Genetic Study Confirms Australian Aborigines Have Been Isolated For 50,000 Years

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Australian aborigines have one of the oldest histories of any peoples, dating back 50,000 years. Rusty Stewart/Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The indigenous aborigines of Australia have one of the oldest histories of any group of people living outside of Africa. The general consensus is that modern humans reached the continent around 50,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years before humans even managed to populate Europe. There have, however, been questions about just how isolated the aborigines have been during this long history, and whether there were later influxes of people.