The greatest population density for Aborigines developed in the southern and eastern regions,

the River Murray valley in particular. The arrival of Australia's first people affected the continent
significantly, and, along with climate change, may have contributed to the extinction of Australia's
megafauna.[22] The practice of firestick farming amongst northern Aborigines to increase the
abundance of plants that attracted animals, transformed dry rainforest into savanna. [23] The
introduction of the dingo by Aboriginal people around 3,000–4,000 years ago may, along with human
hunting, have contributed to the extinction of the thylacine, Tasmanian devil, and Tasmanian native-
hen from mainland Australia.[24][25]
One genetic study in 2012 by Irina Pugach and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology has suggested that about 4,000 years before the First Fleet landed, some
Indian explorers settled in Australia and assimilated into the local population in roughly 2217 BC. [26]
Despite considerable cultural continuity, life was not without significant changes. Some 10–12,000
years ago, Tasmania became isolated from the mainland, and some stone technologies failed to
reach the Tasmanian people (such as the hafting of stone tools and the use of the Boomerang).
[27]
 The land was not always kind; Aboriginal people of southeastern Australia endured "more than a
dozen volcanic eruptions...(including) Mount Gambier, a mere 1,400 years ago".[28] In southeastern
Australia, near present-day Lake Condah, semi-permanent villages of beehive shaped shelters of
stone developed, near bountiful food supplies.[29]

The continent of Australia (then known as New Holland) was incorporated within Asia in this 1796 map,
engraved by Samuel John Neele and published by John Wilkes. Tasmania is wrongly shown to be attached to
the mainland of Australia, at the bottom of the map.

The early wave of European observers like William Dampier described the hunter-gatherer lifestyle
of the Aborigines of the West Coast as arduous and "miserable". Lieutenant James Cook on the
other hand, speculated in his journal that the "Natives of New Holland" (the East Coast Aborigines
whom he encountered) might in fact be far happier than Europeans. [30] Watkin Tench, of the First
Fleet, wrote of an admiration for the Aborigines of Botany Bay (Sydney) as good-natured and good-
humoured people, though he also reported violent hostility between
the Eora and Cammeraygal peoples, and noted violent domestic altercations between his
friend Bennelong and his wife Barangaroo.[31] Settlers of the 19th century like Edward Curr observed
that Aborigines "suffered less and enjoyed life more than the majority of civilized men".
[32]
 Historian Geoffrey Blainey wrote that the material standard of living for Aborigines was generally
high, higher than that of many Europeans living at the time of the Dutch discovery of Australia. [33]
By 1788, the population existed as 250 individual nations, many of which were in alliance with one
another, and within each nation there existed several clans, from as few as five or six to as many as
30 or 40. Each nation had its own language and a few had multiple, thus over 250 languages
existed, around 200 of which are now extinct. "Intricate kinship rules ordered the social relations of
the people and diplomatic messengers and meeting rituals smoothed relations between groups",
keeping group fighting, sorcery and domestic disputes to a minimum. [34]
Permanent European settlers arrived at Sydney in 1788 and came to control most of the continent
by end of the 19th century. Bastions of largely unaltered Aboriginal societies survived, particularly in
Northern and Western Australia into the 20th century, until finally, a group of Pintupi people of
the Gibson Desert became the last people to be contacted by outsider ways in 1984. [35] While much
knowledge was lost, Aboriginal art, music and culture, often scorned by Europeans during the initial
phases of contact, survived and in time came to be celebrated by the wider Australian community.

Impact of European settlement

Main article: Australian frontier wars