Category: Aboriginal History

Norman Tindale

Norman Tindale’s Aboriginal Tribes of Australia Norman B Tindale – pioneering anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist, and ethnologist – is best remembered for his work mapping the distribution of Indigenous Australian people and their languages. His lifetime project utilised data from various sources, including his own field observations in Aboriginal communities all over Australia from as early […]

Warri and Yatungka: Last of the Gibson Desert Nomads

Warri and Yatungka were the last of the Mandildjara nomadic people to remain in their country – the Western Gibson Desert region of Western Australia. Having fall in love in the 1930s, they chose to elope as Indigenous tribal law forbade their relationship.

Cape York, Queensland

Cape York Peninsula, located in Far North Queensland, is the northern-most extremity of Australia. Consisting of an area of about 220,000 sq km, the landmass extends northwards into the Torres Strait, surrounded by the Gulf of Carpentaria to the west and the Coral Sea to the east. It is renowned for its vast areas of unspoiled wildness, including eucalyptus-wooded savannahs, tropical rainforests, rugged mountains, large sand dunes, perched lakes, and more, all preserved for their global environmental significance.

Aboriginal Fire Management

In Aboriginal culture, ownership provides rights to the resources of the land, as well as responsibilities for managing the land and caring for country. For tens of thousands of year, in a process tightly connected to this duty, Aboriginal cultures across Australia used fire deliberately and skilfully to manage their environment.

Aboriginal Messages

For thousands of years different Aboriginal nations and clans of Australia communicated with each other over vast distances with incredible speed and for various purposes. When European settlers first realised messages were being effectively sent and received over these distances, they thought the Aboriginals possessed some sort of magical and mysterious powers. It did not seem possible without the ‘advanced’ technology of the Europeans, such as written communication and telegraphs.

Mowanjum Rock Paintings and Burial Caves, Kimberley Western Australia

prominent is the rock art of the North Kimberley Rock Art of the Mowanjum people, who consist of the Ngarinyin, Worrorra and Wunambal language groups. These Aboriginal art works depicting Wandjina Ancestors and totems of local groups, as well as stencils of hands and feet, can be found across the landscape. They remain on rock walls and shelters, protected for thousands of years against weathering and lichen.

The Mungo Man Debate

Since Mungo Man was returned to his county, he has been stored along with Mungo Lady in an interim secret location, with traditional owners divided about their final resting place.

The Bundian Way, New South Wales

Connecting the highest part of the Australian continent and the south-eastern coast is a 365km long ancient Aboriginal trail known as the Bundian Way. Situated in southern New South Wales, it runs from the snowy peaks of Targangal (now known as Mount Kosciuszko) to the turquoise waters of Bilgalera (Fisheries beach) in Twofold Bay, near the coastal town of Eden. In doing so, it traverses some of Australia’s wildest terrain through a remarkable variety of bush landscapes, across plains and mountain ranges.

Scenic air tours of Australia

Within Australia there are a range of private plane options suitable for an aircraft charter service operation. As a tour operator working with the private aviation sector we are selecting the right aircraft for the small group tour of outback Australia offered.

Aboriginal Shell Trade

Ancient Aboriginal Shell Trade Baler and pearl shell ornaments played a key role in the history of distant trading relationships across ancient Aboriginal Australia and remain an important part of many Aboriginal cultures today. Prior…

Gwion Gwion Rock Paintings (Bradshaw Art)

Gwion Gwion Rock Art (Bradshaw Paintings) Gwion Gwion art – formerly commonly known as ‘Bradshaw paintings’ – is a sophisticated tradition of Kimberley rock art found in the north-west region of Western Australia. The art…

Historical Aboriginal Marketplaces

Ancient Aboriginal Marketplaces By Marco Stojanovik Trade was a central part of life in Aboriginal Australia prior to British settlement, with trading routes criss-crossing the breadth of the continent, flowing from one nation to the next. Isabel McBryde (1987: 267) explains that lying at the intersections of various routes on mutual soil were exchange centres, which may […]

How was Pituri Traded in Ancient Aboriginal Australia?

Ancient Aboriginal Pituri Trade By the time European colonisation began in Australia 1788, Aboriginal people had been using and trading a leafy psychoactive plant substance called ‘pituri’ for thousands of years (Watson 2011). A highly…

Australian Aboriginal Paths of Migration

The Peopling of Australia Before Europeans reached Australia, there were probably already more than a million Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people inhabiting the land. Their ancestors had been there for upwards of 60,000 years.…

Seven Ancient Roads That Connected the World

Ancient Roads Around the World For thousands of years roads have played a vital role in the development of human societies. For trading civilisations, they facilitated the exchange over vast distances of specific goods in…

Bora Rings: Ancient Aboriginal Ceremonial Grounds

Bora Rings By Marco Stojanovik Bora Rings, or ceremonial grounds, were an ancient Aboriginal institution that held many functions, particularly for ceremonial purposes and as meeting places. They came in a variety of configurations depending on location and specific use, but most consisted of two circles, a large one and small one, made of stone […]

Aboriginal Stone Trade

Ancient Aboriginal Trade of Stone Axe and Spear Heads  Ethnographic evidence from Australia shows us that the Aboriginal tribes were interconnected with another by a complex network of exchange systems from one side of the…

Key Aboriginal Trade Routes of Ancient Australia

Key Aboriginal Trade Routes By Marco Stojanovik Trade was a central part of life in Aboriginal Australia prior to British settlement. Trading routes criss-crossed the breadth of the continent, flowing from one nation to the next, dispersing goods information, technologies, and culture. These routes were not necessarily narrow, well-defined trails, with some passing haphazardly between […]

Aboriginal Ochre Trade

Ancient Aboriginal Ochre Trade The natural clay ochre was one of the most important and valuable trading items for Australian Aboriginal people. An iron oxide pigment, it is found in a range of colours, ranging…

The Pituri Road: Ancient Aboriginal Trading Route

The ‘Pituri Road’ was one of the most important, serving as an extensive network of Aboriginal trading routes across the continent.  Pituri is made from leaves of the shrub Duboisia hopwoodii, the most potent of Australian plants containing nicotine. Widely harvested, prepared, traded and chewed by Indigenous people across much of Australia, it has been described as the ‘gold standard’ of Indigenous trading (Brady & Long, 2003). Dominant as a bartering commodity with and within tribal groups, it was considered as equivalent in status to boomerangs, spears, shields, and red ochre.

Arnhem Land Songspirals

Arnhem Land Songspirals Songspirals, or Songlines, form a vital part of Aboriginal Australian cultures and their practices, providing important knowledge, values, and wisdom, and connecting people to their land. As ancient narratives, they trace the journeys of ancestral spirits who created the land and all natural phenomena, and hold practical knowledge needed for survival and […]