Scientists have claimed to have discovered a continent that disappeared from the Earth's map thousands of years ago. After the end of the Ice Age, this continent got immersed in the Pacific Ocean in the deluge. Scientists believe that the original inhabitants of Australia first arrived from this continent.
One of the extraordinary migrations in human history took place about 70 thousand years ago, when human populations reached the continent of Australia from Southeast Asia. These were the people who are said to be the original inhabitants of modern Australia. Till date, this mystery remains unsolved for scientists as to how humans could have made such a long sea journey thousands of years ago. Researchers continue to wonder about this migration as to how much time it took to complete the journey and what routes might have been taken during this period.Now a new research has revealed its possible answer. The special thing is that the scientists searching for it also discovered the address of a lost continent.
New Guinea and Australia were connected
Research published on April 23 in the journal Nature Communications says that 70 thousand years ago, when the Earth was in the middle of the last ice age, Australia was a large area called Sahul. Due to glaciation there was a drop in sea level and Australia was connected to Papua New Guinea in the north and Tasmania in the south.After the Ice Age, global temperatures increased and sea levels rose causing the central part of Australia to become submerged and the mainland of Australia separated. According to scientists, New Guinea was separated from Australia about 8000 years ago while Tasmania was separated from Australia about 6000 years ago.
Asia to Australia route
The researchers used this information to develop a scenario model. It covered possible migration routes from Southeast Asia to Australia from two locations in Southeast Asia, West Papua and the Timor Sea Shelf, as well as archaeological sites scattered across the modern landscape.The new landscape evolution model provides a more realistic understanding of the environment of these areas where hunter-gatherer communities crossed Sahul, said lead author Tristan Sayles, a professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney. Possible routes were explored based on these landscape characteristics and food availability.
The researchers claimed that these routes ran along the coastline and directly through the interior of the continent, passing through major rivers and waterfalls. It has been said that during migration, humans moved at a rate of 1.15 kilometres per year, which is relatively fast. The authors of the study explored the possibility of human presence in Sahul during prehistoric times. It says that half a million people may have once lived on the northern shelf of Sahul, which is currently submerged under water.