History of Indigenous Australians

Common card · No. 212048

The history of Indigenous Australians began 50,000 to 65,000 years ago when humans first populated the Australian continent. This article covers the history of Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, two broadly defined groups which each include other sub-groups defined by language and culture. 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. The Aboriginal people spread throughout the continent, adapting to diverse environments and climate change to develop one of the oldest continuous cultures on Earth. At the time of first European contact, the Aboriginal population exceeded two million. They were primarily complex hunter-gatherers with diverse economies and societies. There were about 600 tribes or nations and 250 languages with various dialects. Certain groups engaged in fire-stick farming and fish farming, and built semi...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Andrew Garran, Public domain