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A 19th-century engraving of an Aboriginal Australian encampment, showing the indigenous lifestyle in the cooler parts of Australia at the time of European settlement. The first contact between British explorers and Indigenous Australians came in 1770, when Lieutenant James Cook interacted with the Guugu Yimithirr people around contemporary ...
The human history of Australia, however, commences with the arrival of the first ancestors of Aboriginal Australians by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, and continues to the present day multicultural democracy. Aboriginal Australians settled throughout continental Australia and many nearby islands.
Some Indigenous Australians are remembered in history for their leadership during the British invasion and colonisation, some for their resistance to that colonisation, and others for assisting the Europeans in exploring the country. Some became infamous for their deeds, and others noted as the last of their communities.
The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south-east Asia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago, during the last glacial period. [1] [2] Arriving by sea, they settled the continent and had formed approximately 250 distinct language groups by the time of European settlement, maintaining some of the longest known continuing artistic and religious traditions in the world.
It has been variously estimated that before the arrival of British settlers, the population of Indigenous (probably Aboriginal only) Australians was approximately 318,000–1,000,000 [121] with the distribution being similar to that of the current Australian population, the majority living in the south-east, centred along the Murray River.
Before British colonisation of Tasmania in 1803, there were an estimated 3,000–15,000 Aboriginal Tasmanians. [ a ] The Aboriginal Tasmanian population suffered a drastic drop in numbers within three decades, so that by 1835 only some 400 full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal people survived, most of this remnant being incarcerated in camps where ...
They contributed DNA to Aboriginal Australians and to present-day New Guineans and an indigenous tribe in the Philippines known as Mamanwa. This study confirms Aboriginal Australians as one of the oldest living populations in the world. They are possibly the oldest outside Africa, and they may have the oldest continuous culture on the planet. [28]
Indigenous Australians is an inclusive term used when referring to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders. The earliest definite human remains found to date are that of Mungo Man , which have been dated at about 40,000 years old, but the time of arrival of the ancestors of Indigenous Australians is a matter of debate among researchers ...