Australian Aborigines: The Original Australians

They are indigenous Australians, believed to have migrated from Africa to Asia around 70,000 years ago. They are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aborigines arrived Australia around 50,000 years ago.

The coined word “Aboriginal Australians” came into existence when the British began colonizing Australia in 1788. The coined word was used to refer collectively to all people the British found already inhabiting the continent and later to the descendants of any of those people. Not until 1980s, when the sole legal and administrative criterion for inclusion in this category was race. This was classified according to visible physical characters or known ancestors. Children’s status during the colonial era was determined by that of their mothers, this meant that if born to aboriginal mothers, children were considered Aboriginal, regardless of their paternity.

More than 200 different Aboriginal languages were spoken, and most Aborigines were bilingual or multilingual. Both languages (dialects) and groups of people were associated with stretches of territory.

The Aborigines were hunter-gatherers who grew no crops and did not domesticate animals (apart from the dingo), so they were directly dependent on their natural environment.

Different study on Aboriginal Australians makes them one of the oldest living populations of the world and possibly the oldest outside of Africa, confirming they may also have the oldest continuous culture on the planet.

The Aboriginal race were deprived the power to legislate and were not to be counted according to the references sited in the original form of the constitution of Australia in 1901, but both references were removed by 1967 referendum.

In the late 20th century, there were growing calls for the Australian government to apologize to Aborigines for abuses they suffered under earlier administrations. For decades the government resisted releasing such a statement, but in February 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a formal apology for the past mistreatment of Aborigines.