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Aboriginal Australia

Rock painting at Ubirr in Kakadu National Park. Evidence of Aboriginal art in Australia can
be traced back some 30,000 years.
Main article: History of Indigenous Australians
See also: Prehistory of Australia and Aboriginal history of Western Australia
The ancestors of Indigenous Australians are believed to have arrived in Australia 40,000 to
60,000 years ago, and possibly as early as 70,000 years ago.[3][4][5] They developed a huntergatherer lifestyle, established enduring spiritual and artistic traditions and used stone
technologies. At the time of first European contact, it has been estimated the existing
population was at least 350,000,[6][7] while recent archaeological finds suggest that a
population of 750,000 could have been sustained.[8][9]
There is considerable archaeological discussion as to the route taken by the first colonisers.
People appear to have arrived by sea during a period of glaciation, when New Guinea and
Tasmania were joined to the continent. The journey still required sea travel however, making
them amongst the world's earlier mariners.[10] Scott Cane wrote in 2013 that the first wave
may have been prompted by the eruption of Mount Toba and if they arrived around 70,000
years ago could have crossed the water from Timor, when the sea level was low but if they
came later, around 50,000 years ago, a more likely route would be through the Moluccas to
New Guinea. Given that the likely landfall regions have been under around 50 metres of
water for the last 15,000 years, it is unlikely that the timing will ever be established with
certainty.[11]

Kolaia man wearing a headdress worn in a fire ceremony, Forrest River, Western Australia.
Aboriginal Australian religious practices associated with the Dreamtime have been practised
for tens of thousands of years.

A Luritja man demonstrating method of attack with boomerang under cover of shield (1920).
The earliest known human remains were found at Lake Mungo, a dry lake in the southwest of
New South Wales.[12] Remains found at Mungo suggest one of the world's oldest known
cremations, thus indicating early evidence for religious ritual among humans.[13] According to
Australian Aboriginal mythology and the animist framework developed in Aboriginal
Australia, the Dreaming is a sacred era in which ancestral totemic spirit beings formed The
Creation. The Dreaming established the laws and structures of society and the ceremonies
performed to ensure continuity of life and land. It remains a prominent feature of Australian
Aboriginal art. Aboriginal art is believed to be the oldest continuing tradition of art in the
world.[14] Evidence of Aboriginal art can be traced back at least 30,000 years and is found
throughout Australia (notably at Uluru and Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory).
[15][16]
In terms of age and abundance, cave art in Australia is comparable to that of Lascaux
and Altamira in Europe.[17][18]
Manning Clark wrote that the ancestors of the Aborigines were slow to reach Tasmania,
probably owing to an ice barrier existing across the South East of the continent. The
Aborigines, he noted, did not develop agriculture, probably owing to a lack of seed bearing
plants and animals suitable for domestication. Thus, the population remained low. Clark
considered that the three potential pre-European colonising powers and traders of East Asia
the Hindu-Buddhists of southern India, the Muslims of Northern India and the Chineseeach
petered out in their southward advance and did not attempt a settlement across the straits
separating Indonesia from Australia. But trepang fisherman did reach the north coast, which
they called "Marege" or "land of the trepang".[19] For centuries, Makassan trade flourished
with Aborigines on Australia's north coast, particularly with the Yolngu people of northeast
Arnhem Land.
The greatest population density for Aborigines developed in the southern and eastern regions,
the River Murray valley in particular. Aborigines lived and used resources on the continent
sustainably, agreeing to cease hunting and gathering at particular times to give populations
and resources the chance to replenish. The arrival of Australia's first people nevertheless
affected the continent significantly, and, along with climate change, may have contributed to
the extinction of Australia's megafauna.[20] The practice of firestick farming amongst northern
Aborigines to increase the abundance of plants that attracted animals, transformed dry
rainforest into savanna.[21] The introduction of the dingo by Aboriginal people around 3,000
4,000 years ago may, along with human hunting, have contributed to the extinction of the
thylacine, Tasmanian devil, and Tasmanian native-hen from mainland Australia.[22][23]

Despite considerable cultural continuity, life was not without significant changes. Some 10
12,000 years ago, Tasmania became isolated from the mainland, and some stone technologies
failed to reach the Tasmanian people (such as the hafting of stone tools and the use of the
Boomerang).[24] The land was not always kind; Aboriginal people of southeastern Australia
endured "more than a dozen volcanic eruptions...(including) Mount Gambier, a mere 1,400
years ago."[25] In southeastern Australia, near present-day Lake Condah, semi-permanent
villages of beehive shaped shelters of stone developed, near bountiful food supplies.[26]
The early wave of European observers like William Dampier described the hunter-gatherer
lifestyle of the Aborigines of the West Coast as arduous and "miserable". Lieutenant James
Cook on the other hand, speculated in his journal that the "Natives of New Holland" (the East
Coast Aborigines whom he encountered) might in fact be far happier than Europeans.[27]
Watkin Tench, of the First Fleet, wrote of an admiration for the Aborigines of Sydney as
good-natured and good-humoured people, though he also reported violent hostility between
the Eora and Cammeraygal peoples, and noted violent domestic altercations between his
friend Bennelong and his wife Barangaroo.[28] Settlers of the 19th century like Edward Curr
observed that Aborigines "suffered less and enjoyed life more than the majority of civilized
men."[29] Historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote that the material standard of living for Aborigines
was generally high, higher than that of many Europeans living at the time of the Dutch
discovery of Australia.[30]
By 1788, the population existed as 250 individual nations, many of which were in alliance
with one another, and within each nation there existed several clans, from as few as five or
six to as many as 30 or 40. Each nation had its own language and a few had multiple, thus
over 250 languages existed, around 200 of which are now extinct. "Intricate kinship rules
ordered the social relations of the people and diplomatic messengers and meeting rituals
smoothed relations between groups", keeping group fighting, sorcery and domestic disputes
to a minimum.[31]
Permanent European settlers arrived at Sydney in 1788 and came to control most of the
continent by end of the 19th century. Bastions of largely unaltered Aboriginal societies
survived, particularly in Northern and Western Australia into the 20th century, until finally, a
group of Pintupi people of the Gibson Desert became the last people to be contacted by
outsider ways in 1984.[32] While much knowledge was lost, Aboriginal art, music and culture,
often scorned by Europeans during the initial phases of contact, survived and in time came to
be celebrated by the wider Australian community.

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