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The Kurrajebbering clan occupied the Romsey district where they had tribal rights of occupancy, for the use of hunting native wildlife, fishing and gathering seeds and roots.

By 1835, 40 to 60 per cent of aborigines succumbed to a smallpox epidemic.
Within a few years of Victorian settlement an estimated 90 per cent of aborigines died due to the exposure of venereal disease and viral infections introduced by European settlers.
By the time early settlers had arrived in the Romsey district few aboriginal sightings had been made.

Edward Dryden chronicled this extract in 1840.

"In 1839 I took possesion of the Mount Macedon Station which I have occupied until the present hour, depasturing sheep and cattle .....of the aborigines at my time of locating here, there was one tribe consisting of about 150 , including adult males , females and chidren of both sexes who camped from place to place in their mia - mias , between Mount Macedon and Mount Alexander , generally calling in at the various stations on their way for the purpose of soliciting food .
They were unable to converse with Europeans , but made signs as a means of communicating their wants and desires. They were exeedingly simple in their manner and perfectly harmless in their bearing to strangers.
.... I never heard of a single outrage committed by anyone of them by any settler , nor even on any of their servants unto the pesent hour . "

Monday, 30th. 1770  " .....the Officer ashore, did all in his power to intice* them to him by offering them presents; but it was to no purpose, all they seem'd to want was for us to be gone. "    CAPTAIN COOK'S JOURNAL  1768-71

Aboriginal settlement in Australia.

Sketch by Thomas Mitchell.1836

The precise date of the first human occupation of Australia is not known, estimates range from 30,000 to 60,000 years ago. The Aboriginal people are thought to have crossed to Australia from south-east Asia. Remains of a camp site found at Lake Mungo have been dated as 32,000 years old. The pre-contact population in Australia may have been greater than 40,000. The Aboriginal people are hunter gatherers and, although they did not use agricultural techniques, used fire as a form of land management to promote new vegetation.

They did not form into the political structure of a nation but were separate groups, each with their own language and traditions. Each language group or clan was responsible for the management of certain areas of land. Groups had contact with each other for trade, initiations, marriages and other ceremonies. Some groups formed political alliances while others were at war.

During glacial sea level declination Tasmania was connected to the Australian mainland, with the existing islands forming hills in the Bassian Plain.
People could have easily walked to Tasmania from what is now the State of Victoria.
South-western Tasmania was occupied by 30,000 BP, suggesting that Tasmania was initially colonised during the low sea level phase of 29,000 to 37,000 years BP (Cosgrove, et al., 1990).

Sea levels rose and flooded the Bassian Rise connecting Victoria to Flinders Island and north-eastern Tasmania between 12,000 and 13,500 years BP (Jennings, 1971; Chappell and Thom, 1977).

The Tasmanians apparently did not have adequate watercraft to cross Bass Strait, or reach the major islands within it, so with high sea levels came isolation.