Prehistory. It is generally held that Australian Aboriginal peoples originally came from Asia via insular Southeast Asia (now Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, and the Philippines) and have been in Australia for at least 45,000–50,000 years.
By comparing Aboriginal genomes to other groups, they conclude that Aborigines diverged from Eurasians between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago, after the whole group had already split from Africans.
The first major genomic study of Aboriginal Australians ever undertaken has confirmed that all present-day non-African populations are descended from the same single wave of migrants, who left Africa around 72,000 years ago.
Genetic studies have revealed that Aboriginal Australians largely descended from an Eastern Eurasian population wave, and are most closely related to other Oceanians, such as Melanesians.
Aboriginal origins
Humans are thought to have migrated to Northern Australia from Asia using primitive boats. A current theory holds that those early migrants themselves came out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, which would make Aboriginal Australians the oldest population of humans living outside Africa.
A new genomic study has revealed that Aboriginal Australians are the oldest known civilization on Earth, with ancestries stretching back roughly 75,000 years.
It is true that there has been, historically, a small number of claims that there were people in Australia before Australian Aborigines, but these claims have all been refuted and are no longer widely debated. The overwhelming weight of evidence supports the idea that Aboriginal people were the first Australians.
By comparing the aboriginal sequences to DNA from other parts of the world, the scientists determined that they all belonged to a single human lineage, indicating that all aborigines descended from a single migration to the continent.
The DNA sequences showed that the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians and Papuans had then split from Europeans and Asians by at least 51,000 years ago. By comparison, the ancestors of Europeans and Asians only became genetically distinct from each other roughly 10,000 years later.
Their dark skin reflects an African origin and a migration and residence in latitudes near the equator, unlike Europeans and Asians whose ancestors gained the paler skin necessary for living in northern latitudes.
Humans first evolved in Africa, and much of human evolution occurred on that continent. The fossils of early humans who lived between 6 and 2 million years ago come entirely from Africa.
Some are near-white like the F1; but none darker than either parent have been seen. Study of the various crosses leads to the conclusion that a single main gene for melanin in the skin is present in the aborigines, together with a minor gene which alone produces brunet-white skin colour.
Some aboriginal Australians can trace as much as 11% of their genomes to migrants who reached the island around 4,000 years ago from India, a study suggests. Along with their genes, the migrants brought different tool-making techniques and the ancestors of the dingo, researchers say.
The time of arrival of the first human beings in Australia is a matter of debate and ongoing investigation. The earliest conclusively human remains found in Australia are those of Mungo Man LM3 and Mungo Lady, which have been dated to around 50,000 years BP.
The oldest human remains in Australia were found at Lake Mungo in south-west New South Wales, part of the Willandra Lakes system. This site has been occupied by Aboriginal people from at least 47,000 years ago to the present.
Aboriginal and Papuan ancestors left Africa around 72,000 years ago. Arrived on supercontinent 'Sahul' around 50,000 years ago. By 31,000 years ago, most Aboriginal communities were genetically isolated from each other, giving rise to great genetic diversity.
Results: The Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations had significantly different ABO and RhD distributions (P < 0.001). For Aboriginal individuals, 955/1686 (56.6%) were group O and 669/1686 (39.7%) were group A. In non-Aboriginal individuals, 1201/2657 (45.2%) were group O and 986/2657 (37.1%) were group A.
So there was another family that didn't get about much. Getting back to the Australian aborigines, separate research has shown that they have roughly the same Neanderthal DNA component as non-Africans, which indicates they split off after at least the first interbreeding between the two species.
Based on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) projections, the number of Indigenous Australians in 2021 was estimated to be 881,600. The Indigenous Australian population is projected to reach about 1.1 million people by 2031 (ABS 2019b).
The First Fleet of British ships arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788 to establish a penal colony, the first colony on the Australian mainland.
Analysis of maternal genetic lineages revealed that Aboriginal populations moved into Australia around 50,000 years ago. They rapidly swept around the west and east coasts in parallel movements - meeting around the Nullarbor just west of modern-day Adelaide.
Yes, the first humans were almost certainly black. The human species evolved in East Africa about 200,000 years ago. Black skin was necessary for survival in this hot and sunny climate.
The closest individual and therefore the most similar to the "perfect genome" is an individual that corresponds to a Puerto Rican woman, and we can relate it to the Taino India known as Yuiza.
All modern humans share a common ancestor who lived around 200,000 years ago in Africa. Comparisons between known skin pigmentation genes in chimpanzees and modern Africans show that dark skin evolved along with the loss of body hair about 1.2 million years ago and that this common ancestor had dark skin.