Aboriginal Australian Timeline

42000 BCE – 2019 CE · 4 sites

All sites in this period

Uluru at sunset, the sacred sandstone monolith of the Aṉangu people, Northern Territory, Australia

Continent Record

Longest Recorded History in Oceania

Uluru

30000 BCE – 2019 CE

A vast sandstone monolith rising 348 metres from the central Australian desert — sacred to the Aṉangu people as a living embodiment of their Tjukurpa (creation-time) law, and the site of rock art and ceremonial evidence spanning tens of thousands of years of continuous Aboriginal cultural practice. Handed back to Aṉangu traditional ownership in 1985, Uluru's summit was permanently closed to climbers in 2019 in recognition of its unbroken sacred status.

Paleolithic

Aboriginal rock art at the Anbangbang Gallery, Nourlangie Rock, Kakadu National Park, Australia

World Record

Oldest Complex in the World

Kakadu

20000 BCE – 1900 CE

One of the richest and longest continuous rock art galleries on Earth — thousands of painted sites across the stone country of Australia's Northern Territory, some layers dating back tens of thousands of years, others depicting 19th- and 20th-century European sailing ships, forming an unbroken visual record of Aboriginal life, belief, and history painted by the same cultural tradition across an almost unimaginable span of time. Traditional land of the Bininj and Mungguy peoples, Kakadu is one of the few places on Earth inscribed by UNESCO for both its natural and cultural World Heritage value.

Paleolithic

The eroded dune formations known as the Walls of China at Lake Mungo, New South Wales, Australia

World Record

Oldest Settlement in the World

Lake Mungo

42000 BCE – 14000 BCE

A dry lakebed in remote southwestern New South Wales that holds the oldest confirmed human remains outside Africa — the 40,000-year-old skeletons known as Mungo Man and Mungo Lady, whose burials rank among the earliest evidence anywhere of deliberate cremation and ochre burial ritual. The eroding dune formations known as the Walls of China continue to expose new archaeological material, making Lake Mungo one of the most continuously important sites in the study of early human migration into Australia.

Paleolithic

Featured

World Record

Southernmost Known Site in the World

Budj Bim

4600 BCE – 1900 CE

Budj Bim Cultural Landscape in Australia contains one of the world's oldest and most extensive systems of stone aquaculture channels and weirs, built by the Gunditjmara people around 6600 years ago.

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NeolithicBronze AgeIron Age