Australian Aboriginal history timeline

Australian Aboriginal history is the only history that grows both ways - forward into the present and backwards into the past as new scientific methods indicate that archaeological sites are much older than originally thought.

Just as we have learned about your history, please learn about ours. —From the Ngambri petition claiming the area of Canberra, January 2007 [1]

Ancient history

1. 7 mill.

   approx.years

   Age of the endocast of a primitive hominid-like skull recovered from among the rubble of a volcanic plug in the Bega district, on the New South Wales far south coast, in May 2005 [2].

2. 120,000

   approx.years ago

   Analysis of pollen and charcoal giving a date of 120,000 BP suggests that people were using fire to clear land in the Lake George basin in the Southern Tablelands of NSW, about 30 kms north-east of Canberra.

3. 68,000

   approx.years ago

   Current estimates for the arrival of Aboriginal people in Australia [2].

4. 60,000

   approx.years

   Age of Lake Mungo 3 human remains (age range between 56,000 and 68,000 years), south-western NSW, 987 km west of Sydney.

   Lake Mungo, New South Wales. Ancient camp sites have been found in this area.

5. 56,000

   approx.years

   Suggested age of two north Australian sites (Nauwalabila and Malakunanja, about 300 kms east of Darwin).

   Archaeological evidence suggests that a rock shelter was used by people at a site in Arnhem Land (400 kms east of Darwin) in the Northern Territory. They used stone tools and red ochre probably to prepare pigments for rock painting or body decoration.

6. 45,000

   approx.years

   Rock engravings made in South Australia - the earliest dated petroglyphs.

7. 40,000

   approx.years

   Clear archaeological evidence that Aboriginal people have been living in south-eastern Australia e.g. Lake Mungo National Park, NSW

8. 30,700

   approx.years

   Age of fireplaces (such as underground oven) at Lake Mungo National Park, NSW

   Aboriginal people living at the Keilor site (20 kms north-west of Melbourne) in Victoria.

9. 30,000

   approx.years ago

   Oldest evidence of bread making in the world at Cuddy Springs (ancient lake located between Marra Creek and Macquarie River, near Carinda, western NSW).

   A man from the Lake Mungo area (south-west NSW) is buried in a shallow grave. His forearm bones are stained pink from ochre. This is one of the earliest known burials of a distinctly modern people.

   Aboriginal people were living around the now extinct lakes of the Willandra Lakes system. Evidence shows signs of spiritual and creative life and technology linked to much later Aboriginal culture.

   Devils' Lair in southernmost Western Australia is home to Aboriginal people who leave bone tool artefacts, including unique bone-beads of split-pointed macropod shin bones. The cave is occupied from this time to 6,000 BP.

10. 26,000

    approx.years

    Age of bones found in sediment at the Willandra Lakes Region of far western NSW.

    The body of a woman from Lake Mungo provides the earliest evidence in the world of ritual cremation. The body is prepared with ochre before cremation.

11. 22,000

    approx.years

    Occupation site at Wentworth Falls, NSW

    Aboriginal people living at Malangangarr in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, use ground-edge grooved axes. Australian technology leads the world.

    In deep caves under the Nullarbor Plains at Koonalda (at the western edge of South Australia, about 50 kms from the ocean), Aboriginal people mine flint and leave grooved designs on the cave walls. This is early evidence of the close relationship of art and work in Aboriginal life.

    Wentworth Falls, New South Wales. An occupation site has been found in this area dated 22,000 years old.

12. 20,000

    approx.years ago

    Aboriginal people were dispersed across the entire continent, occupying places as remote as rock shelters on the Franklin River in south-west Tasmania and at Birrigai in the ranges of the Australian Capital Territory, which surrounds Canberra, the national capital.

    Some 10% of Tasmania is covered by glacial ice. Kutikina Cave on the Franklin River is occupied by Tasmanian Aboriginal people at the height of the last ice age.

13. 18,000

    approx.years ago

    Harvesting grass seeds is integral to Aboriginal socio-economic life on the large grasslands. The seeds were ground and baked or roasted and eaten whole.

    Art at Ubirr in Kakadu National Park (Northern Territory, 300 kms east of Darwin) depicts now extinct animals, the Thylacine (Tasmanian tiger), and Zaglossus (the long-beaked echidna).

14. 16,000

    approx.years ago

    Hearths, stone and bone tools, Shaws Creek near Yarramundi (60 kms north-west from Sydney), NSW.

    Sea levels begin to rise as ice caps melt. Inland lakes such as Lake Mungo have dried up.

15. 13,000

    approx.years ago

    Land bridges between mainland Australia and Tasmania are flooded. Tasmanian Aboriginal people become isolated for the next 12,000 - 13,000 years.

    At Kow Swamp near Cohuna, 230 kms north of Melbourne, Victoria, Aboriginal people weare kangaroo teeth headbands similar to those worn by men and women in the Central Desert in the 19th century.

16. 10,000

    approx.years ago

    Present day Australian climate establishes.

    Aboriginal people at Wyrie Swamp near Millicent, 340 kms south-east of Adelaide, South Australia, use returning boomerangs to hunt waterfowl.

17. 8,000

    approx.years ago

    The Torres Strait Islands are formed when the land bridge between Australia and New Guinea is submerged by rising seas.

    Earliest visible evidence of Aboriginal belief connected with the rainbow Serpent. This becomes the longest continuing belief in the world.

18. 5,000

    approx.years ago

    Occupation site, Penrith Lakes (about 50 kms west of Sydney), NSW

    Coastline of Australia takes its present form. Rottnest Island (off Perth, WA), previously connected to mainland Australia, becomes an island.

    Settlement of Pacific Islands.

    Dingo arrives in Australia.

    Rottnest Island, Western Australia. Aboriginal people saw the island when it was still connected to the mainland. Photo: Zsuzsanna Kilian, sxc.hu

• Pre-Cook history (1400 - 1769) »

Out of respect for Aboriginal culture I use Indigenous sources as much as possible.
www.dreamtime.net.au, www.hreoc.gov.au, www.austlii.edu.au, NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs, www.racismnoway.com.au [1] Koori Mail 394 p.11 [2] Bega District News, 13/1/2006