Mining by Aborigines - Australia's first miners

While 1997 was the bicentenary of mining in Australia by people of European descent, the history of mining in this country stretches back much further. For more than 40 000 years before the arrival of the First Fleet in Sydney Harbour, Australian Aborigines had been mining the land for ochre and stone.

Aborigines depended on their stone implements to gather and process their food; ochre was a vital ingredient in art and religious practices; quarries and ‘processing’ sites were developed to cater for the demand for these products; and transport routes were established to allow for their trade. This Primefact discusses:

• ochre mining
• stone mining.