Australia's pre-colonial Indigenous population was 2.2 million, study finds

New research estimates Australia's Indigenous population before British colonisation was 2.22 million — up to seven times higher than previous figures. The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, calculates 2.06 million excess deaths from disease, frontier violence and displacement between 1788 and 1861, reducing the population to 7% of its original size.

Bottom line — The Indigenous population is not expected to return to pre-colonial levels until around 2047, per the researchers.

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• The median estimate of 2.22 million was derived from three independent methods: archaeological radiocarbon data, genetic reconstructions, and environmental carrying capacity modelling, according to the research team.
• Previous estimates were anchored by anthropologist Alfred Radcliffe-Brown's 1930 figure of 250,000–300,000, which the study authors say was based on observations made after disease and violence had already devastated communities.
• Co-author Corey Bradshaw of Flinders University said smallpox alone may have killed up to 220,000 Indigenous people along the east coast within the first decade of colonisation, per the Guardian.
• The researchers estimate an average of 28,200 excess deaths per year over 73 years, with a total range of 700,000 to 4.2 million, the Conversation reports.
• By 1861, only about 177,000–193,000 Indigenous people remained — roughly 7% of the pre-colonial population, per the study.
• The 2021 census counted 812,728 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, about 37% of the estimated 1788 population, according to the ABC.
• Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt, a Eualayai/Gamillaroi woman, said the findings show 'a demographic catastrophe at the heart of the Australian story', per multiple outlets.

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