First Australians: Origins

Abstract

Many Aboriginal people view that their ancestry is closely linked with the creation of the Australian landscape during the period they refer to as “the Dreaming.” From a scientific perspective, this is in some ways complementary to the picture from archaeology. The Australian landscape, with its diverse and changing environments during the dramatic fluctuations over the last 50,000 years, has been assumed to play a significant role in influencing and forming the diverse morphology of the modern Aboriginal people. Understanding the biological basis that underpins these diverse and changing morphologies is one of the key challenges confronting Australian palaeoanthropology.