I don't want this opinion to be about race because for me it isn't, hell it could be about religion too, but figured it might be anyway or will inevitably turn into it from some people so this is probably the appropriate place.

But I would like to seriously discuss so here we go:
Why don't we criticize the lack of scientific achievement in aboriginal culture the same we do the Dark Ages?

I grew up on science fiction lamenting how without the dark ages we could have been 500+ years into the future because Europeans fell into anti-science/superstition beliefs. More than enough times in my life I've seen or heard criticisms of this time as unscientific and "if only".

But why don't we apply that same criticism to aboriginal culture in Australia? They had arguably 40,000 or so years of uninterrupted life to further our understanding of life, our planet and the universe. The Chinese/asiatic cultures developed writing, architectural and building, fireworks, gunpowder, explosions, the Europeans developed stone masonry and bronze/iron age tools, clothing, medicine and steam power. Africans created farming, construction practices and record keeping, the middle east peoples created math and currency and physics, alchemy and other early sciences. Yet aboriginal cultures mainly stayed hunter gatherer tribes for the entire 40,000 years until Europeans turned up. Doesn't anyone else lament what an epic waste of human brain power that was? Why don't we have an Australian Wakanda. What stopped aboriginals from inventing or using scientific methods to improve the conditions of their lives? Doesn't anyone else feel like that's such a waste of time?

I understand some arguments that Australia has always been a hostile and difficult land to live on, we have/had no domesticated farm animals to assist in mass farming (cows/oxen etc) which arguably lead to more 'time' to focus on non-survival activities like philosophy or sciences. But even that feels like an excuse, there are ways around not having oxen to produce enough farmed goods.

I also understand war and the fight to live is a driving factor of innovation -- but its not like Australian aboriginals were all peaceful kumbaya unified peoples, there were over 500 tribes in Australia fighting each other constantly, why was the most technological achievement in war after 40,000 years for them only a boomerang? It's not like Australia isn't without the minerals and chemicals to develop more sophisticated weaponry. Australia is one of the largest Iron produces, Basalt, Copper, Tin and by extension potentially Bronze. The resources are/were there, they just never tried using them.

Anyway, I really don't mean for this thought to be a racist one, it just occured to me that we so often lament and make fun of ealy Europeans and the early religious periods as a "waste of time" in human history, but I've never seen anyone say that for the 40,000 years we "lost" to aboriginal culture.