History of Indigenous Australians

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The history of Indigenous Australians began at least 65,000 years ago when humans first populated the Australian continental landmasses.^[1] This article covers the history of Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, two broadly defined groups which each include other sub-groups defined by language and culture.

The origin of the first humans to populate the southern continent and the pieces of land which became islands as ice receded and sea levels rose remains a matter of conjecture and debate. Some anthropologists believe they could have arrived as a result of the earliest human migrations out of Africa. Although they likely migrated to the territory later named Australia through Southeast Asia, Aboriginal Australians are not demonstrably related to any known Asian or Melanesian population, although Torres Strait Islander people do have a genetic link to some Melanesian populations. There is evidence of genetic and linguistic interchange between Australians in the far north and the Austronesian peoples of modern-day New Guinea and the islands, but this may be the result of recent trade and intermarriage.^[2]

Estimates of the number of people living in Australia at the time that colonisation began in 1788, who belonged to a range of diverse groups, vary from 300,000 to a million,^[3] and upper estimates place the total population as high as 1.25 million.^[4] A cumulative population of 1.6 billion people has been estimated to have lived in Australia over 65,000 years prior to British colonisation.^[5] The regions of heaviest Aboriginal population were the same temperate coastal regions that are currently the most heavily populated, the Murray River valley in particular. The population shrank from those present when colonisation began in New South Wales in 1788, to 50,000 in 1930. This drastic reduction in numbers has been attributed to outbreaks of smallpox and other diseases,^[6][7] but other sources have emphasised the extent of frontier clashes and in most cases, deliberate killings of Aboriginal peoples.^[8]

Post-colonisation, the coastal Indigenous populations were soon absorbed, exterminated,^[9] depleted or violently forced from their lands; the traditional aspects of Aboriginal life which remained persisted most strongly in areas such as the Great Sandy Desert where European settlement has been sparse. Although the Aboriginal Tasmanians were almost driven to extinction (and once thought to be so), other Aboriginal Australian peoples maintained successful communities throughout Australia.