The standard reference to 40,000 years for the alleged first Aboriginal settlement of the landmass that would come to be called “Australia” by the British keeps getting pushed further back into pre-history, according to mainstream and less than mainstream archaeology. I have heard a 75,000 year figure: http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2011/09/dna-confirms-aboriginal-culture-one-of-earths-oldest/. On the net, various groups even go so far as to claim that Aboriginal Australians are 400,000 years old: https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/australian-aboriginal-history-timeline.
There is an interesting paper about this at: http://thestringer.com.au/homo-sapien-sapiens-originated-in-australia-not-out-of-africa-dna-evidence-5938#.WD4nV4N95aQ.
See also: http://humansarefree.com/2014/08/the-first-human-race-came-from.html.
The logical conclusion of all of this is that modern humans did not arise in Africa, as the “Out-of-Africa” anti-race hypothesis posits, but arose in Australia!
Now, that is a major problem for the referendum status quo, because Australia becomes “home” to all of the peoples of the world! We are all “Aboriginal” on this idea! No doubt the establishment won’t go in this direction.
A paper by G. Hamm (et al.), “Cultural Innovation and Megafauna Interaction in the Early Settlement of Arid Australia,” (2016), reports on finding evidence of tools, cultural innovations and megafauna remains at the Warratyi Rock Shelter in South Australia. This allegedly shows that “technologies” and cultural practices were developed in the arid regions (which may not have been so arid then), up to 49,000 years ago. The “technologies” include bone tools and stone tools.
While this is interesting, it is not proof that these “technologies” were created by Aborigines as we know them, because an array of Homo sub-species and even primates can make and use tools: http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo/homo_4.htm.
Certainly, if claims by some Aboriginalists that modern humans arose in Australia, not Africa, are entertained, and I do not dismiss these hypotheses, these sorts of ideas need to be examined closely. It also will raise fascinating anthological questions about the meaning of Aboriginality, if all of humanity is ultimately Aboriginal. Present politically correct views will all be kicked over.