They were isolated on many of the smaller offshore islands and Tasmania when the land was inundated at the start of the Holocene inter-glacial period, about 11,700 years ago.

[5] At the time of European colonisation of Australia, the Aboriginal people consisted of complex cultural societies with more than 250 languages[6] and varying degrees of technology and settlements.

[7][8][9] Traditional cultural beliefs are passed down and shared through dancing, stories, songlines, and art that collectively weave an ontology of modern daily life and ancient creation known as the Dreaming.

Aboriginal identity has changed over time and place, with family lineage, self-identification, and community acceptance all of varying importance.

[12] In Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, oral histories comprising complex narratives have been passed down by Yolngu people through hundreds of generations.

Lynette Russell of Monash University believes that the new model is a starting point for collaboration with Aboriginal people to help reveal their history.

[16][17] A 2018 study using archaeobotany dated evidence of continuous human habitation at Karnatukul (Serpent's Glen) in the Carnarvon Range in the Little Sandy Desert in WA from around 50,000 years ago.

[18][note 1][19][20] Genetic studies have revealed that Aboriginal Australians largely descended from an Eastern Eurasian population wave during the Initial Upper Paleolithic.

[22][note 2][23] Aboriginal people are genetically most similar to the indigenous populations of Papua New Guinea, and more distantly related to groups from East Indonesia.

They are more distinct from the indigenous populations of Borneo and Malaysia, sharing drift with them than compared to the groups from Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

These findings suggest that modern Aboriginal Australians are the direct descendants of the eastern wave, who left Africa up to 75,000 years ago.

[citation needed] The Rasmussen study also found evidence that Aboriginal peoples carry some genes associated with the Denisovans (a species of human related to but distinct from Neanderthals) of Asia; the study suggests that there is an increase in allele sharing between the Denisovan and Aboriginal Australian genomes, compared to other Eurasians or Africans.

[28] A 2016 study at the University of Cambridge suggests that it was about 50,000 years ago that these peoples reached Sahul (the supercontinent consisting of present-day Australia and its islands and New Guinea).

[29][30] Carlhoff et al. 2021 analysed a Holocene hunter-gatherer sample ("Leang Panninge") from South Sulawesi, which shares high amounts of genetic drift with Aboriginal Australians and Papuans.

Human contact has thus been inferred, and genetic data of two kinds have been proposed to support a gene flow from India to Australia: firstly, signs of South Asian components in Aboriginal Australian genomes, reported on the basis of genome-wide SNP data; and secondly, the existence of a Y chromosome (male) lineage, designated haplogroup C∗, with the most recent common ancestor about 5,000 years ago.

[37] The first type of evidence comes from a 2013 study by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology using large-scale genotyping data from a pool of Aboriginal Australians, New Guineans, island Southeast Asians, and Indians.

[citation needed] Also the Indian and Australian populations mixed long before European contact, with this gene flow occurring during the Holocene (c. 4,200 years ago).

[39][40] However, a 2016 study in Current Biology by Anders Bergström et al. excluded the Y chromosome as providing evidence for recent gene flow from India into Australia.

[37] The 2016 study's authors concluded that, although this does not disprove the presence of any Holocene gene flow or non-genetic influences from South Asia at that time, and the appearance of the dingo does provide strong evidence for external contacts, the evidence overall is consistent with a complete lack of gene flow, and points to indigenous origins for the technological and linguistic changes.

They attributed the disparity between their results and previous findings to improvements in technology; none of the other studies had utilised complete Y chromosome sequencing, which has the highest precision.

Gene flow across the island-dotted 150-kilometre-wide (93 mi) Torres Strait, is both geographically plausible and demonstrated by the data, although at this point it could not be determined from this study when within the last 10,000 years it may have occurred—newer analytical techniques have the potential to address such questions.

[54] Dispersing across the Australian continent over time, the ancient people expanded and differentiated into distinct groups, each with its own language and culture.

Different approaches have been taken by non-Aboriginal scholars in trying to understand and define Aboriginal culture and societies, some focusing on the micro-level (tribe, clan, etc.

Knowledge of pre-colonial Aboriginal cultures and societal groupings is still largely dependent on the observers' interpretations, which were filtered through colonial ways of viewing societies.

[11][61] These peoples have a broadly shared, though complex, genetic history,[62][40] but it is only in the last two hundred years that they have been defined and started to self-identify as a single group, socio-politically.

[73][72] Additionally, traditional healers were also custodians of important Dreaming stories as well as their medical roles (for example the Ngangkari in the Western desert).

Similarly, the Arrernte people of central Australia believed that humanity originated from great superhuman ancestors who brought the sun, wind and rain as a result of breaking through the surface of the Earth when waking from their slumber.

These issues stem from a variety of different causes unique to indigenous communities, such as historical trauma,[77] socioeconomic disadvantage, and decreased access to education and health care.

Past studies have found that many indigenous leaders and community members, do in fact, want more culturally-aware health care programs.

[85][86][87] Indigenous communities in remote Australia are often small, isolated towns with basic facilities, on traditionally owned land.