
Rio Tinto blasts 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site to expand iron ore mine - MaysonL
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/rio-tinto-blasts-46000-year-old-aboriginal-site-to-expand-iron-ore-mine
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Pick-A-Hill2019
A day later and the usual playbook gets rolled out "lessons learned", "very
sorry", "genuine mistake" [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-
australia-52869502](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-52869502)

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DrOctagon
One hundred and thirty odd (provable) generations of family history blown up.
Fifteen hundred generations of continual occupation gone.

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JoeAltmaier
All in favor of responsible investigation of historical significant finds.

But at some point, we live in this world or turn it into a museum. There is so
much human activity over so long a period, you can't walk along a riverbank
some places without tripping over a Tudor brick or Roman coin.

There's definitely a tension between exhaustive investigation into every find,
and getting on with a business. Its never going to be a perfect win for either
effort.

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roenxi
I've been to a Rio Tinto mine in the Pilbara and talked to some people there
about a large doughnut shaped piece of work they were doing avoiding some
aboriginal site. They do more than just pay lip service to the idea of
preserving this stuff.

I'm obviously a bit biased, but I don't expect 40,000 year old sites riddled
with artefacts are actually that rare in the Pilbara. It isn't the sort of
place where things change quickly. It is much more likely that this is one of
the few they've found because it has a mine on top of it that was paying for
an archaeologist to fly out and look.

As can be seen from the article - the aboriginals have no idea how old these
sites are or what is in them when the mine approvals are negotiated. It makes
sense, nobody is keeping a 4,000 year inventory of what practically amounts to
buried junk of no value to anyone outside of one small tribe of people.
Possibly not even them if I let my usual cynicism seep through.

It is easy to see Rio shouldn't have blown the cave up. It is appropriate to
change the legislation. It is reasonable to pay the locals money. If the
reporting is accurate that the site was historically rare then it is a loss to
the historians. But it isn't international news or an international loss - if
it hadn't been in the path of an active mine even the traditional owners
wouldn't have known what it was, or cared about its historic significance.

~~~
fit2rule
This is utterly false. The original land owners definitely knew it was there
and wanted Rio Tinto to protect it. They decided not to, and blew it up
instead - the reason given was 'the explosives are already in place and its
too dangerous to remove them'.

Australians try to cover up their racism and heinous history with erasing the
worlds oldest extant culture, but there is a rising tide that is moving
against Australian complacency and wants them to put a higher priority on
protecting human heritage over extracting mineral wealth. The original land
owners of the Australian continent have a huge case for the return of their
lands - these acts are only designed to make it harder for that to occur. Rio
Tinto didn't even _need_ to mine in that area - it was merely a convenient way
to remove cultural heritage that would've made the original land owners case
for native title stronger.

~~~
roenxi
> ...the explosives are already in place and its too dangerous to remove
> them...

I hadn't heard that before, but it is actually a really good reason. It would
be risking people's lives to try and defuse an active shot. Once the
explosives are in the ground the shot was going to be fired one way or
another.

The aboriginals needed to, and a presume probably did, raise concerns before
explosives were loaded.

~~~
fit2rule
Rio Tinto should have paid to have them removed, plain and simple.

~~~
roenxi
It isn't a matter of money; someone could have died. To do that over a
historical curio is not responsible.

~~~
fit2rule
Your characterising this as a 'historical curio' is ridiculous. By the same
reasoning we should just leave the bombs dropped in German cities where they
are - 'someone could die, disarming them' ...

~~~
roenxi
Someone could also die leaving them where they are. There are circumstances
where it makes sense to risk defusing a shot, but protecting a historical site
in the middle of the Australian Outback is not one of them.

I'd rather tell someone I blew up a 4,000 year old heritage site and get
yelled at than tell them I got their son killed protecting 4,000 year old
refuse.

The debate should centre entirely around what happened before the shot was
loaded.

~~~
fit2rule
The original owners of the Australian continent were a 60,000 year old human
culture. The current owners are occupied by these industries.

It is factually a human rights violation to destroy the cultural artefacts of
other cultures. Remember when ISIS bombed the Buddhas of Bamyan?

If China were to, say, demolish the opera house to get at the fish underneath,
would you be so happy about it?

~~~
roenxi
If someone is choosing between bombing people and blowing up the Buddhas of
Bamyan you'd have to be a monster to say the Buddahs are more important.

My advice to you if you argue this with anyone else is pick a different hill
to make your stand. I'm not sure how this ended up being a discussion of the
cultural heritage vs life or death matters as that was never a real issue
here. Mines don't move very quickly, there would have been plenty of time for
Rio to do the wrong thing and be critiqued between archaeologists being on the
site and the shot being loaded.

The difference between "shot is loaded therefore the caves are condemned" vs
"shot is fired therefore caves are condemned" isn't important.

~~~
fit2rule
I don't need your advice - you have demonstrated callous disregard for the
cultural heritage of a group of people who have experienced nothing but
callous disregard for centuries. Such authoritarian attitudes as you espouse
here are counter-productive to a healthy society.

Your much loved mining company KNEW that the cultural heritage site was there
- they dug the holes and placed the explosives regardless. Then when they were
confronted, they made up the bullshit excuse that the 'explosives are too
dangerous to remove' \- which is of course, utter bollocks.

My advice to you: confront your covert racist attitude and start to understand
the violence that is being enacted on a people who do not deserve it, plain
and simple. Real Australians should be furious about this destruction of the
country's very, very valuable heritage. More valuable than a few sticks of
gelignite, anyway...

>The difference between "shot is loaded therefore the caves are condemned" vs
"shot is fired therefore caves are condemned" isn't important.

Maybe its not important to those who wilfully display a callous disregard for
more ancient cultures than their own, but for those of us who are paying
attention to the cost to humanity of this kind of behaviour, it is very, very
important that this never happens again.

