Australia’s Indigenous Population May Have Been Far Larger Before Colonization Than Historians Thought

Australia’s Indigenous Population May Have Been Far Larger Before Colonization Than Historians Thought

New estimates suggest Australia’s Indigenous population was much larger before European colonization and declined by roughly 93% between 1788 and 1861. European colonization of Australia began in 1788 with the arrival of Britain’s First Fleet. By the time early censuses counted Indigenous people, disease and violence had already devastated their communities, leaving those records an [...]

How researchers figured out Australia's pre-colonial population was grossly underestimated - ABC listen

For a lot of the 20th century, a commonly cited estimate said there were around 300,000 Indigenous people living across Australia prior to invasion. But new research says the Aboriginal population was  “more likely 2–3 million” in 1788.  Another recent study on the 1789 smallpox epidemic was “catastrophic to traditional Indigenous lifeways in the southeast”.  Guests:  Dr Shane Ingrey, a researcher at UNSW and Research Manager at the Gujaga Found…

AUSTRALIA’S PRE-COLONIAL INDIGENOUS POPULATION MAY HAVE BEEN 2.2 MILLION, STUDY FINDS

Sun 20 September 2026: Research suggests population collapse after British arrival was far greater than earlier estimates indicated  Australia’s Indigenous population before British colonisation may have been substantially larger than previously estimated, with new research placing the median population at about 2.22 million people. The study, published on September 15 in Nature Human Behaviour, combines […]