Overview
- The study, published Tuesday September 15, 2026 in Nature Human Behaviour, produced a median estimate of about 2.22 million Indigenous people living in Australia before British colonisation.
- Researchers combined five independent approaches — archaeological radiocarbon date analysis, two genetic reconstructions, environmental carrying‑capacity models and demographic computer simulations — to avoid bias in colonial‑era counts.
- Their demographic model estimates a median of roughly 2.06 million 'excess deaths' between 1788 and 1861, with a plausible range of about 700,000 to 4.2 million, and does not precisely split those deaths among disease, frontier killings and structural violence.
- Colonial records put the Indigenous population at about 177,000–193,000 by 1861, and the 2021 census counted about 812,728 people, with researchers projecting parity with the revised 1788 median would not occur until about 2047 at current growth rates.
- Authors and Indigenous partners say the findings change public understanding of terra nullius, deepen recognition of intergenerational trauma, and have practical implications for truth‑telling, reconciliation and restoring Indigenous land‑management practices.