A new study estimates that Australia’s Indigenous population before European colonization was about 2.22 million, potentially seven times higher than earlier figures around 250,000.

Researchers advocate using multiple independent methods—genetics, archaeology, environmental modeling, and historical records—to reconstruct population histories accurately when sources are incomplete or biased.

Lead author Associate Professor Alan Williams and co-author Professor Corey Bradshaw drive the work, with input from Indigenous partners and institutions such as Flinders University and the CIEHF.

The study notes disease, frontier violence, and systemic oppression drove massive population losses, challenging prior underestimates and underscoring the need for renewed truth-telling and reconciliation.

Although Indigenous numbers have grown since the 1950s, the current population remains well below pre-colonial levels, with projections suggesting it may not rebound to those levels until around 2047 under current trends.

Researchers used ethnographic observations, archaeology, genetics, and computer modeling to estimate pre-colonial population sizes and assess environmental carrying capacity.

Between 1788 and 1861, an estimated 2.06 million Indigenous deaths occurred, reducing the population to about 7% of its pre-colonization size by 1861, a 93% collapse within 73 years after European arrival.