When Europeans discovered Australia…

The Australian Aborigines established themselves over the entire Australian continent, including Tasmania, long before Europeans discovered it. By about 40,000 years ago, small groups had arrived by sea, probably travelling from Southeast Asia to the north coast of Australia. Aborigines are dark skinned, with numerous regional variations in their anatomical features and hair colour. Traditionally, about 500 different tribal groups existed, each occupying a particular stretch of country and speaking a different language or dialect, but they joined with adjacent groups for certain purposes, among them religious gatherings and trade. Being semi-nomadic people, they did not have permanent settlements but made small camps near watering places, building huts. Because the Aborigines needed to be mobile, they had few everyday belongings. Men carried spears, spear-throwers, and various kinds of boomerangs; women, their digging sticks, dishes, and bags or baskets. They usually went naked, but groups in cold southern areas made and wore fur cloaks.