Atlantis-like lost continent ‘Sahul’ that allowed ancient humans to ‘cross from Asia to Australia’ revealed in stunning map

NEW archaeological records provide evidence of a lost Atlantis-like landscape across which early humans traveled more than 70,000 years ago.

However, researchers have been left scratching their heads trying to understand how humans managed to cross land, traveling from Southeast Asia to present-day Australia.

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The research was published on April 23 in the journal Nature Communications, proposing possible answers while also helping to identify archaeological sites that have not been discovered in the hope of producing new evidence.

The supercontinent, once known as Sahul, was a landmass that was exposed thousands of years ago, during the Pleistocene epoch – when Earth was in the middle of the last ice age.

Glaciation led to declining sea levels, exposing areas of the continental shelf that were previously submerged.

This land revealed connecting what is today the continent Australia to Papua New Guinea in the north and Tasmania in the south.

For thousands of years, sea levels remained low, but other geological and environmental conditions would also have evolved during this period.

For example, there is likely to have been a change in precipitation patterns, a change in river courses, and an expansion or reduction of forests and grasslands.

All of these factors may have influenced the terrain and how humans interacted with it.

The researchers used the information to develop a landscape evolution model, simulating changes in Sahul’s landscape between 75,000 and 35,000 years ago.

The simulation also uses possible migration routes from two locations in Southeast Asia, West Papua and the Timor Sea Shelf.

It also uses archaeological sites scattered across the landscape.

Falling in love These areas help to identify periods when people would be moving across the land.

The simulation also incorporates estimates of foraging patterns from Lévy’s walk – a type of movement used by hunter-gatherers to find food in unfamiliar landscapes.

This helped estimate how quickly humans moved across these lands.

“The new landscape evolution model allows for a more realistic description of the terrains and environments inhabited by early hunter-gatherer communities as they traversed Sahul,” said Tristan Salles, associate professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney. The declaration.

Salles was the study’s lead author, adding that researchers ran thousands of simulations to expose the routes humans would likely have taken following the landscape. characteristics and the availability of forageable foods.

The researchers found that these routes would have taken travelers along the coast and through the interior of the continent, along the main rivers and streams present at the time.

According to calculations, these early humans likely traveled the earth at a rate of about 0.71 miles, or 1.15 kilometers, per year — a relatively fast pace, researchers said.

Additionally, the simulation revealed a loop with regions where other researchers have suggested humans may have congregated in Sahul.

“There is one particularly interesting result from our map that shows the likelihood of human presence in Sahul,” the authors wrote in an article for The conversation.

“In an economical way (without the need to travel across the entire continent), it could potentially identify areas of archaeological importance.”

The model helps create what life would be like in Sahul, while previous researchers have shown that up to half a million people may have lived there.

“Our study is the first to show the impact of landscape changes on early migration in Sahul, providing a new perspective on its archaeology,” the researchers wrote.

“If we used this approach in other regions as well, we could improve our understanding of humanity’s extraordinary journey out of Africa.”

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