This statement appeared on Crikey. “Indigenous Australians are the oldest living culture on the planet, having lived in Australia for more than 50,000 years. The British got here 252 years ago.”

Every human alive today is part of a living culture. Every human alive today has ancestors who were around 50,000 years ago. The difference between the culture of indigenous Australians and that of other human beings is that the cultures of most other human beings have had more changes, but every human alive today is part of a living culture that goes back 50,000 years.

Dear David F.,

Thank You for raising this topic for discussion.

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.

There's more at the following link:

http://allthatsinteresting.com/aboriginal-australians-oldest-culture

Wikipedia describes a civilization thus:

A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a political state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system).

The Acropolis of Athens: Athens is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy.

Civilizations are intimately associated with additional characteristics such as centralization, the domestication of plant and animal species (including humans), specialization of labour, culturally-ingrained ideologies of progress, monumental architecture, taxation, societal dependence upon farming, and expansionism.

According to the above definition Aboriginal culture was not a civilization.

According to Kenneth Clark, the Vikings weren't a civilisation either.

I think that maybe 50000 years ago the neanderthals used to hunt, rape, kill and eat our ancestors, but then we wiped them out.
- But I don't really know for sure as I wasn't there then.

Darwin's DNA Dilemma
http://youtu.be/DVu6ryEwF5w

Neanderthal: Profile of a Super Predator
http://youtu.be/mZbmywzGAVs

Indigenous people have started to dispute the term "first" in regard to mainly European discoveries.
Being born in a region does not make one a discoverer. Setting out into the unknown with the aim to bring back information from yonder made early explorers the "first". That applies to Chinese, European & every other civilisation. People simply moving from one place after making it unliveable, to another place were not Explorers in the sense of the word. Exploring was done by civilisations seeking knowledge & trade. Ancient nomadic tribes simply looked for food first & foremost & as they gradually formed civilisations & designed & built settlements, they left legacies many of which are still evident to-date.