Pre-history
Before European settlement, the area which eventually became the Australian Capital Territory was inhabited by Indigenous Australians. Historical sources have identified them as different tribes with a range of names. Historian Lyall Gillespie has recorded local settlers using the terms "Nganbra", "Pialligo", "Kamberra" and "Kgamberry" in relation to the indigenous inhabitants. Anthropologist Norman Tindale suggested the principal tribe occupying the region were the Ngunnawal people, while the Ngarigo lived immediately to the south of the ACT, The Wandandian to the east, the Walgulu also to the south, Gandangara people to the north, and Wiradjuri to the north west. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the region includes inhabited rock shelters, rock paintings and engravings, burial places, camps and quarry sites, and stone tools and arrangements. The evidence suggests human habitation in the area for at least 21,000 years.
The Ngambri had at least two burial grounds, a northern limestone cave and a cave in what is now known to Ngambri as Tharwa. At least in some cases, dead aborigines were buried in a sitting position. The Bogong Moths were an important source of food for the Aboriginal people, which would collect in their thousands in caves and rock crevices; they were roasted on heated rock or ashes and eaten whole.
Before settlement the name of the Federal Capital territory was Limestone Plains, and the name of the house built by Ainslie, in front of the site now occupied by Duntroon was Limestone Cottage, of which it was boasted at the time that it was the most southern house in the world with glazed windows.
European exploration began in the Canberra area as early as the 1820s. Canberra was "discovered" on 7 December 1820 by Charles Throsby Smith, Joseph Wild and James Vaughan. Overall, four successive expeditions whose routes took in the Canberra area were those of Charles Throsby (Oct 1820), Charles Throsby Smith (Dec 1820), Major John Ovens and Captain Mark Currie (1823), and Allan Cunningham (1824). All four expeditions explored the course of the Molonglo River that is now the site of Lake Burley Griffin. Smith and Cunningham also penetrated further south, into what is now called the Tuggeranong Valley.
Read more about this topic: History Of Canberra