The Original Australians by Josephine Flood

Author:Josephine Flood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2019-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

The world’s first intercontinental crossing

When the sea reached its lowest levels, the amount of habitable land around Australia grew by 2.5 million km2 (950,000 sq. miles). Land bridges connected Tasmania and New Guinea to the mainland, forming the supercontinent known as Sahul. The probable time of first human entry is between 70 and 65 kya, a time of significantly low sea level.31

How did people reach the new continent? The deep sea trough between Timor and Australia was around 80 km (50 miles) wide at lowest sea level and around 150 km (93 miles) at 70–60 kya. Passage from Timor was relatively easy because small islets acted as stepping stones and each summer northwest winds blew strongly from Timor to Australia. At 60 kya, this summer monsoon was at least as active as nowadays. Another possible route was east to the Aru coast of New Guinea, but this demanded more directional skill in sailing.32 The most likely colonisation pathways into Australia were onto the northern or northwestern coast, and this is where the earliest occupation sites have been found.33

The first migrants may have known land lay to the south, as from Timor’s mountains the horizon distance is 175 km (110 miles). They may have even been able to see smoke from lightning-lit fires, as smoke from bushfires billows a long way into the atmosphere. Or they could have been following the path of birds migrating south.

The first people to reach Australia may have been accidental castaways, blown out to sea in a flimsy craft or clinging to a log. Or they may have been escaping from the volcanic winter that followed the super-eruption of Mt Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia, 74 kya ago. It is probable that, throughout prehistory, a trickle of people made landfall on Australia’s coasts, but genome studies indicate that present-day Aboriginal Australians are descended from the first people to appear in the Australian archaeological record and that the founding population was very small, possibly numbering only between 50 and 70 people.34

Were there deliberate migrations? Melbourne researcher Robert Bednarik has replicated a Stone Age voyage from Timor to Australia.35 Using only stone tools, in three months eight boat-builders constructed an 18 m (60 ft) bamboo raft with wooden steering oar, vine ropes and a palm-leaf sail. With five men aboard, this experimental craft reached Australia’s continental shelf from Timor in just six days. Greater Australia (Melville Island) was reached on day thirteen. Land remained invisible for nine-tenths of the voyage. Bednarik proved what earlier computer simulation models had suggested—bamboo rafts could sail from Asia to Australia using Stone Age technology.

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