page_title: History of New South Wales
section_title: Ancient history
hierarchical_section_title: History of New South Wales / Ancient history
caption_attribution_description: English: Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park - petroglyph, via Waratah Track. Figure is 1.7 metres long; notable features include the swollen leg and the lack of a neck. Rock is triassic Hawkesbury Sandstone, 220 million years of age. It shows Baiame (ref:Josephine McDonald: Dreamtime superhighway: an analysis of Sydney Basin rock art and prehistoric ...
context_page_description: The history of New South Wales refers to the history of the Australian state of New South Wales and the area's preceding Indigenous and British colonial societies. The Mungo Lake remains indicate occupation of parts of the New South Wales area by Indigenous Australians for at least 40,000 years. The English navigator James Cook became the first European to map the coast in 1770 and a First Fleet of British convicts followed to establish a penal colony at Sydney in 1788.
  The colony established an autonomous Parliamentary democracy from the 1850s and became a state of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 following a vote to Federate with the other British colonies of Australia. Through the 20th century, the state was a major destination for an increasingly diverse collection of migrants from many nations. In the 21st century, the state is the most populous in Australia, and its capital, Sydney is a major financial capital and host to international cultural and economic events.
context_section_description: The first people to occupy the area now known as New South Wales were Australian Aborigines. Their presence in Australia began around 40,000 to 60,000 years ago with the arrival of the first of their ancestors by boat from what is now Indonesia. Their descendants moved south and, though never large in numbers, occupied all areas of Australia, including the future New South Wales.
  Mungo Man and other remains have been found at the dried up Lake Mungo in New South Wales, some 3,000 km south of the North Coast of Australia, and have been dated to approximately 40,000 years ago. These early humans appear to have been buried with ceremonial accompaniment and have been found close to stone tools and the bones of now extinct megafauna (such as giant kangaroos and wombats). These are the earliest human remains yet found in Australia, though precise dating is difficult and debated. They nevertheless appear to confirm that New South Wales was populated some tens of thousands of years before the arrival of the British First Fleet at a time when the climate was far wetter and humans were conducting some of their earliest religious and artistic practices.
  Examples of Aboriginal stone tools and Aboriginal art (often recording the stories of the Dreamtime religion) can be found throughout New South Wales: even within the metropolis of modern Sydney, as in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.
caption: Petroglyph in Sydney's Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park
exif: {"Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK CX7330 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Rating": "0", "Image Tag 0x4749": "0", "Image ExifOffset": "2250", "Image XPTitle": "[0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Image OffsetSchema": "1772", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:08:21 13:24:35", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:08:21 13:24:35", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "9", "EXIF ApertureValue": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "28/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1354", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2032", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "100", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "37", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "3120"}