Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders: Australia's First Peoples.
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.
Migration to Australia
The earliest anatomically modern human remains found in Australia (and outside of Africa) are those of Mungo Man; they have been dated at 42,000 years old.
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.
Co-lead researcher Shimona Kealy said these people probably travelled through Indonesia's northern islands, into New Guinea and then Australia, which were part of a single continent between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago, when sea levels were 25-50 metres below the current level.
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.
They conclude that, like most other living Eurasians, Aborigines descend from a single group of modern humans who swept out of Africa 50,000 to 60,000 years ago and then spread in different directions.
A new genomic study has revealed that Aboriginal Australians are the oldest known civilization on Earth, with ancestries stretching back roughly 75,000 years.
Fifty thousand years ago, sea levels were so low that Australia and New Guinea formed a single continent. Humans moved from Southeast Asia onto this landmass, some settling in what is now New Guinea, others traveling farther south into Australia.
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.
Northern 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 new study suggests. Along with their genes, the migrants also have brought more advanced tool-making techniques and the ancestors of the dingo.
Genetics. 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.
The only historical evidence of Mr Stewart's age is an engraving on an old windmill at Wallal Downs Station, about 300 kilometres south of Broome. The rusted iron is marked "Stephen Stewart, 1918", making Mr Stewart at least 103.
Prior to that time, were 1,000-pound kangaroos in Australia, 2-ton wombats, 25-foot-long lizards, 400-pound flightless birds, 300-pound marsupial lions and Volkswagen-sized tortoises. After that time, those huge creatures had disappeared.
Prior to British settlement, more than 500 First Nations groups inhabited the continent we now call Australia, approximately 750,000 people in total. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures developed over 60,000 years, making First Nations Peoples the custodians of the world's oldest living culture.
The first recorded African-diaspora settlers were black convicts, eleven in number, transported by the British, on the First Fleet of 1788. On their release, many bought land and brought up families in the area of Pennant Hills in western Sydney.
Aboriginal people have been in Australia for at least 60,000 years (Torres Strait Islanders at least 2500 years).
Long connection to country
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.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the first peoples of Australia, meaning they were here for thousands of years prior to colonisation.
“All indigenous haplogroups were found to be ancient, with estimated ages greater than 40 thousand years, and all were widespread throughout the continent.”
Total brain volume was significantly smaller for Aborigines (1199 +/- 84 ml) compared to Caucasians (1386 +/- 98 ml). Significantly smaller volumes were also found for cerebellum, prosencephalon-mesencephalon unit, cerebral cortex, frontal cortex, parieto-occipitotemporal cortex, and hippocampus.
The original Australians were dark-skinned, but a large proportion of the country's Aborigines today are of mixed blood, and many appear to be white.
Willerslev and his colleagues found that individual Aboriginals from different parts of Australia could be as genetically distinct from one another as Europeans are from East Asians. This points to a long, long period of separation — tens of thousands of years living on opposite sides of massive deserts.
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.
'Aborigine' is generally perceived as insensitive, because it has racist connotations from Australia's colonial past, and lumps people with diverse backgrounds into a single group.