Scientists Surprised By Revelation About The Most Ancient Civilization On Earth

In the 2020s, exciting new data emerged about early human migrations from Africa into the rest of the world. The Americas, in particular, have been receiving a lot of attention. Initially, anthropologists thought humans had only been in the Americas for around 13,000 years.

That time period was steadily retraced further until the White Sands Fossil Footprints definitively put it back to around 22,000 years at least (other, more controversial, sites in the Americas may suggest a habitation date of 20,000 – 30,000 years).

Such revelations about early human migration have caused many to wonder about other places in the world. Out of all those places, one of the most interesting (and enlightening!) cases is Australia and its first humans, the Aboriginal Australians.

History Of Genetically Isolated Aboriginal Australians

Before colonization, there were around 600–900 tribes of Aboriginal Australians that spoke around 250 languages. These genetically isolated populations have a rich history and culture that continues today in Australia’s nearly one million Aboriginal population. Genetic and archaeological evidence have been used to help anthropologists and archaeologists understand how long Australia’s Aboriginal population has lived in their native land.

Over the past ten years, exciting genetic studies and archaeological advances have shed light on these questions. It seems that Australian Aboriginals were the descendants of a group of sapiens that left Africa and dispersed throughout Asia at some point around 75,000 BP (Before Present), splitting from the Eurasian population at some point around 58,000 years ago. They reached southern Australia around 50,000 – 45,000 BP.

More About Origins Of Aboriginal Australians

The populations of Aboriginal Australians split from Papuans around 37,000 years BP. Interestingly, genetic studies have shown that Aboriginal Australians not only have 4% Denisovan DNA in their genome but also have DNA from an uncharacterized other early human species. They also have 2% Neanderthal DNA from admixture events around 60,000 years ago.

It’s theorized that humans got to Australia by sea travel. Remember, sea levels were significantly lower during the last ice age than today. It’s both possible and likely that Aboriginal Australians got to the continent by island-hopping using boats. If so, these people would likely have been among the first mariners the world had ever seen.

Lake Mungo’s Archaeological Evidence Of Australia’s Earliest Human Remains

While genetic evidence is vital in understanding human migrations into Australia, archaeological evidence can tell another side to this story that’s left out of our genomes. The earliest human remains found in Australia are from a dried-up lake called Lake Mungo in New South Wales. Named “Lake Mungo 3,” these human remains are often referred to as “Mungo Man” by archaeologists.

Mungo Man was discovered in 1974 when the shifting dunes near the dried-up lake accidentally uncovered him. His body had been carefully laid out with clasped hands and bent knees and sprinkled with red ochre. After much discussion and testing, Mungo Man was eventually dated to around 40,000 years BP. While Mungo Man is the oldest actual human found in Australia, the oldest human evidence is far older.

The earliest human site came from Arnhem Land in Australia’s Northern Territory (home to Uluru, one of the world’s largest monoliths). This is the site of Madjedbebe, a rock shelter made of sandstone, where more than 100,000 artifacts have been found. Artifacts include stone tools, grinding stones for food processing, food remains, and ochre.

Ochre was a vitally important resource for the peoples of prehistory, as evidenced by the world’s oldest mine, located at Lion Cavern in Eswatini. People from prehistory used this substance for body decoration, in religious rituals, for painting, and even as an early form of sunscreen!

The site of Madjedbebe is currently dated to between 65,000 and 50,000 years old. The lower estimate is more definitive (with some suggesting that the 65,000-year-old dates are due to termite infestations), though the team that dug the site between 2012 and 2015 maintains that the older date is correct. Similarly, the site of Nauwalabila (located not far from Madjedbebe) is estimated to be between 50,000 and 65,000 years old, though the upper half of these dates are likewise controversial.

The Best Places For Ancient Aboriginal Australian Artifacts

Australia boasts world-class museum collections with in situ sites that span thousands of years of history. Key locations include:

• The Australian Museum in Sydney, which features the ‘Garrigarrang’ (Sea Country) exhibition, showing a massive collection of technological and cultural items.
• The South Australian Museum in Adelaide, which houses the most comprehensive collection of 3,000+ artifacts, including rare bark canoes and early tools.
• Kakadu National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for Ubirr’s rock art, which includes “x”ray”-style paintings and early contact art.
• The Kimberley, featuring exceptionally ancient rock art (some potentially 60,000 years old) in remote galleries such as Jar Island.

Instead of being dug up and moved to a museum, many of the items are preserved right where they belong in the landscape. They preserve the physical relationship between an artifact and its surroundings (e.g., a tool resting next to an ancient fireplace).

What Was Australia Like When Humans Migrated Across The Globe?

At the time, Australia was part of a larger continent called Sahul, which comprised Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, the Aru Islands, and lands that are now underwater. Sea levels rose after the last Ice Age, between 10,000 and 6,000 years ago, forming the Australian coastlines we know today.

Likewise, many of Australia’s iconic topographic features had not yet been developed. For instance, Australia wasn’t as dry as it is today, with more wetlands and lakes. The current Great Barrier Reef began to grow on this newly submerged land around 9,000 years ago.

If you think Australia has crazy wildlife, wait until you hear about the creatures of this prehistoric land. Short-faced giant kangaroos that weighed ~500 lbs, marsupial lions, giant crocodylians called Paludirex, and diprotodons (a ~5.9-foot giant marsupial herbivore that filled the ecological niche of an elephant) all inhabited Australia during the last Ice Age.

Humans saw them when they migrated into Australia between 65,000 and 50,000 years ago. This isn’t just conjecture based on fossil dates cross-referenced with the dates when humans entered Australia, either. It’s based on actual drawings and accounts of Aboriginal Australians.

One of the many things that makes Aboriginal Australian cultures so special is that many of these cultures retain distinct features that may be as old as human presence in Australia. Aboriginal Australians have retained a cultural memory that dates back to when Australia was much larger and stranger—aka, the final days of the last Ice Age around 10,000 years ago.

Verbal histories, stories, and rock art all point to a time in Australia when people encountered these creatures and inhabited a bygone landscape. For instance, many Australian Aboriginal verbal histories tell of times when sea levels drastically rose (between 13,000 and 7,000 BP). Likewise, rock art may depict extinct animals, like the massive short-faced kangaroo Procoptodon.

When people say Aboriginal Australian cultures have some of the oldest continuous cultural traditions on Earth, they refer to this. Today, Aboriginal Australians form one of the oldest “unchanged” populations outside Africa. The first of these arrived between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, eventually forming hundreds of linguistically independent groups.