cliffs further out (p.50; see also the Dingaal story of how their Sea Country was created p.126). Recent archaeological excavation of the midden reveals an incredible story of discovery of pottery challenging the enduring the stereotype of peoples incapable of such technology (see Ulm et al., Quaternary Science Reviews, 2024, 333, 108624). The midden has 6500 years of history and between 2800 and 1800 years ago thin-walled pottery appeared made of local clay with shell and coral. How did it get here? One theory suggests this location is part of a southwest Pacific region of cultural exchange (p.132). This idea may also explain the adze composed of Norfolk Island basalt found in 1928 at Myall Lakes and the shellfish-hook technology in southeast Australia (p.144-5).
I strongly recommend reading this book—in the words of Rachel Perkins it is “dazzling history”.
Bruce Thom
Words by Prof Bruce Thom. Please respect the author’s thoughts and reference appropriately: (c) ACS, 2026. For correspondence about this blog post please email admin@australiancoastalsociety.org.au
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