Australian Aboriginal people, now also called First Australians, have occupied the Australian continent for at least 40,000 years – and probably considerably longer.
Their creation mythologies – the Dreaming or Dreamtime – are colourful, evocative, sometimes complex and often ethical tales of ancestral beings who shaped mountains, valleys and waterways and populated the heavens with stars as they traversed a featureless world. Few – if any – parts of Australia would not have had a creation story. Many have been lost because there are no elders to pass them on; others survive and even thrive, adding another dimension to stories of sedimentation, uplift and erosion encountered on bushwalks across the country, including the Uluru base walk and Carnarvon Gorge.
Archaeological sites range from multi-layered piles of shells (middens) built up over generations of feasting, to galleries of paintings, stencils and engravings, and sacred sites, closed to all but a few people with the level of knowledge needed to enter, where First Australians carried out secret men’s and women’s business.
Guided Aboriginal experiences introduce you to the culture and lives, past and present, of First Australians.