New modelling puts Australia’s pre-colonial Indigenous population at 2.2 million

New demographic modelling estimates that about 2.2 million Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people lived in Australia before British colonisation began in 1788. The figure, reported on 15 September, is dramatically higher than the continent-wide estimates that shaped much of the earlier historical record and suggests that the subsequent population collapse was larger than commonly understood.

研究人员还估计在1788年至1861年间约有2.06百万过度死亡,原住民人口约占其殖民前水平的7%。 作者将这场崩溃与引入的疾病、边境暴力、分散和营养不良有关。 这些数字是模拟的估计而不是回顾的审查,使他们的假设和不确定性对未来的审查至关重要。

如何构建估计

研究小组将各种各样的证据结合起来,而不是从殖民地头部单独向后投影。 它的方法包括考古记录,气候和土地生产力的重建,以及用于预测人口规模的遗传信息。 民族学估计被审查,但没有被视为模型的主要基础。

That approach matters because many early observations were recorded only after disease and colonial violence had already altered communities. The first widely cited continent-wide estimate placed the population between 250,000 and 300,000. Later scholars proposed higher totals, including estimates around 750,000, 900,000 and as much as 1.3 million, but no systematic pre-1788 census existed.

為什麼發現現在重要

新的估计不仅仅是对旧的统计辩论进行审查。 它改变了政策制定者、教育者和公众能够理解殖民地人口的后果的程度。 它还加强了原住民参与关于历史真相讲述、土地、文化和和解的决策的案例,同时为专家提供空间来测试模型及其区域假设。

联合国原住民权利机制最近听到澳大利亚代表声称殖民后果仍然可见于未解决的土地索赔和有限的决策权。 该机制的任务中心是帮助各国实现原住民权利,包括参与和自我决定。 这个背景解释了为什么一个修订的人口基线可能会带来超越学术人口的后果。

Official material submitted through the UN system had previously cited a broad pre-colonial range of 300,000 to one million people and noted more than 500 distinct tribal nations and over 250 languages. The new 2.2 million estimate substantially exceeds that range. The next questions are whether other researchers reproduce the result, how estimates vary across regions and how Australian institutions incorporate the findings into policy and public history.