The first inhabitants of Australia were the Aborigines, who migrated there at least 40,000 years ago from Southeast Asia. There may have been between a half million to a full million Aborigines at the time of European settlement; today about 350,000 live in Australia.
People have lived in Australia for about 40,000–60,000 years. The first people who arrived in what is now Australia were the Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.[1] Aborigines came by boat from the islands of what is now Indonesia. They lived in all parts of Australia. Their lives were simple, they had very few needs. They lived by hunting, fishing and gathering.