Volta
Explorationc. 65,000–50,000 years ago

First peoples of Australia

Also called: Peopling of Australia, Sahul

In the ice age Australia and New Guinea formed one continent, Sahul. People reached it from Southeast Asia by crossing the sea several times — by about 50,000 years ago at the latest — in what is counted among the oldest sea voyages.

The “Walls of China” lunette at Lake Mungo, where people buried about 42,000 years ago were found
The “Walls of China” lunette at Lake Mungo, where people buried about 42,000 years ago were found

Caroline Jones · CC0 · Source

With ice-age seas tens of metres lower, Sumatra, Java and Borneo were joined to mainland Asia as “Sunda”, and Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania formed a single continent, “Sahul”. Between them (eastern Indonesia today, across the Wallace Line) deep water remained, and people had to cross stretches of sea tens of kilometres wide, island by island.

When they arrived is debated. A 2017 study dated the Madjedbebe rock shelter in Arnhem Land to 65,000 years ago, but many scholars, matching the period of mixing with Neanderthals (about 50,000–43,000 years ago), prefer about 50,000 years. At Lake Mungo in the south-east people were buried about 42,000 years ago.

Their descendants, Aboriginal Australians, have lived on the land for nearly 50,000 years since — one of the longest continuous cultures in the world.

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The map in c. 50,000 years ago

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Places
Madjedbebe, Lake Mungo

Before and after

Later
c. 50,000 years ago Meeting the Neanderthals and Denisovans

Themes that include this event

  • The Human Journeyc. 300,000 years ago – 1300

    How modern humans, who appeared in Africa some 300,000 years ago, left Africa, met the Neanderthals, crossed the sea to Australia and the ice-age Bering land bridge to the Americas, and finally reached the remotest islands of the Pacific