History of Australasia
Australia to 1788
In the beginning was the Dreamtime, the Dreaming, or so say many Indigneous people. During this time all the creatures and features of the continent were formed and individualized. The paths of these Dreamtime people are recorded in songlines and stories that travel the length and breadth of Australia. The Western Desert word, tjukurrpa is commonly used and carries the additional sense of 'dreaming' being a present alternative timeline that is constantly being created in dreams and history. Thus the arrival of Mathew Flinders in Albany in 1801 and the air attack by the Japanese on Darwin in 1942 have been incorporated into dance and ceremony and could be said to be part of this 'dreaming'
From a European perspective, Aboriginal people were the first Australians, arriving sometime between 40 and 100,000 years ago. By 30,000 years ago all of mainland Australia had been colonized by humans. The end of the last ice age about 7000 years ago resulted in the cutting off of these early Australians from Asia and of Tasmanian and Kangaroo Island(S.A.) populations from the mainland. The end of the ice age was quite abrupt according to Aboriginal legends which talk of fish falling from the sky and tidal waves.
The people of Kangaroo Island died out within a 1000 years but the Tasmanians prospered until British Colonization in 1792.
The last 5000 years were characterized by an increasing drying out of the continent and the development of a sophisticated tribal culture. The main items of trade were songs and dances, along with flint, precious stones, seeds, spears, food items, etc. The Pama-Nyungan language group which extends from Cape York to the south west covered all of Australia except for the south east and the coastal 'top end'. There was a continuity of religous ideas and stories throughout the country. The initiation of young boys and girls into adult knowledge was marked by ceremony and feasting. Behaviour was governed by strict rules regarding responsibilities to and from uncles, aunties, brothers and sisters as well as in-laws. Political power rested with old men and women and disputes were settled by tests of courage. Vendettas and feuds were not uncommon but organised war did not occur. This has generally been attributed to the multiple alliances that bound people together through marriage or blood.
There was considerable innovation occuring within Aborginal technology in the last 3000 years prior to colonization. Quartz was used as a substitute for chert and was being worked by indigneous crafstmen. The dingo was domesticated. Fish farming and small scale agricultural develpments occrred with fish farming in western Victoria and yam planting in Geraldton in W.A.
The people of the 'top end' were exposed to continuous interaction with various visitors from Asia. Early Indian visitors from around the time of Christ are said to be the motivation for what is known as the Bradshaw figurines in Kimberly Art. More evidence exists for visits by Chinese fleets especially the Great Fleet that sailed in the 13th Century.
Macassan traders from the Spice Islands(e.g.Banda) to the north of Darwin were said to have been visiting for at least 600 years prior to the establishment of British garrisons on the Coburg Peninsula in 1830.
The earliest European visitors were Portugese like de Torres(1606) following in the footsteps of da Gama. From the beginning of the 17th Century Dutch explorers dominated the discovery of Australia until the 1750's when Britain and France began to take an interest. The Dutch had been well estalished in Malaya and Indonesia since the beginning of the 1600's profiting from the trade in spices. The discovery that sailing west from the Cape of Good Hope until land was sighted, and then sailing north along the west coast of Australia was a much quicker route than around the coast of the Indian Ocean, made Dutch landfalls on the west coast inevitable. Most of these landfalls were unplanned. The most famous and bloodiest result was the mutiny and murder that followed the wreck of the Batavia.
The British colonization of the east coast followed on from it's charting by Capt James Cook in 1770. Cook had been sent ostensibly, to chart the eclipse of Venus from Tahiti, but he also charted the whole of New Zealand and the east coast of Australia. The establishment of a colony of convicts at Port Jackson on Sydney Harbour in 1788 was a direct result of this discovery combined with the growing rivalry with France which was actively seeking colonies in the Asia Pacific region at this time.