Aboriginal people harvested this native grass for millennia. Scientists have now found an odd trait in its DNA

By Michael Westaway, Professor of Archaeology and Biological Anthropology, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland
Jennifer Silcock, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland
Rahul Chandora, PhD Student, Centre for Crop Science, The University of Queensland
Robert Henry, Director, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland
Sammi Blinco, Director, Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, Indigenous Knowledge
Shawnee Gorringe, Admin & Research Support at Mithaka Aboriginal Corporation, Indigenous Knowledge

Seen from the air, Channel Country resembles a vibrant and vast tapestry, with a network of waterways crisscrossing the land. Spread across more than 280,000 square kilometres in outback Australia, it is one of the world’s last free-flowing desert river systems.

In the heart of Channel Country, in southwest Queensland, live the Mithaka people whose ancestors over at least the past 3,000 years played a key role in the development of a transcontinental trade and exchange system. Plants were a central part of the economy…

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