"The prehistory of Australia is the period between the first human habitation of the Australian continent and the first definitive sighting of Australia by Europeans in 1606, which may be taken as the beginning of the recent history of Australia. This period is estimated to have lasted between 40,000 and 70,000 years." But that is science. And all science that do not agree with what some people understand from reading the Bible is false, in their eyes. (It would be better no to call these people names, incidentally) Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory_of_Australia More information about the aboriginals: http://www.crystalinks.com/dreamtime.html http://www.experiencefestival.com/aboriginal_spirituality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime ------ ADDED ------- This information is what I found about the relations of Australia with Europe before 1606. It does not answer the original question, but tries to put some light of the possible relations of Australia with the rest of the world before it was "discovered". 1. "The Duyfken, under Willem Jansz., reached the west coast of what is now Cape York Peninsula, a few months before Torres passed through the Strait now bearing his name. One of the planned activities to mark this anniversary will be a conference on the issue of still earlier contacts with the continent. The aim of the conference is to review the evidence for earlier Portuguese, Chinese and other encounters with Australia before 1606 (bearing in mind all along that the Aborigines were here long before). The conference will take place in Canberra in April or May 2006." http://mailman.geo.uu.nl/pipermail/maphist/2004-August.txt.gz 2. "Torres Strait Islanders are the indigenous people of the Torres Strait Islands, part of Queensland, Australia. They are culturally akin to the coastal peoples of Papua New Guinea. They are regarded as being distinct from other Aboriginal peoples of the rest of Australia, and are generally referred to separately. There are also two Torres Strait Islander communities on the nearby coast of the mainland at Bamaga and Seisia." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torres_Strait_Islanders 3. "In 1606, almost 400 years ago, the Dutch ship Duyfkun under Captain Willem Jansz landed on the Cape York Peninsula. This is the first widely accepted European discovery and mapping of Australia. For many centuries Western scholars had presumed the existence of Terra Australis Incognita, the ‘great southern continent’ necessary to balance the known world. The ‘great southern continent’ theory originated in ancient Greece and was supported by the librarian and cartographer Ptolemy (AD 87�150). Up until the 17th or 18th century a southern continent in many shapes and forms appeared on maps of the world which drew indirectly on Ptolemy’s work. This imagined continent steadily diminished in size on cartographic works as expeditions by explorers found the southern oceans larger than expected. The University of Melbourne’s Map Collection holds a world map (1630) and a map of Asia (c.1640) by Dutch cartographer Henricus Hondius (1597-1651) showing the lands discovered by Jansz. Further explorations by the Dutchmen Nuyts in 1627 and Tasman in 1642 led to the charting of the western, then southern, and northern coasts of what the Dutch called ‘New Holland’." http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/articleid_1536.html 4. "It is unknown how many populations settled in Australia prior to European colonization. Both "trihybrid" and single-origin hypotheses have received extensive discussion[9]; however, the issue has become politicized, with the assumption of a single origin tied in to ethnic solidarity, and multiple entry used to justify white seizure of Aboriginal lands. There is little objective data to settle the issue one way or the other. Human genomic differences are being studied to find possible answers, but there is still insufficient evidence to distinguish a "wave invasion model" from a "single settlement" one. Some Y chromosomal studies indicate a recent influx of Y chromosomes from the Indian subcontinent" "Linguistic and genetic evidence shows that there has been long-term contact between Australians in the far north and the Austronesian people of modern-day New Guinea and the islands, but that this appears to have been mostly trade with a little intermarriage, as opposed to direct colonisation. Macassan praus are also recorded in the Aboriginal stories from Broome to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and there were some semi-permanent settlements established, and cases of Aboriginal settlers finding a home in Indonesia." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory_of_Australia 5. "Although it is possible that the Spanish Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa in 1568 and the Portuguese Luis Vaez de Torres and Pedro Fernandes de Queirós could have sighted Australia in 1605, the first documented and undisputed European sighting (and landing) of Australia was in 1606, by the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon aboard the Duyfken. Occasional claims have been made in support of earlier encounters, particularly for various Portuguese explorations. Evidence put forward in favour of this theory, particularly by Kenneth McIntyre, include rock paintings of what appear to be the type of ships used by the Portuguese, the Mahogany Ship, the Geelong Keys, coins found on the Victorian coast, and evidence based on the Dieppe maps. However, this issue is very hotly debated, and any early Portuguese discovery is by no means a historical certainty, and denied by many if not most historians. In the 13th century, Marco Polo referred to reports of a large land mass to the south of Asia, but did not see it himself." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_exploration_of_Australia

I have never heard of that. I just think that people are not quite right on guessing how old things are. but i don't know.

To be completely frank, I'm not a godgobber but as a Christian, I believe the Genesis account of creation hence I don't really give the Australia Aboriginal Culture much thought.

"godgobber", um, are you serious? I love it when people who throw out intelligent phrases like that, and who don't even use the proper form of "your" and "you're" start questioning the intelligence of other people.

I see no reason to be insulting. The 6,000 year old earth myth becan in the middle ages when a monk named Usher added together all the geneologies in the Bible and came up with the magic number 6,000. This is been disproven so many times that there is probably a disproof for each of those years. People persist in believing this myth because they are mislead. Any pastor or preacher who teaches this myth is in need of a serious ass-kicking!