The Sydney Basin is one of the richest provinces in Australia in terms of Aboriginal archaeological sites, comparable even to Kakadu National Park.

In the Sydney metropolitan area there are approximately 4,500 Aboriginal Sites registered by NPWS, which is only a small portion of what once existed here.  More than half of these sites contain rock art, and in Sydney’s sandstone belt at least 1,500 rock shelters have been discovered to contain cultural deposit.
Physical evidence of occupation of the Sydney area dates on the coast from around 7,000 years (Prince of Wales hospital site) and 2,500 years at the Angophra site. (See Val Attenbrow). Older sites would have been submerged as the sea level rose following the last ice age (around 20,000 years ago) and stabilised to its current level only 6,000 years ago.  Hundreds of shell middens have been recorded along the coast and estuaries.

Signage over Sydney’s north side to recognise Aboriginal history

Signs to continue interpretative walk that show Bungaree’s son Bowen and his family living at Palm Beach while he was the Black Tracker for the Colonial Government Customs.
Bungan Head and Bushrangers Hill to have sign to commemorate the murder of Bowen Bungaree as he tracked bushrangers.
Signs to recognise Camaraigal people living at Narrabeen Lakes (near the NSW Academy of Sport)
Earliest Aboriginal occupation for Australia dated by archaeological evidence is 40,000 and 30,000 years ago from Lake Mungo NSW and Cuddie Springs NSW.

1150 years ago in a rock shelter in Avalon, archaeologists and Aboriginal site officers found Burrawang (Macrozamia) plant food which was processed by Aboriginal people. In the same rock shelter there was a human burial of a woman and child dated 2,500 years ago. Hundreds of artefacts and animal bones were also found