The local aboriginal tribes have lived in the area for approximately 40,000 years. The Whyalla area itself was visited by semi nomadic tribes of Malkaripangala people who were a subdivision of Barngarla aboriginal group culturally linked to the Lake Eyre and Lake Torrens tribes.
Their significant places in this area were Fitzgerald Bay, Weeroona Bay (Point Lowly), Wild Dog Hill (Whyalla Conservation Park), Hummock Hill, Mount Young and Mount Laura. One of their most important mythological stories is the travelling of the Moon and Seven Sisters (the Pleiades star constellation).
Barngarla people wore cloaks made from kangaroo skin turned fur inside during winter. In summer, they smeared their bodies with fat and ochre. They hunted both land and marine animals; however they never included oysters and shellfish in their diet.
The Barngarla were especially known to "sing" to the sharks and dolphins at Fitzgerald Bay and Point Lowly to help them to drive the fish towards the shore where they could be either caught in the fish traps or speared. By the 1870s, the majority of Eyre Peninsula aboriginals lived at the fringe camps near the white settlement. The Malkaripangala virtually disappeared.
