Australia's pre-colonial Indigenous population may have been far larger than estimated: Study

Australia may have had a much larger Indigenous population before European colonization than previously estimated, with new research putting the median at 2.22 million people.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, used archaeological and genetic evidence, historical observations and computer modeling of the continent's environmental capacity to reconstruct the population before British colonization.

Previous estimates have generally placed Australia's pre-colonial Indigenous population between 250,000 and 1 million people. Researchers said earlier figures were affected by the lack of systematic population records and by disease and violence that had already reduced Indigenous communities by the time early colonial estimates were made.

The research estimated that about 93% of the pre-colonial Indigenous population was lost in less than 80 years after the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, with researchers attributing the demographic collapse to the effects of colonization, including disease and frontier violence.

The study estimated that about 2.06 million excess deaths between 1788 and 1861 would be needed to reconcile its population estimate with historical census records.