Book review: Farmers or Hunter-gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate rigorously critiques Bruce Pascoe's argument

This enabled migratory fish to spawn. Fish, and at certain times of year, eels, swam through both fresh and salty water - making for ease of catching. Local Aboriginal people moved the heavy stones into semi-circular formations to enable netting, spearing or grabbing by hand, possibly creating further semi-captivity of these food staples.

In this way, hunter-gatherers consistently and constantly "value-added" to, or enhanced, nature's creation.Not a bunfight

Pascoe's skilful editing of his sources involves conscious, deliberate intervention. Does he hope Dark Emu will convince people to change their belief in the noxious evolutionary ladder, once uniformly, but still sometimes, applied to different groups of homo sapiens?

Or was his book written to prove Aboriginal people were/are more like Europeans, which could perhaps lead to much needed progress on reconciliation? Perhaps that accounts for its rapturous reception by many Australians, especially the young.

Why not simply celebrate the long-term achievements of hunter-gatherers?

Hunter-gatherers worked in concert with the natural world, not against it as most humans do today, resulting in insoluble difficulties such as overcrowding, pandemics and toxic agricultural and aquacultural practices. Survival depends on this. For eons, it ensured the continuity and the continuing existence of Australia's hunter-gatherer people and their culture.

Farmers or Hunter Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate needs to be read carefully, keeping an open mind. The book's focus is on both material and spiritual economies and their misrepresentation. Despite racist commentary from some, this isn't an exclusively right or left-wing issue or a bunfight.

Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu will continue to be granted recognition, if not immortality. But Sutton and Walshe's Dark Emu Debate will undoubtedly be acclaimed. As a critique of Pascoe's book, it's just about perfect - a volume with the twin virtues of rigour and readability.