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One of the most extraordinary stories of human migration unfolded around 70,000 years ago , as man intersect from Southeast Asia into forward-looking - day Australia , deny a now - submerged , Atlantis - like landscape painting , and becoming the first people to call that acres home .
A full-bodied archaeological track record allow copious evidence that this materialise . But researchers have long been stumped by the details of this migration , such as how quickly that trek pass off and what routes the newcomers took across the vast territory .
Now , novel enquiry publish April 23 in the journalNature Communicationssheds light on some possible answers . Intriguingly , it also helps to pinpoint likely undiscovered archaeological sites where research worker could search for raw evidence .
The inquiry looks at the vast supercontinent that was acknowledge as Sahul , a land mass that was break about 70,000 years ago , during thePleistocene epoch , when Earth was in the thick of the last ice eld . Glaciation caused declining ocean levels that exposed areas of inundate continental shelf connect what is now mainland Australia to Papua New Guinea in the north and Tasmania in the south .
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Sea levels remained humbled for thousands of geezerhood at a fourth dimension , but other geologic and environmental conditions would have evolved over this stop . For example , there would have been changing rain shape , shifting river form , spread or shrinking wood and grasslands , and sediment deposition . All of these factors would have influenced the characteristics of the terrain and , therefore , how humans explored it .
The researchers used this information to develop a landscape painting organic evolution theoretical account , which simulated Sahul ’s changing landscape between 75,000 and 35,000 years ago . The model also incorporated potential migration path from two locations in Southeast Asia — West Papua and the Timor Sea Shelf — as well as archeological site spread across the modern - day landscape .
Dating those sites help to nail the periods when the great unwashed would have been moving through those part of the continent . lastly , the pretence incorporate estimates from " Lévy walk foraging patterns " — a type of movement that ’s commonly used by hunter - gatherer to get food in unfamiliar landscapes — which also helped to judge the pace of migration .
" The new landscape painting phylogenesis model allows for a more realistic description of the terrains and environments inhabited by the first hunter - collector communities as they traversed Sahul,“Tristan Salles , an associate professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney and conduct generator of the report , say in astatement . The researchers ran thousands of simulations that exposed the most probable routes humans would have film , follow landscape features and the availability of intellectual nourishment they could forage .
The investigator discovered that these routes would have remove the newcomers along the coastline and direct through the continent ’s interior , be the major river and flow that crisscrossed the landscape painting at the clip . The calculation showed that these hardy humans in all likelihood traversed the landscape painting at a step of about 0.71 Swedish mile ( 1.15 klick ) per year , which the researcher say is relatively fleet . Interestingly , the simulation showed an convergence with regions where other researchers have suggest humans may first have congregate on Sahul .
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By show where Australia ’s first the great unwashed most in all probability moved , the manikin may even provide archaeologists with some practical brainstorm for their work .
" There ’s one peculiarly interesting outcome from our mapping that show the chance of human presence in Sahul , " the study authors wrote in an article forThe Conversation . " In a cost - in force way ( without need to journey across the entire continent ) , it could potentially pinpoint expanse of archaeological significance . "
The model help to flesh out the picture of spirit on Sahul , whereprevious researchhas shown that up to half a million people may have once lived on its now - sunken northerly ledge .
" Our study is the first to show the encroachment of landscape change on the initial migration on Sahul , supply a unexampled perspective on its archaeology , " the researchers wrote . " If we used such an approach in other regions as well , we could improve our understanding of humanness ’s extraordinary journeying out of Africa . "
