Australian
Screen

Clip description

When the wandering tribes from Africa reached the end of South-East Asia, they looked out across the sea to another land mass just 90 kilometres away, Australia. With remarkable planning and design skills, they built and provisioned sea-worthy vessels to carry them over the water to colonise this new frontier.

Curator’s notes

The coming of Aborigines to Australia is one of the great stories of prehistory and this third program in the series tells it well. The discovery of Mungo Man at Lake Mungo in New South Wales is the earliest record of a spiritual burial, dating back some 60,000 years ago when Aboriginal Australians were already leading rich and fruitful lives.

It is extraordinary that the story we know least well is that of our ancestors and how they migrated in small groups out of the Great Rift Valley of Africa over thousands of years to settle the world. The story is pieced together from paleoanthropological finds that provide just a few clues for scientists to build on. The filmmakers have succeeded in creating an adventure mystery that’s also part detective story, to hold our interest through this thoroughly engrossing three-part series.

The production house is Beyond Productions. From its beginnings in 1984 when it was set up to produce Beyond 2000 (1999) for Channel 7, it has also been a sales and distribution company. These days, the company has output deals with both Discovery (for which The Learning Channel is a subsidiary) and National Geographic.