Credit: Megan Hotchkiss Davidson/Sandia National Laboratories
The best path across the desert is rarely the straightest. For the first human inhabitants of Sahul the super-continent that underlies modern Australia and New Guinea camping at the next spring, stream, or rock shelter allowed them to thrive for hundreds of generations. Those who successfully traversed the landmarks made their way across the continent, spreading from their landfall in the Northwest across the continent, making their way to all corners of Australia and New Guinea.
By simulating the physiology and decisions of early way-finders, an international team of archaeologists, geographers, ecologists, and computer scientists has mapped the probable superhighways that led to the first peopling of the Australian continent some 50,000-70,000 years ago. Their study, published in
Low sea levels once linked Australia and New Guinea into a land called Sahul
Experts think this was first settled between around 70,000–50,000 years ago
Researchers used advanced modelling to predict how humans first settled Sahul
Simulations accounted for factors such as landscape features and water sources
Many of the migration paths they found matched known Aboriginal trade routes
Credit: Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH). Superhighways used by a population of up to 6.5 million Indigenous Australians to navigate the continent tens of thousands of years ago have been revealed by new research using sophisticated modelling of past people and landscapes.
The new insights into how people not only survived, but thrived, in harsh environments provide further evidence of the capacity and resilience of the ancestors of Indigenous people, and help paint a picture of large, well-organised groups navigating tough terrain.
The peopling of Sahul the combined mega continent that joined Australia with New Guinea when sea levels were lower than today could have taken as little as 5,000 years as people moved from the far northwest, all the way to Tasmania in the southeast.
Modelling the ‘superhighways’ travelled by First Australians
New mapping of landscapes and populations sheds light on the peopling of Australia.
Map showing the Indigenous superhighways of ancient Australia. Credit: Megan Hotchkiss Davidson/Sandia National Laboratories, Zoe Taylor, CABAH
Indigenous Australians have long pointed out that their ancestors have lived on and cared for this continent since time immemorial. Hampered by entrenched misconceptions and outdated curricula, it’s only in recent decades – with discoveries like Mungo Man and Mungo Lady – that science has started to catch up.
A new study by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) has attempted to map the peopling of Australia by using a simulation model. The model ran more than 120 scenarios to predict population sizes and growth rates on the mega-continent of Sahul, which joined Australia and New Guinea before sea levels rose.