Prehistory of Australia

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The prehistory of Australia is the period between the first human habitation of the Australian continent and the colonisation of Australia in 1788, which marks the start of consistent written documentation of Australia. This period has been variously estimated, with most evidence suggesting that it goes back between 50,000 and 65,000 years. This era is referred to as prehistory rather than history because knowledge of this time period does not derive from written documentation. However, some argue that Indigenous oral tradition should be accorded an equal status.[1]

Human habitation of the Australian continent began with the migration of the ancestors of today's Aboriginal Australians by land bridges and short sea crossings from what is now Southeast Asia.[2] It is uncertain how many waves of immigration may have contributed to these ancestors of modern Aboriginal Australians.[3][4] The Madjedbebe rock shelter in Arnhem Land is perhaps the oldest site showing the presence of humans in Australia.[5][6] The oldest human remains found are at Lake Mungo in New South Wales, which have been dated to around 41,000 years ago.[7][8]

At the time of first European contact, estimates of the Aboriginal population range from 300,000 to one million.[9][10][11] They were complex hunter-gatherers with diverse economies and societies. There were about 600 tribes or nations and 250 languages with various dialects.[12][13] Certain groups engaged in fire-stick farming,[14] fish farming,[15] and built semi-permanent shelters.[16][17] The extent to which some groups engaged in agriculture is controversial.[18][19][20]

The Torres Strait Islander people first settled their islands around 4,000 years ago. Culturally and linguistically distinct from mainland Aboriginal peoples, they were seafarers and obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. Agriculture also developed on some islands and villages appeared by the 1300s.[21][22]

  1. ^ Mahuika, Nepia (14 November 2019). Rethinking Oral History and Tradition. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190681685.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-068168-5.
  2. ^ Oppenheimer, Stephen (2013). Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World. Little, Brown Book Group. pp. 111–. ISBN 978-1-7803-3753-1. Archived from the original on 3 December 2023. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
  3. ^ Malaspinas, A. S., Westaway, M. C., Muller, C., Sousa, V. C., Lao, O., Alves, I., Bergström, A., Athanasiadis, G., Cheng, J. Y., Crawford, J. E., Heupink, T. H., Macholdt, E., Peischl, S., Rasmussen, S., Schiffels, S., Subramanian, S., Wright, J. L., Albrechtsen, A., Barbieri, C., Dupanloup, I., et al., Willerslev, E. (2016). A genomic history of Aboriginal Australia. Nature, 538(7624), 207–214. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18299 Archived 3 December 2023 at the Wayback Machine press release Archived 15 June 2022 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Dorey, Fran. "When did modern humans get to Australia?". Australian Museum. Archived from the original on 17 August 2020. Retrieved 21 August 2020.
  5. ^ Williams, Martin A. J.; Spooner, Nigel A.; McDonnell, Kathryn; O'Connell, James F. (January 2021). "Identifying disturbance in archaeological sites in tropical northern Australia: Implications for previously proposed 65,000-year continental occupation date". Geoarchaeology. 36 (1): 92–108. Bibcode:2021Gearc..36...92W. doi:10.1002/gea.21822. ISSN 0883-6353. S2CID 225321249. Archived from the original on 4 October 2023. Retrieved 16 October 2023.
  6. ^ Gilligan, Ian (2018). Climate, Clothing, and Agriculture in Prehistory: Linking Evidence, Causes, and Effects. Cambridge University Press. p. 237. ISBN 978-1-1084-7008-7. Archived from the original on 3 December 2023. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
  7. ^ Tuniz, Claudio; Gillespie, Richard; Jones, Cheryl (2016). The Bone Readers: Science and Politics in Human Origins Research. Routledge. p. 43. ISBN 978-1-3154-1888-9. Archived from the original on 3 December 2023. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
  8. ^ Castillo, Alicia (2015). Archaeological Dimension of World Heritage: From Prevention to Social Implications. Springer Science. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-4939-0283-5. Archived from the original on 3 December 2023. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
  9. ^ "1301.0 – Year Book Australia, 2002" Archived 16 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 25 January 2002.
  10. ^ McCalman, Janet; Kipen, Rebecca (2013). "Population and health". The Cambridge History of Australia, volume 1. p. 294.
  11. ^ Flood, Josephine (2019). The Original Australians. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. pp. 30–35. ISBN 9781760527075.
  12. ^ Flood, Josephine (2019). pp. 21–22, 37
  13. ^ Broome, Richard (2019). Aboriginal Australians. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. p. 12. ISBN 9781760528218.
  14. ^ Wyrwoll, Karl-Heinz (11 January 2012). "How Aboriginal burning changed Australia's climate". The Conversation. Archived from the original on 15 July 2023. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
  15. ^ Clark, Anna (31 August 2023). "Friday essay: traps, rites and kurrajong twine – the incredible ingenuity of Indigenous fishing knowledge". The Conversation. Archived from the original on 11 February 2024. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
  16. ^ Flood, Josephine (2019). pp. 239–40
  17. ^ Williams, Elizabeth (2015). "Complex hunter-gatherers: a view from Australia". Antiquity. 61 (232). Cambridge University Press: 310–321. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00052182. S2CID 162146349.
  18. ^ Flood, Josephine (2019). pp. 25–27, 146
  19. ^ Gammage, Bill (October 2011). The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines made Australia. Allen & Unwin. pp. 281–304.
  20. ^ Sutton, Peter; Walshe, Keryn (2021). Farmers or Hunter-Gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate. Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing. ISBN 9780522877854.
  21. ^ Veth, Peter; O'Connor, Sue (2013). "The past 50,000 years: an archaeological view". In Bashford, Alison; MacIntyre, Stuart (eds.). The Cambridge History of Australia, Volume 1, Indigenous and Colonial Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 34–35. ISBN 978-1-107-01153-3.
  22. ^ Flood (2019). pp. 198-99