Life on the Land and Sea in Early Australia
- May 19, 2025
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 4, 2025
If you were to take a spaceship and fly out of the atmosphere and focus your view on the vast Pacific Ocean you would see only blue. However, what seemingly looks like a giant blue canvas is actually a collection of island chains and systems home to an incredibly diverse group of people on a continental shelf known as Oceania! Home to Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, the area is typically split into four different regions: Micronesia, Polynesia, Australia, and Melanesia. Your journey back to earth is not only one through space, but also through time. It is approximately 500 BCE and as you soar above the pacific waters on your way to Australia, you are joined by sail boats cutting through the waves on a voyage to distant islands.
While the date of the original settlement of this area is unknown, one theory is that people from Southeast Asia came in two waves to the area of Oceania. During the first wave, approximately 38,000 BCE, the ancestors of modern day Melanesians and Australian Aboriginals arrived in New Guinea. At this time the Melanesian people expanded as far north as the northern Solomon Islands. The further remote Pacific Islands were reached during the second wave, approximately 8,000 BCE . Additional theories discuss the idea that early humans arrived in Australia approximately 80,000 to 65,000 years ago. Some archaeological evidence along with oral histories and traditions of the Australian people support the latter of the two theories. Whether the first people landed in the Pacific 80,000 years ago or 38,000 years ago, it is obvious that their seafaring skills brought them vast distances to new lands
Ocean exploration was a huge part of the lives of people in the Pacific. Sailing over 120 miles, or 200 km, people in the pacific used large catamaran and outrigger sailing vessels. One of the traditional sailing vessels had a stable platform spanning two hulls. V shaped sails were used to cross vast expanses of the ocean at a fast pace. Navigation was done via wayfinding, or using the stars, sun, ocean conditions and other markers of nature to navigate. The connection that people in the Pacific had to the ocean was evident, not only in their impressive navigational feats, but also in stories passed down through generations. Women in Australia were prominent members of the fishing community, often making their own currejun or garradjun, fishing line, out of bark or inner fiber from trees. The women did not use a rod or reel at this time, but rather cast out into the ocean and quickly pulled in their line hand over hand, so as to not lose the fish they hooked. The fish hooks were made from carved shell, like abalone, or potentially even hardwood.
A traditional fishing practice called Malgun, entailed the amputation of the outermost joint of a young girl’s left pinky finger. The finger would be fed to a fish, forever linking the young girl with the fish, creating a connection to the ocean and bringing good fortune and incredible fishing skills. Contrary to the large sailing ships used to cross vast oceans, many of the women used large pieces of bark tied together at both ends to create smaller boats. Men would also partake in fishing activities particularly at night, where they would lure fish to their boats with hand torches, often spearing fish that chased the lights. Fish traps made from stone were used to capture large numbers of fish traveling upstream during periods with high flowing water. While much of the depictions and history we see of aboriginal fishing technologies were created by European settlers, long after the original arrival of the Aboriginal people, stories and practices passed on through the generations still remain.
Knowledge and history is often passed down through stories and oral histories. Narratives were passed from generation to generation for thousands of years telling the story of how Australia was not only discovered but formed. Many Aboriginal individuals including Lardil man Goobalathaldin, in his autobiography Moon and Rainbow, recounted a story passed down by his ancestors telling how the channels may have formed by Garnguur. Garnguur was described as a seagull woman who carved out the channels by dragging a raft across the peninsula. This story refers to the potential creation of the North Wellesley islands which were once attached to the mainland of Australia.
Additional stories were passed on discussing the rising sea levels which succeeded the last ice age. A story of Ngurunderi from South Australia spoke of a man who’s two wives left him running away along the south coast of Fleurieu Peninsula. They slipped away from him, and in his anger he caused the sea to rise, drowning the women and their belongings; the sea did not recede following this event. These histories were passed down through song, dance, and stories. Oral traditions were not only used for entertainment purposes, but also often taught lessons and shared valuable information needed for the continued survival of the Aboriginal Australian people. In addition to being passed down verbally, some stories were painted on bark, on the human body, and sometimes even formed into the ground itself.
Engravings on rock walls dating back over to approximately 40,000 BCE. Humans, patterns, animal tracks, and animals were all frequently depicted engraved in stone. Rock art and engravings were found on walls depicting the animals that were hunted and observed such as the Thylacine, a now extinct tiger, and Zaglossus, or long beaked echidna. Not only people of the sea, the Aboriginal Australian people had a rich life on land. Stone tools and ground Ochre, used as a pigment to paint on rock, were found in rock shelters possibly as early as 63,000 BCE. Plants were collected and processed on grinding stones along with pigments and stone tools creating edge-ground hatchets. Stone working involved hitting larger stones with a percussive instrument such as bone, and flaking off portions of stone to create a sharp edge. Many additional tools such as bone needles, wooden handled stone tools, and gypsum tools were found in rock shelters. While organic tools such as wooden digging-sticks and spears; woven nets and baskets; and carrying dishes may have been used, they have long since deteriorated with the elements.
Living primarily in the southeast, southwest, and highlands of what is now New Guinea, then the northern part of Australia. It is believed that people lived along the coast, an area they may be familiar with given their seafaring history and began hunting and gathering. Shellfish, fish, and coastal plants were most likely a large part of their early diet, before exploring inland. Other scholars believe that people arrived to a land with abundant food and plants easily obtained. However the very central area of Australia, an arid desert, was occupied approximately 10,000 years ago, by comparison, much more recent than the rest of Australia. The environment in Australia ranged widely from tropical northern coast to a much colder climate along the Tasmanian peninsula. A varying environment would often lead to equally varying resources, and early Australian people would practice subsistence hunting and gathering, focusing on areas where resources were seasonally abundant.
As time goes on, the ocean rises and falls along the coast of Australia, ultimately slowly inching its way further up the coast until it stabilized approximately 6,000 years ago. All the while Aboriginal people continued to live on and cultivate the land. Lagoons and barrier reefs developed. The land slowly turned into what would now be recognizable as Australia. With these changes, it is unfortunately time for you to re-embark on your spaceship, and travel back to your home, and time. The incredible journey through the history of early Australia showed us the diverse way of life of a people intrinsically linked to both the land and sea. The vast waters explored by seafaring people show the interconnectedness that existed even prior to the invention of the space-time travel that brought you to this land at this point in time. It showed you the vibrant life of a people still living and thriving in Australia today.
References
Bellwood, Peter. “Special Report: Ancient Seafarers.” Ancient Seafarers - Archaeology Magazine Archive, April 1997, archive.archaeology.org/9703/etc/specialreport.html. Accessed 18 May 2025.
Bernt, Ronald M, and Robert Tonkinson. “Australian Aboriginal Peoples.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 13 May 2025,
Clark, Anna. The Catch: The Story of Fishing in Australia. National Library of Australia, 2017.
UniSC News. “Evidence the Oral Stories of Australia’s First Nations Might Be 10,000 Years Old.” University of the Sunshine Coast, 1 Aug. 2023,
www.usc.edu.au/about/unisc-news/news-archive/2023/july/evidence-the-oral-stories-of-a ustralia-s-first-nations-might-be-10-000-years-old.
Mahuika, Neipa. Rethinking Oral History and Tradition: An Indigenous Perspective, 18 Mar. 2021, academic.oup.com/.
Mulvaney, D. J., and J. Peter White. Australians to 1788. Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, 1987.
O’Connor, Sue, et al. Terminal Pleistocene Emergence of Maritime Interaction Networks across Wallacea, 9 Feb. 2023, www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00438243.2023.2287242.
“Polynesian Wayfinding.” Hōkūleʻa, 28 Aug. 2024, hokulea.com/polynesian-wayfinding/.
Renee Cawthorne. “Historical Context - Ancient History.” Historical Context - Ancient History | Bringing Them Home,
bth.humanrights.gov.au/significance/historical-context-ancient-history. Accessed 18 May 2025.
“The Rise of Pacific Cultures.” Humanities LibreTexts, Libretexts, 2 Oct. 2024, human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Art/Art_History_(Boundless)/26%3A_Oceania/26.01% 3A_The_Rise_of_Pacific_Cultures.
Comments