Early in 1688, explorer William Dampier visited northwestern Australia, and recorded his impressions of the natives people he saw. They had, he said, no dwellings, but lived open to the sky in groups about twenty to thirty strong, eking out a meagre existence on small fish they collected in stone bowls as the tide went out.

Their fish-farming was such that one day they had too much and the next too little, but Dampier observed that everyone in the group received a fair share regardless of age or infirmity. It was a precarious living, requiring ceaseless vigilance, and apparently their only living, for Dampier saw no evidence of agriculture or hunting.

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