What was the lifestyle and diet of tradition Australian Aborigines?
The notion of pristine natives with a “pure” culture was an artificial one – many Aborigines had considerable contact with Melanesians and Indonesians long before the European colonists arrived in Australia. Aboriginal groups also influenced each other. Waves of change swept the entire continent – changes in tools and implements, in social organisation, and in ceremonial practices and mythological concepts. Aboriginal culture was dynamic, not static. The Aboriginal culture of the last two hundred years, the period after the arrival of the colonists, has also been dynamic. This is why it is difficult to speak of a hard and fast dichotomy between Aborigines “before” and “after” contact with the Europeans. Nevertheless, it is useful to look at Aboriginal culture at the point of first contact and as it is today. The population of Australia at the time of the arrival of the whites in 1788 was probably between 250,000 and 500,000. The pattern of Aboriginal settlement was like that for presen
