The sea levels rose and isolated Australia (and Tasmania) about 10,000 years ago, but Aboriginal Australians and Papuans diverged from each other genetically earlier, about 37,000 years BP, possibly because the remaining land bridge was impassable, and it was this isolation which makes it the world's oldest culture.
The islands were settled by different seafaring Melanesian cultures such as the Torres Strait Islanders over 2500 years ago, and cultural interactions continued via this route with the Aboriginal people of northeast Australia.
Aboriginals and Papuans separated around 25,000 to 45,000 years ago, at the same time that Europeans and Asians split into two groups probably around the Middle East. “Even though Aboriginals and Papuans are close relatives, they are just as different as the Han Chinese are to Danes,” says Willerslev.
Surprisingly, Papuans and Aboriginal Australians appear to have diverged from each other at least 25,000 years ago, even though the landmasses of Australia and New Guinea were only separated by rising sea levels less than 10,000 years ago.”
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders: Australia's First Peoples.
The researchers found that Aboriginal Australians diverged from Papuans some 37,000 years ago, before the Australian land mass separated from New Guinea roughly 10,000 years ago. The groups traveled into Australia from mainland Asia, becoming the ancestors to a large population of modern-day Australians.
It is generally held that Australian Aboriginal peoples originally came from Asia via insular Southeast Asia (now Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, and the Philippines) and have been in Australia for at least 45,000–50,000 years.
Papuans and Philippine Negritos are populations that inhabit Papua New Guinea and some of the surrounding islands in Southeast Asia and Oceania.
The indigenous peoples of Western New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, commonly called Papuans, are Melanesians.
Genetic studies have revealed that Aboriginal Australians largely descended from an Eastern Eurasian population wave, and are most closely related to other Oceanians, such as Melanesians.
Getting back to the Australian aborigines, separate research has shown that they have roughly the same Neanderthal DNA component as non-Africans, which indicates they split off after at least the first interbreeding between the two species.
The Oldest Civilization In The World
Aboriginal Australians became genetically isolated 58,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years before other ancestral groups, making them the world's oldest civilization.
They found the Papuans had inherited unusually high frequencies of 82,000 genetic variants known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, which arise from differences of a single base or letter in the genetic code—from Denisovans.
Aboriginal people are known to have occupied mainland Australia for at least 65,000 years. It is widely accepted that this predates the modern human settlement of Europe and the Americas. Increasingly sophisticated dating methods are helping us gain a more accurate understanding of how people came to be in Australia.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures developed over 60,000 years, making First Nations Peoples the custodians of the world's oldest living culture. Each group lived in close relationship with the land and had custodianship of their Country.
Aboriginal Land
From at least 60,000 B.C. the area that was to become New South Wales was inhabited entirely by indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with traditional social, legal organisation and land rights.
papaya originated in Mesoamerica, likely in southern Mexico.
Our ancient inhabitants are believed to have arrived in Papua New Guinea about 50-60,000 years ago from Southeast Asia during an Ice Age period when the sea was lower and distances between islands was shorter.
Independence from Australia was proclaimed in 1975, and Somare became the first Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.
The Papuan genome is a unique object because it contains both Neanderthal and Denisovan alleles. Here, we have shown that the Papuan genomes contain different gene functional groups inherited from each of the ancient people.
The indigenous Papuans are thought to have inhabited the island of Papua for perhaps over 40,000 years.
Their compassion and care of the casualties earned them admiration and respect from the Australians, who dubbed the men the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels. The friendship between the peoples of Australia and Papua New Guinea continues to this day.
Northern Aboriginal Australians can trace as much as 11% of their genomes to migrants who reached the island around 4,000 years ago from India, a new study suggests. Along with their genes, the migrants also have brought more advanced tool-making techniques and the ancestors of the dingo.
Aboriginal peoples
Genetic studies appear to support an arrival date of 50–70,000 years ago. The earliest anatomically modern human remains found in Australia (and outside of Africa) are those of Mungo Man; they have been dated at 42,000 years old.
The first Aboriginal winner was boxer Lionel Rose, who quipped: "One hundred and eighty-two years ago one of my mob would have been a dead cert' for this." Since then a further seven Indigenous people have been named Australian of the Year, for achievements in sport, music, politics, law, public service and academia.