Sutton and Walshe devote a chapter to analysis of linguistic evidence, drawing on Sutton's command of several Aboriginal languages.

They note that colonist journals, which form the bulk of Pascoe's sources, give only a superficial account of Indigenous society, and question Pascoe's failure to consult Indigenous accounts of pre-colonial society. Their source base includes archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic evidence, in addition to the accounts of Indigenous people, or 'the Old People' in their terminology, of the pre-colonial mode of production. Appendix 2 records the movements of convict William Buckley, who escaped captivity in 1803 and lived with the Wathaurong people on Victoria's Bellarine Peninsula for 32 years, eventually becoming a Ngurungaeta, or tribal leader.

Walshe also contributed Appendix 1 of the book, which addresses the question of when Aboriginal Australians first settled on the Australian continent. Many of the chapters are structured thematically, while others address the controversy related to Pascoe's Dark Emu. Įleven chapters are written by Sutton and two by Walshe. The book has a foreword written by Wiradjuri archaeologist and lecturer Kellie Pollard and ANU Emeritus Professor Tom Griffiths. Sutton and Walshe reject Pascoe's thesis of Indigenous agriculture, and argue that his book contains serious errors and omissions. It was written as a response to Bruce Pascoe's highly successful 2014 non-fiction book Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? which describes evidence of agricultural and engineering activities by some Indigenous Australian groups, and suggests a more sedentary lifestyle than the more orthodox assessment that they were purely hunter-gatherers. Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate is a non-fiction book on Indigenous Australian history by Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe, published in mid-2021 by Melbourne University Press.

The dark emu book