1. Ancient Australia

2. How they lived Lived in Central Australia Lived in small groups Made shelters out of grass & saplings Why do you think the Aranda people didn’t build houses?

3. Men Hunted large animals with spears, woomeras and boomerangs Dug pits to trap other animals Put plants that killed fish or sent animals to sleep in waterholes Collected most of the food Fruits, seeds to grind into flour, roots, ant larvae, witchetty grubs, lizards and snakes Hunted with digging sticks Collected in wooden dishes Women

4. Initiation practices at puberty: included circumcision and cuts across chest Further initiations continued throughout life, only if elders approved & considered worthy Only outstanding people ever received the whole of their ancestor’s secrets

5. Wore no clothes Wore prized decorations like necklaces and headbands Carried what they needed on their heads and in their hands Food was shared

6. Getting to Tasmania About 35,000 years ago Walked across a land bridge now covered by Bass Strait About 12,000 years ago the waters of Bass Strait began to close over the bridge By 8,000 years ago Tasmania was cut off

7. Tended to move about and camp close to food sources and mines Spent about a quarter of each year in small villages of dome-shaped huts Huts were thatched with bark, grass or turf and lined with bark, skins or feathers

8. Originally the same chunky stone implements used on the mainland Over the next 10,000 years Tasmanian tools became smaller and more efficient Never developed the handles used on the mainland

9. People in Tasmania developed boats made of bundles of bark About 4,000 years ago No paddles – were pushed along or punted with long poles Couldn’t be taken more than about 15km out to sea or would get waterlogged Voyaged through rough seas and high winds to the Bass Strait islands to hunt seals or mutton birds Gathered sea bird eggs from Maatsukyer Islands off the south coast of Tasmania

10. Women did most of the work: Work done by women They built the huts; mined ochre and mined rock for tools; hunted possums for food and skins; carried the spears, game and babies; wove baskets; made shell necklaces; gathered most of the food Swimming Many men couldn’t swim, but the women were extraordinary swimmers. They dived for shellfish, and stayed underwater for long periods of time They could swim as far as 2km through rough seas to go after mutton birds and their eggs They rubbed themselves with a mix of mutton bird fat and red ochre to keep out the cold

11. Where? South-West Western Australia Unlike rest of Australia, stayed fertile after the Ice Age Camp site is about 40,000 years old Tools Unique to the area long-handled serrated knives saws made of small flakes of quartz fastened with resin along lengths of wood Clothing Kangaroo-skin cloaks, possum- skin belts, feather necklaces Carried smouldering banksia cones, wrapped in thick skins, under clothes to warm them in Winter

12. Lots of shell middens, rock shelters, ochre & stone quarries Extraordinary fish traps: Oyster Harbour fish trap has walls of about 1km long Fish swam into traps at high tide and were stranded when tide went out

13. Who? People of the Durrubul, Guwar, Njula, Quandamooka, Noonuccal, Kombumeri, and Yugambeh language groups At least 20,000 years ago, but older sites may be hidden under the waters of Moreton Bay huge groups met to hunt the sea mullet in Moreton Bay Winter people came from as far as the Bundaberg region or the Tweed River to feast on bunya nuts in the Bunya Mountains. At the feasts, people traded for possum-skin rugs, woven bags, jewellery, shells, tools & weapons. Marriages were arranged and ceremonies performed. Summer another main event. Cycads had to be carefully washed to get rid of their poison. The cycad harvest

14. All information is from: Jackie French Fair Dinkum Histories: Shipwreck, Sailors & 60,000 Years Scholastic Press, Lindfield, NSW 2006, pp. 46-52