Australia: Australian aboriginals fishing in a canoe, as depicted in an 1819 watercolour.

Estimates of when the first indigenous Australians, or Aboriginal Australians, settled in the continent range from 16,000 years to 120,000 years ago. They lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and were semi-nomadic until the British arrived in 1788 to colonize Australia. At that time, there were an estimated 500,000 indigenous people (approximately the same as the aboriginal population today) who spoke 250 to 300 languages and 600 dialects. With the arrival of Europeans, the aboriginal Australians lost much of their land and freedom, and diseases such as smallpox and measles decimated their population.

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Pictures From History