Indigenous Geography and Land Rights

Aboriginal Australians represent one of the longest continuous cultural traditions documented anywhere on Earth: archaeological excavation at the Madjedbebe rock shelter in Arnhem Land, published by Chris Clarkson and colleagues in Nature in 2017, pushed back confirmed evidence of human occupation of Australia to at least 65,000 years ago. For most of that span, land was held and managed under complex customary systems of kinship, ceremony, and responsibility rather than individual title, a reality that British colonial law from 1788 onward simply disregarded by treating Australia as terra nullius, "land belonging to no one," legally available for settlement without treaty or purchase. That doctrine stood until the High Court of Australia's landmark 1992 decision in Mabo v Queensland (No 2), brought by Torres Strait Islander plaintiff Eddie Mabo, which recognized that native title to land could survive British annexation where a continuing connection to country could be demonstrated.