Did Humans Really Migrate to Australia 65,000 Years Ago | Sea Life, Islands and Oceania

MIGRATION OF MODERN HUMANS IN AUSTRALIA

Madjedbebe rock shelter

Some of the earliest evidence of modern humans outside of Africa and the Middle East is not in Asia or Europe but in Australia. The earliest evidence of modern humans in Australia comes from Madjedbebe, a sandstone rock shelter in Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory of Australia. Artifacts there have been dated to be 50,000 to 65,000 years old. The oldest human skeletal remains are the 40,000-year-old Lake Mungo remains in New South Wales. [Source: Wikipedia]

According to the Australian Museum: The earliest dates for human occupation of Australia come from sites in the Northern Territory. The Madjedbebe (previously called Malakunanja II) rock shelter in Arnhem Land has a widely accepted date of about 50,000 years old. Reports of a date close to around 65,000 years old (Nature, 2017), which was contentious at the time, have been rebutted by Allen & O'Connell in 2020. Molecular clock estimates, genetic studies and archaeological data all suggest the initial colonisation of Sahul and Australia by modern humans occurred around 48,000–50,000 years ago. [Source: Fran Dorey, Australian Museum, September 12, 2021]

Recently published dates of 120,000 years ago for the site of Moyjil in Warrnambool, Victoria, offer intriguing, but unlikely, possibilities of much earlier occupation (Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 2018). The site contains remains of shellfish, crabs and fish in what may be a ‘midden’, but definitive proof of human occupation is lacking and investigations are ongoing.

Evidence of the Earliest Modern Humans in Australia

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Dispersion of some haplogroups to Australia
Gemma Tarlach wrote in Discover magazine: “A number of archaeological sites in the Land Down Under have been pushing the arrival date back — first 45,000 years ago, then 50,000...The evidence that the first people arrived in Australia at least by 45,000 years ago is strong. There is some pretty good evidence that they arrived 75,000 years ago or earlier. Some art work has been dated to this time. Even if we take the 50,000 year figure that means that people arrived in Australia more than 25,000 years before people arrived in the Americas and Lascaux caves were painted in France. [Source: Gemma Tarlach, Discover, July 19, 2017]

Some of the oldest known Aboriginal artifacts, dated between 43,000 and 47,000, are stone tools found at Cranebrook Terrace in Sydney. Many sites have been dated at 35,000 to 40,000 years ago. The tools found at these sites is less sophisticated than those used in Europe, consisting mainly of Neanderthal-style flaked stones and scrapers, There is little evidence the early Australians hunted large marsupial animals. It has been suggested that it likely they didn't develop more sophisticated tools because they didn't need them. There seems to have been plenty of food and there was no rival human species — like Neanderthals in Europe — to prod them to develop new technologies. Just reaching Australia — most likely with seaworthy rafts — is testimony to their skill and cleverness.

DNA research backs up the theory that early man arrived in Australia 65,000 years ago. Once there they evolved in relative isolation, developing genetic characteristics and technology found nowhere else until the arrival of the first European settlers. DNA samples from Aboriginal Australians and Melanesians from New Guinea taken in by University of Cambridge researchers in the mid 2000s indicates they share genetic features linking them and other Eurasians to the exodus from Africa. Toomas Kivisild, one of the author of the Cambridge study, told the Times of London, “The evidence points to the relative insolation after the initial arrival, which would mean any significant developments in skeletal form and tool use were not influenced by outside sources."

Australia and Out of Africa Theory

According to “Out of Africa” theory first humans in Europe and Asia came from a migration of modern humans (Homo sapiens) from Africa and the first humans in Australia came from a recent migration of modern humans through Southeast Asia. These people belonged to a single genetic lineage and were the descendants of a population that originated in Africa. Fossil evidence from the earliest indigenous Australians shows a range of physical variation that would be expected in a single, geographically widespread population. [Source: Fran Dorey, Australian Museum, September 12, 2021]

migration routes from Asia to Australia via Timor

It is widely believed that modern humans reached Asia by 70,000 years ago and moved down through Southeast Asia and into Australia. However, modern humans were not the first hominids to inhabit this region. Homo erectus had been in Asia long before that. Radiometric dates obtained for volcanic minerals at Sangiran in Java, Indonesia indicate that homo erectus — Java Man — had been in Asia at least 1.5 million to 1.8 million years ago. It is possible that modern humans and homo erectus may have coexisted, as some dates for Indonesian Homo erectus suggest they may have survived there until as recently as 50,000 years ago. Homo erectus remains have never been found in Australia.

Another human species, the Denisovans, is also thought to have inhabit Asia and there is evidence that they interbred with modern humans and Neanderthals. Melanesians and Aboriginal Australians carry about 3-5 percent of Denisovan DNA. This is explained by interbreeding of eastern Eurasian Denisovans with the modern human ancestors of these populations as they migrated towards Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Migration from Africa to Asia to Australia

The fact that some of earliest evidence of modern humans outside of Africa and the Middle East is in Australia suggests that the early man followed a coastal route through South Asia and Southeast Asia to Australia. It is believed that the migration was not a caravan-like journey but rather one in which some huts were set up on the beach and the migrants lived there for a while moving and then moved to a new location further to the east every couple of years. Traces of such a migration if it took place were covered in water and sediments when sea levels rose at the end of the Ice Age.

DNA studies of people living today indicate that modern humans migrated from Eastern Africa to the Middle East, then Southern and Southeast Asia, then New Guinea and Australia, followed by Europe and Central Asia. Perhaps they didn't enter Europe because that region was dominated by Neanderthals. According to research by geneticist at the University of Cambridge in the mid 2000s all modern humans descend from a small number of Africans that left Africa between 55,000 and 60,000 years ago. Another less reliable DNA study determined that an intrepid group of 500 hominids marched out of Africa about 140,000 years ago and they are the ancestors to all modern people today. [Source: Guy Gugliotta, Smithsonian magazine, July 2008]

Artifacts from the 2012 and 2015 excavations at the Madjedbebe rockshelter, Scale bars are 1 centimeters: unless indicated otherwise: a) ground hatchet head, Scale bar – 5 centimeters, Top insets and micrographs show striations and grinding, b) edge-ground margin on flake, Scale bar – 5 millimetersm, Bottom-right inset (scale bar – 2 mm) shows striations (arrows) from use and grinding, Top-left, the ground edge is shown viewed from the side, Top-right, the ground edge is shown viewed from the front, c) invasively retouched silcrete point, d) silcrete thinning flake, (e) sandstone grinding stone, f) mortar, used to pound hard plant material and with possible outline motif in the bottom-right corner, g) ground ocher ‘crayon,’ h) faceted discoidal core, i) conjoining ocher-covered slab; inset shows fragment of mica embedded in a thick coating of ocher, with blue circles at the sampling locations, j) charcoal lines and dots on sandstone piece, (k-m) pieces of sheet mica found wrapped around a large, ground yellow ocher ‘crayon’ n), o-q) photographs of a maxillary fragment of a thylacine (Tasmanian wolf), Source: Nature

Saioa López, Lucy van Dorp and Garrett Hellenthal of University College London wrote: “In contrast, mtDNA studies have traditionally favored a Southern route across the Bab el Mandeb strait at the mouth of the Red Sea. From there, modern humans are thought to have spread rapidly into regions of Southeast Asia and Oceania. For example, two studies have concluded that individuals assigned to haplogroup L3 migrated out of the continent via the Horn of Africa. Furthermore, Fernandes et al. analyzed three minor West-Eurasian haplogroups and found a relic distribution of these minor haplogroups suggestive of ancestry within the Arabian cradle, as expected under a Southern route.[Source: Saioa López, Lucy van Dorp and Garrett Hellenthal of University College London, “Human Dispersal Out of Africa: A Lasting Debate,” Evolutionary Bioinformatics, April 21, 2016 ~]

“From an archeological perspective, evidence indicative of maritime exploitation is extremely limited. The discovery of artifacts from the Abdur Reef Limestone in the Red Sea and archeological sites in the Gulf Basin that indicate long-standing human occupation earlier than 100, 000 years ago may offer some evidence; however, whether these represent the activities of the ancestors of modern-day human groups is still an open question. Furthermore, Boivin et al caution that while coastal regions may have been important, a coastal-focused dispersal would still have been problematic and not necessarily conducive to rapid out of Africa dispersal.” ~

Reaching India was an important milestone on the way to Australia. Tony Joseph wrote in The Hindu: “When did our species, Homo sapiens, first set foot in India? There are two competing versions of the answer: let’s call them the ‘early version’ and the ‘late version’. The ‘early version’ says they arrived 74,000 to 120,000 years ago from Africa through the Arabian peninsula with Middle Stone Age tools such as scrapers and points that helped them hunt their prey, gather food, or make clothes. The ‘late version’ says they arrived much later, around 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, with upgraded technology such as microlithic (tiny stone) tools that might have been used to give sharp tips to arrows and spears. A geological event separates the two versions: the supervolcanic eruption at Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia, about 74,000 years ago, dumped tonnes of ash all over South-east Asia and South Asia, causing much stress to all life in the region. The ‘early version’ says migrants reached India before Toba; the ‘late version’ says the opposite.” [Source: Tony Joseph, The Hindu, September 5, 2017 |^^|]

Reaching Indonesia was another important milestone on the way to Australia. Bruce Bower wrote in Science News: “Humans inhabited rainforests on the Indonesian island of Sumatra between 73,000 and 63,000 years ago — shortly before a massive eruption of the island’s Mount Toba volcano covered South Asia in ash, researchers say. Two teeth previously unearthed in Sumatra’s Lida Ajer cave and assigned to the human genus, Homo, display features typical of Homo sapiens, report geoscientist Kira Westaway of Macquarie University in Sydney and her colleagues. By dating Lida Ajer sediment and formations, the scientists came up with age estimates for the human teeth and associated fossils of various rainforest animals excavated in the late 1800s, including orangutans. [Source: Bruce Bower, Science News, August 9, 2017]

Did Modern Humans Really Migrate in Australia 65,000 Years Ago ?

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Aboriginal Art
Archaeological evidence at one site called Madjedbebe in the far north of Australia's Northern Territory suggests the area may have been occupied as early as 65,000 years ago. Archaeologists recovered human-made artifacts, including stone tools and ocher "crayons," from the Madjedbebe rock shelter and published their findings in a 2017 study. [Source: Kristina Killgrove, Live Science, July 4, 2025]

But some people have doubts about the findings. According to Live Science: One difficulty in dating the artifacts at Madjedbebe, however, was the copious amount of sand on the floor of the rock shelter, which can move easily and cause artifacts to fall farther down, making them look older than they are. Although the research team took steps to counteract this issue and landed on a 65,000-year-old date, Madjedbebe's occupation timing is still uncertain because it is by far the oldest archaeological site in Australia, making it an outlier. "It doesn't necessarily mean that the data is wrong," James O'Connell of the University of Utah said, "but it does mean that if the data is right, the people responsible for Madjedbebe are not ancestral to any significant degree to modern Sahul populations." [Source: Kristina Killgrove, Live Science, July 4, 2025]

Gemma Tarlach wrote in Discover magazine: “The discovery is at odds with the conventional date for our species leaving Africa, and adds fuel to the growing bonfire of what was the evolutionary timeline for Homo sapiens. For decades, the hoary old story of human evolution and migration went something like this: An archaic version of Homo sapiens evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago, and eventually amassed enough random advantageous mutations to get upgraded to version 2.0 (thanks, natural selection!), aka modern Homo sapiens, by about 100,000 years ago. Then, the timeline gets a bit iffy. Many paleoanthropologists had long argued that our species didn’t leave Africa until 60,000 years ago — some put the date even later, around 40,000 years ago. That’s what the archaeological evidence told them, and that’s what they stuck hard and fast to. [Source: Gemma Tarlach, Discover, July 19, 2017]

“Since the 1990s, however, a growing number of studies — increasingly driven by genetic evidence — have painted a very different picture of human evolution and migration. Most recently, in 2016 a landmark genomic study of 400 Papua New Guineans suggested that modern Homo sapiens may have arrived in the region 120,000 years ago. And earlier this month, the sequencing of ancient mitochondrial (maternally-inherited) DNA extracted from a Neanderthal femur hinted that African Homo sapiens were interbreeding with European Neanderthals more than 200,000 years ago.

“Then there was the announcement earlier this year that Homo sapiens — albeit not quite version 2.0 — were in Morocco 300,000 years ago — the best evidence yet that our species is considerably older than we thought. Enter The First Australians Question. As one of the corners of the world furthest-flung from Africa, it makes sense that our species would arrive there fairly late in its relentless march across the planet. Many old-schoolers believed humans first set foot in Australia anywhere from 20,000-40,000 years ago.

Does Neanderthal DNA Refute the 65,000-Year-Old Date for Human Arrival in Australia?

Humans did not arrive in Australia 65,000 years ago, and likely didn't reach it until around 50,000 years ago, controversial paper published in June 2025 in the journal Archaeology in Oceania asserted. Kristina Killgrove wrote in Live Science:: The reasoning behind the finding is that modern humans didn't mate with Neanderthals until around 50,000 years ago, but Indigenous Australians have a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA. So, the first Australians could not have arrived until after humans mated with Neanderthals. But we can't yet rule out archaeological evidence that places humans on the continent much earlier than genetic models do, other experts say. [Source: Kristina Killgrove, Live Science, July 4, 2025]

The theory put forward by archaeologists Jim Allen of La Trobe University in Australia and James O'Connell of the University of Utah is based on two recent DNA studies that revealed Neanderthals and humans likely interbred in Europe during one long "pulse" between 50,500 and 43,500 years ago. Since all living humans outside Africa have at least 2 percent Neanderthal DNA, including Indigenous Australians, this means the earliest Homo sapiens in Australia had some Neanderthal roots — and those roots can't go back much earlier than 50,000 years ago.

People in Sahul (New Guinea and Australia) have a high percentage of Neanderthal blood

Researchers interested in the earliest humans in Australia have focused primarily on archaeological sites in southeast Asia and Oceania, broadly across the modern borders of Indonesia, Australia and various islands, also known as the paleocontinent Sahul. Archaeological evidence of human occupation in Sahul largely lines up with the genetic evidence, Allen and O'Connell wrote in their study. All archaeological sites except one have been dated to between 43,000 and 54,000 years ago, meaning humans could have mixed with Neanderthals in Eurasia and then headed east.

But Allen and O'Connell's new theory relies heavily on assumptions in the DNA model and in early human behaviors, several researchers suggested in a commentary, also published in Archaeology in Oceania. "Both archaeological and molecular dating of Sahul are still in an early stage of development," wrote Peter Veth, an archaeologist at the University of Western Australia, so "can we rely on current assumptions underlying these molecular clocks to test Australian archaeological evidence?"

Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Australia, wrote that Southeast Asian archaeological sites, such as on Sulawesi in Indonesia, actually have compelling evidence for early rock art that dates back to at least 51,200 years ago. "Remembering that we only have minimum ages for rock art, I think there is a very real possibility that the people who created the earliest artworks from Sulawesi were a part of the same broader cultural group that went on to colonise Sahul some 65,000 years ago," Brumm wrote.

O'Connell and Allen, though, think that this sort of artwork, intensive seafaring and the creation of complex artifacts are all connected to a shift in human behavior that began around 50,000 years ago, sometimes called the Paleolithic Revolution. In a narrow window of time, they wrote, these early humans "began the process of displacing archaic hominins and occupying diverse environments in Europe and Asia." But in their commentary, archaeological scientists Huw Groucutt and Eleanor Scerri questioned this idea of a "revolution" in behavior that occurred around the time humans met Neanderthals. "In Africa, decades of research now clearly show the presence of complex behaviours tens of thousands of years earlier than the supposed revolution, and arguably occurring in a gradual and piecemeal fashion," Groucutt and Scerri wrote.

While genetic and archaeological evidence are currently at odds, it is important to remember that there are major gaps in both data sets, meaning there is no strong evidence favoring either the pre- or post-50,000 year date for the first occupation of Sahul, Groucutt and Scerri wrote. But even though archaeological evidence does not currently refute Allen and O'Connell's theory, Brumm wrote, "I think this evidence is coming, however, and it will have big implications for our understanding of ancient Sahul."

DNA Evidence Suggests Australian Aborigines Were First Explorers

Mongoloid, Astraloid and Negrito distribution of Asian peoples

AFP reported in 2011, “An international team of scientists has sequenced the genome of an Australian Aboriginal man and reported that his ancestors likely explored the earth earlier than those of modern Asians. The findings shed new light on the waves of migration by humans out of Africa, and suggest that Aboriginals were descended from rare and brave adventurers that moved on 24,000 years earlier than the rest. [Source: AFP, September 27, 2011]

“Aboriginal Australians descend from the first human explorers," said lead author Eske Willerslev from the University of Copenhagen. “While the ancestors of Europeans and Asians were sitting somewhere in Africa or the Middle East, yet to explore their world further, the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians spread rapidly; the first modern humans traversing unknown territory in Asia and finally crossing the sea into Australia.

“It was a truly amazing journey that must have demanded exceptional survival skills and bravery." The findings were based on the analysis of a 100-year-old lock of hair donated to a British anthropologist by an Aboriginal man from the Goldfields region of Western Australia. Researchers sequenced the DNA and found “no genetic input from modern European Australians," which they believe shows that Aborigines moved through Asia and into Australia in a first and separate wave.

The evidence suggests “the ancestors of the Aboriginal man separated from the ancestors of other human populations some 64,000 to 75,000 years ago... before finally reaching Australia about 50,000 years ago”, said the study. The genetic history of Australians has been difficult to pin down because scientists have lacked access to DNA from fossilised bones such as those found from Neanderthals and Denisovans in cold caves in Europe and Russia, where DNA can be preserved.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Australian Museum, National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2025