SPACE – One of the most amazing stories of human migration happened about 70,000 years ago, when people from Southeast Asia crossed into present-day Australia. They crossed an Atlantis-like landscape that is now underwater, and were the first people to make a home in this area of Australia.
The rich archaeological record provides ample evidence that this happened. However, researchers have long been puzzled by details of the migration, such as how quickly it happened and what routes the newcomers took across the vast area.
Now, that suggests some possible answers. Interestingly, it also helps identify undiscovered archaeological sites so researchers can find new evidence.
The study showed the large supercontinent known as Sahul, a land that was revealed about 70,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene, when the Earth was in the middle of the last ice age. The glaciers caused sea levels to drop, exposing underwater areas of the continental shelf, connecting what is now mainland Australia with Papua New Guinea in the north and Tasmania in the south.
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A map of Atlantis based on research published in the journal Nature Communications on 23 April 2024. Image: Carley Rosengreen/Griffith University
Sea levels have been low for thousands of years, but geological and other environmental conditions have changed over that time. For example, there will be changes in rainfall patterns, shifts in river flows, spread or decline of forests and grasslands, and sediment deposition. All these factors influence the characteristics of the land and the way people explore it.
The researchers used the information to develop a landscape evolution model, which simulated changes in the Sahul landscape between 75,000 and 35,000 years ago. The simulation also takes into account possible migration routes from two locations in Southeast Asia, West Papua and the Timor Sea Shelf, as well as archaeological sites scattered across the landscape. today.
By going back on these sites, it helps to identify the times when people moved through different parts of the continent. Finally, the simulations include estimates of Levy walking hunting patterns, a type of movement of hunter-gatherers searching for food in unfamiliar landscapes, which also helps to ‘ estimated migration rates.
“The new model of landscape evolution allows a more realistic description of the land and the environment in which the first hunter-gatherer communities were when they crossed the Sahul,” said Tristan Salles, professor in the School of Geology at the University of Sydney and lead author of the study.
The researchers ran thousands of simulations that revealed the most likely routes people would take, following the features of the landscape and the availability of food they could find. The researchers found that these routes would have brought new people along the coast and directly through the interior of the continent, following the main rivers that crossed the scene. -land at the time.
Calculations show that humans likely crossed the landscape at a speed of around 1.15 kilometers per year, which the researchers say is relatively fast. Interestingly, the symbols appear to cross the region where other researchers believe that people may have first gathered in Sahul.
By showing where the first people moved in Australia, the model could even give archaeologists a practical insight into their work. “There is one interesting result from our map that shows the human presence in Sahul. “In a cost-effective way (without the need to travel across continents), this tool has the potential to identify important archaeological regions,” the researchers wrote in an article for The Conversation.
2024-05-10 15:31:50
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