Timeline - Pre-Contact
Rainbow Serpent by Barney Daniels Tgungurrayi, Luritja people, Haasts Bluff, Alice Springs, Northern Territory. Acquired in 1988.
This acrylic painting on linen shows Dreamtime hunters (U-shapes) searching for eggs of the rainbow serpent, 'Wanampi', which are hidden in underground caverns. Wanampi formed different features in the landscape around Papunya in the Northern Territory. These features are represented by the different colours in the background of the painting.
65 000 years ago
There is still uncertainty surrounding the exact timing of the initial human colonisation of Australia, and both the timing and nature of megafaunal extinctions.
For more conservative archaeologists, the most commonly accepted age of initial human occupation is 40 000 years or 43 000 - 45 000 calendircal years after calibration (Allen 200:65; Mulvaney & Kaminga 1999). In contrast, Roberts et al. (1990;1993; 1998; 2001) and others argue for initial colonisation at 56 000 +/- 4 000 years, based on optical dates for two north Australian sites (Nauwalabila and Malakunanja). In south-east Australia, recent datings of the Lake Mungo 3 (LM3) human remains arrived at an age of about 60 000 years (more specifically, 56 000 - 68 000 years) using three different dating methods (Thorne et al. 1999). Although the use of three methods should yield a reliable age estimate with high accuracy, there is still much argument about the 'true' age of LM3, with several archaeologists and geomorphologists insisting it is more likely to be 43 000 years old.
40 000 years ago
Clear archaeological evidence that Aboriginal people have been living for some time in south eastern Australia eg. Lake Mungo.
31 000 years ago
Aborigines living at the Keilor site in Victoria.
20 000 years ago
Aboriginal people are well established throughout coastal and mainland Australia and Tasmania.
Some 10% of Tasmania is covered by glacial ice. Kutikina Cave is occupied by Tasmanian Aboriginal people at the height of the last ice age.
18 000 years ago
Grass seed harvesting is an integral activity in the socio-economic life on the large grasslands.
16 000 years ago
Sea levels begin to rise as ice caps melt. Inland lakes such as Lake Mungo have dried up.
13 000 years ago
Land bridges between mainland Australia and Tasmania are flooded. Tasmanian Aboriginal people become isolated for the next 12 000 - 13 000 years.
10 000 years ago
Present day Australian climate established.
8 000 years ago
The Torres Strait Islands are formed when the land bridge between Australia and New Guinea is flooded by rising seas.
6 000 years ago
The 'shape' of Australia's coastline is defined by present sea level.
Settlement of Pacific Islands.
5 000 years ago
Dingo arrives in Australia.
400 years ago
Bone tool deposits at Otway Peninsula, Victoria suggest Aboriginal people were working with animal skins.
The following references were used in compiling this timeline.
Bostock, Lester, 1990 The Greater Perspective, Special Broadcasting Service
Fraser, Bryce, (ed) 1983 The Macquarie Book of Events, Weldon,
Directorate of Special Programs, NSW Department of Education, 1982 Aboriginal Australia, a Preliminary Chronology
Jonas, Bill and Langton, Marcia 1994 The Little Red, Yellow and Black (and Green and Blue and White) Book, AIATSIS
Horton, D (ed) 1994 Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia, Aboriginal Studies Press
Butler, Kevin, Cameron, K & Percival, B 1995 The Myth of Terra Nullius, Invasion and Resistance -the early years, Board of Studies
