New research suggests that Australia's Indigenous population before European colonization was far larger than historical estimates have indicated. Scientists now estimate that approximately 2.22 million Indigenous people lived across the continent before the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, potentially up to seven times the number suggested by some earlier calculations. The findings also reveal the devastating scale of the population decline that followed colonization.
According to the researchers, an estimated 93% of Australia's Indigenous population was lost within less than 80 years of European arrival, a much greater decline than previously recognized. Professor Corey Bradshaw, a Global Ecology Professor at Flinders University and Chief Investigator at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures (CIEHF), contributed to the national research effort. Working alongside Indigenous partners, the team is investigating how Indigenous population numbers have changed throughout Australia's history.
By combining advanced computer models with several sources of historical and scientific evidence, the researchers developed new estimates that substantially challenge previous assumptions. "Understanding the size of Indigenous populations in Australia before European invasion in 1788 is essential to truth-telling and reconciliation," says Professor Bradshaw. New Evidence Reveals Millions of Indigenous Australians Before Colonization To reconstruct Australia's Indigenous population before European settlement, the researchers brought together ethnographic observations, archaeological findings, genetic reconstructions, and computer models.
They also examined how many people different environments across the continent could have supported. Earlier population estimates often relied heavily on calculations made during the 1930s by anthropologist Alfred Radcliffe-Brown. His influential assessment placed Australia's Indigenous population before colonization at approximately 250,000 people.
However, Radcliffe-Brown recognized that his estimate did not fully account for the devastating effects of deadly diseases, violence along colonial frontiers, and broader structural violence. Subsequent research has shown that these forces had a much greater impact than was historically acknowledged, suggesting that many early population figures were already substantial underestimates. Using modeled and genetics-based estimates (supported by, but not relying on, historical or ethnographic accounts), the team calculated a median Indigenous population of 2.22 million before colonization.
This corresponds to approximately 0.29 people per square kilometer across Australia. The figure is substantially higher than earlier historical estimates, which generally ranged from 250,000 to 1 million people. Researchers believe those lower estimates were influenced by the widespread population losses caused by disease, frontier violence, and systemic oppression before the earliest Australian censuses were conducted.
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