FROM UNDER THE SEA TO CROCODILE DUNDEE: A QUICK HISTORY OF KAKADU
140 MILLION YEARS AGO Kakadu lay under a shallow sea. Fast forward a few years to 2017 and game-changing excavations of a rock shelter at the base of the Arnhem Land escarpment indicate humans reached Australia at least 65,000 years ago, 18,000 years earlier than previously thought.
A POPULATION of around 2000 people lived in the Kakadu area prior to European settlement. Hunter-gatherers who moved with the seasons, they used temporary dwellings such as paperbark shelters near billabongs and wet-season huts built on stilts on the floodplains. (About 500 Aboriginal people live in outstations within the park today, on land that is under claim or protected by Aboriginal land rights).
IN THE 1800S water buffalo were imported to Australia to supply meat to remote northern settlements.After escaping or being abandoned as the European settlements closed, they thrived in the tropical plains and become a key economic resource to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people alike. Near the turn of the century, the cult of the Territory buffalo hunter was born, mythologised by Banjo Paterson and his poem Buffalo Country. Missions, like Oenpelli, pastoral activity and mining further changed and impacted the area.
1931 Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve was proclaimed; permits have been required to enter ever since.
IN THE 1970S significant uranium deposits were discovered in the Alligator Rivers region. In 1975 an enquiry into land use in the region was ordered in response to a development proposal.The recommendations of the enquiry saw the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 passed and ultimately Kakadu National Park was established, declared in stages beginning in 1979.The name is derived from Gaadudju, a now-extinct language from the northern parts of the park. Pastoral leases, including the Lord family’s Munmalary, were absorbed into its boundaries.
1981 Described as a ‘living cultural landscape’, Kakadu National Park was inscribed on the World Heritage list in three stages from 1981 for its exceptional natural and cultural values. 1986 Crocodile Dundee was released, catapulting Kakadu into the international spotlight and helping to char t its future as a destination on the top of many travellers’ bucket lists.