Overview
The First Peoples arrived at least 65,000 years ago by sea from the direction of South-East Asia and spread across the continent. Hundreds of languages and groups managed the land with fire and seasonal movement, thriving in very different environments.
Key developments
Knowledge and law were passed on through oral tradition, song, and rock art, and their worldview is often called the Dreaming. Tools such as the boomerang and stone implements, elaborate kinship systems, and trade networks linked the continent.
End and transition
British settlement from 1788 abruptly threatened this world; disease, dispossession, and violence caused a catastrophic population collapse. Yet the cultures were never extinguished and continue to this day.