SEMINAR: Pygmonia Australis: Australia and the "Lost Land of the Pygmies"

Recent attention by historian Keith Windschuttle to Tindale and Birdsell’s claimed find of a Pygmy ‘Negrito’ people in the Cairns rainforest shows the enduring power of this anthropological myth. Why does the myth persist, despite the discrediting of its theoretical foundation – Birdsell’s trihybrid theory of Australian settlement? The author’s research shows that the anthropological theory of a primordial, worldwide Pygmy population (on which Birdsell’s trihybrid theory was based) ultimately owes its origin to ancient Greek tales of a lost ‘Land of the Pygmies’, and that it is partly the narrative appeal of this meme that ensures its persistence. An analysis of the genetic, archaeological, and historical evidence of Pygmy peoples worldwide, however, shows that there is an additional element: there probably was and is a population of related Pygmy peoples scattered throughout Asia (though it is not closely related to the Pygmy peoples of Aboriginal Australia). The author reviews this evidence and suggests directions for future research.