Australian Aborigine

The Aborigines — or indigenous Australians — claimed by main-stream anthropologists to have inhabited Australia for as long as 50,000 years. New genetic evidence suggests that multiple waves of people migrated into Australia over the few thousand years before European colonization.^[1] They were not completely isolated as there was migration between the islands, allowing small levels of exchange with Melanesia. In general, complete ethnic isolation of any group for thousands of years is a fallacy.^[2]

When the Europeans colonized Australia, the indigenous people and culture declined drastically. The aboriginal population currently has a high smoking rate due to European introduction of tobacco.^[3]

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