Between 75,000 and 50,000 years ago, humans began to make their way across the megacontinent of Sahul, a landmass that connected what is now Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and the Aru Islands.New research reveals more about the routes used by these early humans and the length of time it took for them to fully explore the extremities of Sahul. It could have taken up to 10,000 years for the vast area to be completely covered by these intrepid humans, which is twice as long as previously thought.To refine their estimates, researchers developed a new, more sophisticated model that factored in influences on travel, like the land's ability to provide food, water source distribution, and the landscape's topography.
More information at Science Alert.
This was very interesting. I learned something! So these people were inhabiting the land masses while they were forming. What broke the land apart? Plate tectonics? Have scientists traced the DNA as the land separated?
ReplyDeletePlate tectonics wouldn't do much in such a (geologically) short time period. I should think most of the topographic change would come from the massive glacial melts with subsequent rise in global sea levels. See "Eden in the East" re Doggerland and Sundaland -
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