First Footprints Episode Rating Graph

The story of how people arrived and thrived on our continent. With startling new archaeological discoveries revealing how the first Australians adapted, migrated, fought and created in dramatically changing environments.

For thousands of years people lived with Australia's strange and ferocious mega fauna but all beasts went extinct during the last ice age. Temperatures were 6 degrees colder; it was dry and windy and lasted over 10,000 years.

From eighteen thousand years ago, melting polar ice caps began drowning 25% of Greater Australia. And we meet Narrabeen Man, found under a bus stop on Sydney's Northern Beaches.

9,000 years ago people in Australia were learning to manipulate available plants and animals to increase food resources. They transformed an entire continent into a fully sustainable estate, until outsiders arrived.