Yes, there was violent conflict in precolonial Australia. Australian archaeology contains some of the oldest evidence of human warfare, including bodies of men killed in battle and cave art depicting scenes of battle from more than 10,000 years ago. Archaeologist Scott Cane links some of this prehistoric warfare to a period of rapid climate change that saw coastal tribes pushed into new lands, leading to a period of increased conflict, but its unlikely that there was ever a period of Australian prehistory without warfare.

However, because of the absence of hierarchy in Indigenous Australian society, where the closest thing to a leadership role was as unofficial patriarch of a family group, it wouldn't be right to label Australian warfare as political conflict seeking to dominate other groups. Nor would it be right to think of it as being used to conquer territory, as land rights in Australia were deeply sacred - a tribe's land was integral to its survival, with both in a symbiotic relationship of caring for one another. Land was not a possession, it was a birth-right that could never be traded or sold.

Instead, Indigenous Australian men fought one another and their neighbours to establish authority and status within their own tribes, to raid women and resources from other tribes, to settle disputes and as punishment from transgressions. In Indigenous Australian society, every man was expected to be a warrior and would travel kitted out in spears, woomeras, boomerangs, axes, clubs, shields, etc. The exact equipment of each tribe would depend on where they lived in Australia, for not all technologies were universal, and there was plenty of variation, innovation and specialisation in weaponry across the continent.

An American scholar who visited Australia in 1840, Horatio Hale, wrote of four types of Aboriginal warfare: formal battles, ritual trials, raids for women and revenge attacks.

Formal battles were a means of settling inter-tribal disputes. They consisted of small bands of men meeting at a predetermined location to fight it out, often with an enthusiastic audience of women cheering them on. The fight would end after a few participants had been injured or killed and a winner determined, and casualties could be deliberately minimised through the use of less lethal weaponry and by setting the fight close to dusk, establishing a time limit. As a tribal group might only consist of fifty people, limiting casualties was vital, and losing a few men would have a significant impact upon the tribe's quality of life.

As would the loss of a woman. Women in Indigenous Australia were the primary workers - while men fought men or hunted large game like kangaroos, women hunted smaller animals like goannas, farmed or gathered plant foods, crafted goods and cared for the children and the infirm. Men could have multiple wives, and could trade sex with their female family members for goods or favours, but were highly protective of the abuse of this service - an extremely common source of conflict in colonial and precolonial Australia (the first recorded European explorer to visit Australia, Willem Janszoon, had ten of his men killed by Indigenous Australians because they abused local women and refused to reciprocate gift-giving diplomacy).

Thus, raids for women as wives and workers were common. Sometimes these raids were hokey and pre-arranged, with people laughing as it occurred, but they could also be violent and traumatic ambushes that separated families. This also led to what Hale calls 'ritual trials', which is akin to these men meting out tribal justice upon transgressors. Every tribe had its own taboos, traditions and expectations, and often the law was discussed amongst the tribe fairly, with elders having particularly strong influence here. Adultery was a common problem that had no universal answer, as was accidental and intentional intrusion into tribal lands. The men seeking justice might form a band and hunt the transgressor down, injuring or killing them depending on what their laws dictated. An example of this is when the first governor of New South Wales, Arthur Phillip, was ritually speared as punishment for kidnappings and conflict with the locals - he was struck in the shoulder, and although his men shot back (missing), he later understood this to be a form of warning or payback, and accepted it.

Obviously, a lot of people objected to having their women stolen and their men killed, so revenge attacks were almost unending. Tribes boasted of their own greatness and cursed those who had crossed them, usually labeling them cannibals or devils - they also heavily utilised magic, which Henry Reynolds states should be regarded as a primary 'weapon' used by Indigenous Australians in the defence of their land, as it played an important cultural and psychological role. Colonial observers on occasion noted how brutal tribal enmity could be - for instance, a small girl under Governor Phillip's care had her arms cut off by enemy warriors who had snuck into Sydney. In other accounts, night-time raids might leave most of a tribe dead where they had been sleeping.

European invasion didn't end tribal conflict either, but rather exasperated it. Disease and alcohol spread fear and disorder, weakened warriors and social traditions, robbing tribes of hunters, gathers and leaders. Refugees were not always welcomed, and tribes fought one another for the benefits that the invaders might bestow - Queensland's Native Police were notorious for acting as roaming death squads, using European guns and horses to annihilate their traditional enemies under the appreciative watch of the colonial government.

Having said all of this though, one should always be careful when reading about violence in colonial and precolonial Australia, as what is written usually comes with an agenda. For European settlers, establishing that Aboriginal Australians were ultra-violent savages in need of taming helped legitimise their conquest of Australia and assuage their guilt for the suffering of Indigenous Australians that they witnessed on a daily basis. Many accounts are fabricated or exaggerated, unsubstantiated or taken out of context.

In contrast, modern Australian historians often fall into two camps - progressive 'black arm-banders' and conservative 'white blind-folders' - who dispute the colonial legacy of Australia by either emphasising or minimising Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal violence whichever way that suits their socio-political goals. These goals can play into long-standing stereotypes of Indigenous Australians as either noble savages or violent primitives, using history as a weapon to venerate or denegrate modern Indigenous Australians in unhealthy ways.

The sources I used for this are great reading and expand upon this further:

- First Footprints by Scott Cane, about Indigenous Australian prehistory and archaeology

- the Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia, pretty comprehensive.

- (the amazing) The Other Side of the Frontier by Henry Reynolds, focuses on colonial conflict, talks about magic and the Indigenous perspective on war.

- The Australian Frontier Wars by John Connor, rehashes a lot of the same stuff but more right wing and compact, from a British military perspective. He has a chapter on precolonial warfare that accuses Reynolds of minimising it.

- The Rise and Fall of Ancient Australia by Geoffrey Blainey, also right-wing and accusatory, sequel to his dated Triumph of the Nomads.