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68,000 BCE
Current estimates for the arrival of Aboriginal people in Australia
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Period: 68,000 BCE to
Aboriginal Australia (68,000 BCE-1800 CE)
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45,000 BCE
Rock engravings made in South Australia -earliest dated petroglyphs
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43,000 BCE
Age of "Mungo Man"
Mungo Man was a hunter gatherer who lived in New South Wales. His skeleton is the oldest known remains in Australia. -
30,700 BCE
Age of fireplaces (such as underground ovens)
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28,000 BCE
Age of a charcoal drawing
Found at Narwala Gabarnmung, it is assumed to be Australia'a oldest known rock art and one of the earliest examples of human art. -
26,000 BCE
Ritual cremation
The body of a women is the earliest evidence in the world of ritual cremation. The body was prepared with ochre before cremation. -
13,000 BCE
Land bridges between mainland Australia and Tasmania are flooded
Leading for the Tasmanian Aboriginal people to become isolated for the next 12,000-13,000 years -
10,000 BCE
Present day Australian climate forms
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Jan 1, 1500
Indonesian fishers visit northern Australia
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Trade between Aboriginals and the Macassans
This continues until the South Australian government stops it in 1906 -
First Europeans to have contact it Australian Aboriginal people
Dutchman Willem Jansz and the people of his ship 'Dutfken' explore coast of Cape York Peninsula. The two groups clashed. -
Captain James Cook claims possession for the British Crown
James Cook claims possession of the whole east coast of Australia for the British Crown. (Many history classes and books start Australian history at this point on) -
Smallpox epidemic decimates the Eora Aboriginal people
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First Aboriginal song is heard in Europe
Bennelong and a boy named Yemmerrawanie are taken to Europe. Bennelong meets George III and Yemmerrawanie dies. Bennelong returns to Australia in 1795 -
Black Wars
Beginning of a six-year period if resistance to white settlement by Aboriginal people in the Hawkesbury and Parramatta areas. Knowno as the 'Black Wars'