The first European person to find and recognise gold in the Tanami Desert was
Allan Arthur Davidson, who arrived in the area in 1898 and continued prospecting until 1901. He took the name Tanami for the region from local
Aboriginal people who visited his camp. "On inquiry [he] learned that the native name of the rockholes (from [which the party obtained water] was Tanami, and that they "never died," he said. Davidson showed the gold specimens to these Aboriginal people, who recognised it and described "mobs of similar stone to the east, together with a large creek containing plenty of water and fish. This they said was "two days' sleep to the south of east". In 1936 anthropologist
Charles P. Mountford, during an expedition with organised by the
University of Adelaide's board for anthropological research, photographed the activities of aboriginal people drinking from the waterholes, knapping found fragments of bottle glass to make spearheads, and spinning strings from animal fur. ==Recent history==