The Prehistoric People of Australia...

By the time European explorers reached Australia in the February of 1606, indigenous people had been living there for around 50 to 65,000 years. The first people to reach Australia entered a wild world of colorful birds, dangerous reptiles, gigantic marsupials, and dramatic environments. These people were the ancestors to today's Aboriginal Australians, and over the generations passed down their culture and knowledge to those living in Australia today. The road to the modern world, however, was paved with trial, error, and danger. The elements, animals, and even other humans posed a threat to the first Australians, and their survival in this land was far from easy. What then happened to the first people to reach Australia? What was the island of Australia like when they first felt its soil beneath their feet, and how did they manage to thrive in this new world? Today we'll be aiming to answer all of these questions and more as we take a look at archaeological sites, fossil remains, and running theories on these ancient people. Join us as we take you back through time to explore exactly what happened to the early humans of Australia, how they lived, and how they gave rise to the Aboriginal Australians of today. Indigenous Australians can be defined by two broad groups, which each contain their own multitudes of cultures, languages, and identities. These are the Aboriginal Australians, mentioned previously in this video, and the Torres Strait Islanders, native to the islands that separate Australia with Papua New Guinea. The ancestors of the Aboriginal Australians set foot on the continent between 50 to 65,000 years ago and settled there permanently, forming hunter-gatherer communities that would eventually spread out across the land. It is the mainland Australians that we will predominantly be The Torres Strait Islands, however, have been permanently settled as recently as 2,500 years ago. The people living here were historically nomadic seafarers, distinct from the Aboriginals of the south. They primarily grew and harvested fruit and shrubs and obtained their food from the island's plentiful coral reefs and tropical forests. How were people able to reach Australia in the first place, however? The first human migration to Australia is thought to have taken place via a series of lost land bridges that disappeared from Southeast Asia and Oceania when sea levels rose. Traversing the archipelagos and landmasses of these regions became easier with the presence of Sundaland and Sahul. The former linked modern-day Thailand and Vietnam with Malaysia and the latter linked modern-day Papua New Guinea with Australia. While getting from mainland Asia to Australia still required knowledge of shipbuilding and sailing to cross the short stretch of water between the two, it was much easier for humans to cross over in the Pleistocene than it was after the sea levels rose. The first Australians, then, are also the first inhabitants of Papua, having travelled south from the cloud forests into the wide-open stretches of Australia. People may have also travelled directly to Australia by hopping from island to island via Timor, Australia's northwest. The oldest site in Australia that shows evidence of humans are the rock shelters of Majibebe in the northern reaches of the country. Here, ochre pigments have been found amongst the rocks that may have been produced by early humans as a source of colour for their art and body paint. This site, if it does prove to be human in origin, could indicate that people have been in Australia for at least 60,000 years. Either way, by around 47,000 years ago, humans had settled in the southern reaches of Australia, travelling across another land bridge to Tasmania by 39,000 years ago. Sites in western Australia and New South Wales have revealed stone tools used by early humans that date back to, at the oldest, 50,000 years ago, which has led scientists to believe that humans may have reached Australia earlier and spread out quicker than once thought. Once early humans settled on the continent, they spread out to cover all habitats and regions of Australia, no matter how inhospitable. Ancestors of modern Aboriginal Australians are known to have occupied rainforests, woodlands, deserts, coasts and uplands in tribal communities until the arrival of European colonists in the early 1600s. When the Europeans arrived, they stepped into a land filled with abundant human culture. The early settlers that gave rise to the Aboriginal people were now anywhere between 300,000 and 1 million strong, lived in as many as 600 distinct tribes, and spoke around 250 individual languages. They had been here since the great beasts of the Pleistocene roamed the deserts and forests, and despite the hardships of colonialism, have persisted into the modern day. What was life like for the indigenous peoples of Australia before the arrival of European colonists, however? Australia in the time of the first human migrations would have been a dramatic landscape of drastically changing environments, warm weather, and an abundance of unique animal life. As humans settled down and formed tribes and communities, they learned to exploit the natural resources available to them, and a wide range of cultures and diets have been observed across the indigenous cultures of the continent. Foraging and hunting made up considerable parts of the lives of ancient Australians, and both men and women participated in obtaining food for the tribe. Women gathered while men primarily hunted. Each day people took to the wilds with bags and digging sticks, seeking out anything that might be safe to eat. Fruits, nuts, seeds, and vegetables were harvested from the wilds and returned to the tribe for consumption, complemented by the meat of the local wildlife. Large marsupials such as kangaroos were hunted for their meat, and were brought down with spears, clubs, throwing stones, and a classically Australian invention, the boomerang. Sometimes prey would be hunted over great distances, and indigenous Australians are known to have been excellent trackers. Hunters would take great care to conceal themselves from their quarries with mud and foliage, and opted to strike at very close range once sufficient ground had been closed. Elsewhere, ancient Australians became master fishermen. While some communities caught fish traditionally with spears, nets, and baskets, others opted for more creative methods. In some instances, poisonous plant leaves were scattered in the water to intoxicate the fish, making them easier to catch by hand. Another method of hand catching was to stir up sediment in the water, forcing confused fish to the surface. Those using spears and nets, however, could catch larger quantities of prey, and often larger animals. Turtles, dugongs, and eels were hunted for food. Some communities took this a step further and began farming the eels, irrigating pond systems to produce a reliable stream of fish meat. In around 3500 BC, animal domestication arrived in mainland Australia in the form of the dingo, a lineage of domesticated dogs that now live feral and wild on the modern continent. These dogs were brought over from mainland Asia and appear to be related to ancestral lineages in ancient China. Theories suggest that a second wave of settlers from Asia migrated to Australia, bringing domesticated dogs with them. These dogs would go on to become the dingoes known from Australia today. There is little evidence to suggest that dingoes accompanied ancient Australians on hunts, but rather that they lived in harmony with one another. Dingoes were commonplace around indigenous peoples' camps and became tame. No other animal has since been domesticated on mainland Australia bar those that European settlers brought with them. Ancient Australians lived in a dramatic and dangerous world where survival was rarely guaranteed. Not only were there hazards represented by exposure to the elements, but the island was home to a series of unique animals that represented threats to the first Australians. Marsupials, being the major mammal group in Australia, had ample time to evolve into bizarre forms after millions of years of isolation. Short-faced kangaroos with forward facing eyes that walked instead of hopped, such as Procoptodon goliah, were commonplace and may have been hunted by ancestral aboriginal peoples. Diprotodon, a colossal hippo-like relative of modern wombats, lived and migrated in groups, while all manner of strange marsupials, akin to the bears and sloths of other continents, thrived in the forests of Sahul. Australia was home to Thylacoleocarnifex, a specially adapted arboreal ambush predator with shear-like teeth and curved claws. This animal may have preyed upon the first humans to enter its territory thousands of years ago. Elsewhere, huge reptiles such as Varanus priscus, a giant monitor lizard, acted as the apex predators of ancient Australia. They lived alongside the likes of Wonambi, a huge snake, and Quincana, a terrestrial crocodile of gigantic proportions. Today, Australia is widely considered to be one of the most dangerous places in the natural world. Let's not forget that alongside the extinct animals we've just mentioned, all of the modern extant animals of Australia still thrived. Venomous snakes, spiders, and scorpions roamed the deserts, while incredibly dangerous species of marine animals such as stonefish, box jellyfish, stingrays, and blue-ringed octopus occupied the coastlines. For the abundant fishing communities, this would have been particularly dangerous. Elsewhere, crocodiles, cassowaries, and even highly poisonous plants would have posed their own threats. It was a beautiful yet deadly world to be a pioneer of. Ancient Australians engaged in rich cultural practices that differed greatly from community to community. Rock art was and still is abundant in aboriginal society and came in the form of engravings, paintings, and handprints on rock faces and in the ground. The earliest instances of these art forms date back to around 30,000 years ago, when communities had been established across the continent and specific cultural practices had time to arise. While most of this art depicts humans, animals, and the natural world, some of it shows the development of society across ancient Australia. Neighbouring communities became friends with one another and engaged in trading their unique resources. This has on occasion been shown in art and stories, of which have been passed down in oral traditions. Ancient aboriginals appear to have traded with people living in Indonesia and adapted their styles of fishing and hunting. Deep canoes and strong harpoon heads crafted from metal were utilized by aboriginals in this way. Ancient Australians typically lived in tribes composed of family clans, of which an average of 25 people occupied a community. These would grow to much larger sizes with time and as the population of Australia continued to grow, but started small. Tribes typically had no governmental structure or leader and tribespeople would seek out elders for answers and advice, those who knew the surrounding lands better than anyone and who could provide reliable advice based upon experience. Territories between tribes were defined by natural features or barriers and people often married into other tribes to keep relations and trade strong. Corroborations, huge meetings between groups of aboriginal tribes were important events in establishing trade relations and marriages and prevented any risk of inbreeding throughout the population. Aboriginal communities today can trace their religious and spiritual beliefs back to the ancient peoples of Australia via oral tradition. While there is no singular religion that can be associated with every aboriginal community, there are links between spiritual practices and beliefs across the continent. Ceremonies hosted around campfires and the wilderness over generations have allowed ancestral Australians to pass down their myths and legends to the future generations and they remain intact and alive as a result. Spiritual traditions focus around the concept of the dream time, when ancestral spirit beings created the world and everything in it. Many aboriginal mythologies involve the presence of a rainbow serpent, a creator deity important in the dream time. The aboriginal peoples of modern-day Australia can trace their origins back to those first settlers that appeared on the continent over 50,000 years ago. The people of Australia would have come with much trial and error and although indigenous people did survive up until the modern day, many cultures and languages would have been lost along the way, either naturally or unnaturally. Naturally, there are theories that explore the idea that groups of Australians were lost to disease or may have experienced wide-scale disasters such as droughts or changes in climate across the All of these natural factors pale in comparison to the impact of colonialism on indigenous Australians, however. Populations of humans in Australia, despite natural setbacks, had been growing continuously since the first wave of settlers arrived on the island. Any natural factors that impacted them were clearly nowhere near severe enough to make a significant dent in their numbers, that is, until the British came to lay claim to their ancient lands. So, to answer the question what happened to the early humans of Australia, we must look to the year 1606, where hunter-gatherer communities met technologically advanced ones, something that has continuously spelled disaster across the historical world. The first documented landing of Europeans on Australian soil took place in February of 1606, when Willem Janszoon, a Dutch navigator, docked his ship along the Cape York peninsula of northern Queensland. Janszoon charted sections of the Australian coast for western maps for the first time, but the Dutch made no attempt to settle this new land. It wasn't until 1770 that European explorers would make first contact with indigenous Australians, when British explorer Captain James Cook met the Gugu Yimithirr people living along the east coast of the island. As is the way with European colonialism, it was soon declared that the east coast of Australia was claimed for the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the land was named New South Wales. The local Aboriginal people were not viewed as the owners of the land they lived on, as agriculture was not commonplace amongst their communities. In 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip arrived at the colonial British settlement of Port Jackson, where he had been instructed to live in amity and kindness with the local people, while establishing these lands for the Crown. For around two years, the local Eora Aboriginal people kept their distance from the British and their settlements, concerned that their way of life would be put at risk. They were appalled that the British had entered their lands without permission and had begun harvesting the resources they had relied upon for thousands of years. It didn't take long for relations to turn south, however. Within a year of British presence in Australia, despite his instructions to maintain good relations with the native peoples, Governor Arthur Phillip had begun kidnapping Aboriginal men in order to teach them English, so they may act as middlemen between the tribal communities and the British Crown. This was met, understandably, with aggression from the Aboriginal people, and there are, at this point in time, several instances of British colonialists being speared by Aboriginal huntsmen and warriors, Phillip himself included, albeit under non-lethal circumstances. Phillip retaliated by capturing and beheading ten native men in Botany Bay, an act that would permanently damage relations between the two factions. Phillip himself had broken the code he was issued to uphold. Aboriginal peoples had been murdered by his direct orders, and the consequences would be colossal. In 1789, smallpox, carried over by the Europeans to Australia, struck the native populations, ravaging their numbers in the areas surrounding Port Jackson. These people, unlike the British, had never been exposed to smallpox before and were not immune to the disease. While the British were able to power through it following a brief period of illness, the disease was fatal to many Aboriginal people. By 1820, Aboriginal numbers had dropped from as many as one million to as little as 30,000 as a result of the deadly disease. Smallpox was not the only killer of native people, however, and after disease, the second most common cause of death was systematic killings by British authorities. As Britain's influence spread out into Australia's far coasts and interiors, not all communities took kindly to the encroaching threat, and inevitable clashes took place. Aboriginal warriors, armed only with spears and simple clothing, were little match for the advanced steel and gunpowder of British forces. What followed was a traumatic period of declining Aboriginal culture, where ties between tribes that had been established for thousands of years were severed, cultural, linguistic, and religious practices were lost, and thousands of people lost their lives. These first few decades were only the beginning for the indigenous people of Australia. What followed were attempts to civilize the tribal communities of native people by attempting to assimilate them into colonial society, all the while the Aboriginal communities were still facing death via disease and murder. Penal colonies were established in Australia that occupied land Aboriginal peoples relied upon, and the crown took more and more liberties with a continent that was not its own. Laws and regulations attempted to police the native peoples, which led to uprisings and more violence. Later, Aboriginal communities continued to face discrimination and racism, which persists in Australia to this day. Activism, protests, and movements for equality have helped in giving Aboriginal peoples the rights they deserve, but the problem still persists, and support is still needed. Organizations that are involved in supporting Aboriginal peoples include the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, the Healing Foundation, and the Northern Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency. Visit their websites to find out more.