Backbencher

The first lecture dealt with Professor Isern giving us a basic background on Australia and New Zealand, and telling us how these two countries first became settled. Australia was settled by the Aborigines, while New Zealand was settled by the Maoris. These groups are from Asian descent, and made there way to these countries at very different times. The Aborigines came to Australia thousands of years ago, while the Maoris made to New Zealand about a thousand years ago. Both of these groups of people had a tremendous effect on the new environment they moved in to. The Maori killed off the megafauna in New Zealand, while the Aborigines are responsible for shaping the land dramatically in Australia by burning the brush thousands of times over thousands of years.
What I found to be very interesting was that Australia and New Zealand are very similiar to the United States in the fact that the land they were settling had already been inhabited for many years. Much like the American Indians, these natives had already shaped the land, and the land was truly not a wilderness, like whites thought it was. It was an organized ecosystem that humans and animals alike participated in. These systems were dramatically altered when whites appeared.