A scientific study of Aboriginal DNA has discovered new details about the way in which the first inhabitants spread across the continent around 50,000 years ago.
Researchers from the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide provided a detailed insight into a period of history that little is known about.
The recently published findings are based on DNA testing of hair that had been collected by anthropological researchers from forcibly displaced Aboriginal communities between 1928 and 1970.
According to the research the first Indigenous people arrived in Australia through New Guinea around 50000 years and they hardly moved at all geographically, in the 50,000 years that followed -- evidence which backs up what many Aboriginal people have been saying for a long time.
The researchers focused on older hair collected so they could trace the DNA back to the location of the Aboriginal communities before British colonisation.
The research team, says the data set they have created can, in the future, be used to help members of the Stolen Generations pinpoint their ancestry
The research team consulted with those who had their hair taken or their direct descendants before doing the genetic testing.