Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Going to Sunda: Lower Pleistocene transcontinental migration
- 2 Pleistocene population growth
- 3 From Sunda to Sahul: transequatorial migration in the Upper Pleistocene
- 4 Upper Pleistocene migration patterns on Sahul
- 5 Palaeoenvironments, megafauna and the Upper Pleistocene settlement of Central Australia
- 6 Upper Pleistocene Australians: the Willandra people
- 7 Origins: a morphological puzzle
- 8 Migratory time frames and Upper Pleistocene environmental sequences in Australia
- 9 An incomplete jigsaw puzzle
- Appendix 1
- Appendix 2
- Appendix 3
- References
- Index
8 - Migratory time frames and Upper Pleistocene environmental sequences in Australia
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of plates
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Going to Sunda: Lower Pleistocene transcontinental migration
- 2 Pleistocene population growth
- 3 From Sunda to Sahul: transequatorial migration in the Upper Pleistocene
- 4 Upper Pleistocene migration patterns on Sahul
- 5 Palaeoenvironments, megafauna and the Upper Pleistocene settlement of Central Australia
- 6 Upper Pleistocene Australians: the Willandra people
- 7 Origins: a morphological puzzle
- 8 Migratory time frames and Upper Pleistocene environmental sequences in Australia
- 9 An incomplete jigsaw puzzle
- Appendix 1
- Appendix 2
- Appendix 3
- References
- Index
Summary
I want now to put the human migration story into a possible sequence, tying it to the sea level and environmental changes related to the penultimate glacial cycle. Humans lived everywhere in Australia by 45 ky and had straddled the continent 10 ky earlier (Turney et al., 2001a, b; Pearce and Barbetti, 1981; Groube et al., 1986; Bowler, 1987; Roberts et al., 1990, 1994, 1998; Smith and Sharp, 1993; Flood, 1999; Grun et al., 1999; O'Connor, 1995; Mulvaney and Kamminga, 1999; Turney et al., 2001a, b; O'Connell and Allen, 2004). That signals the presence of a well-established, viable population, adapted to a wide variety of environments, ranging from islands off Australia's Kimberley coast to central New South Wales, from the Swan River in southwestern Australia to northern Queensland. Even Tasmania was occupied by at least 34 ky (Mulvaney and Kamminga, 1999; O'Connell and Allen, 2004). Although largely cut off from the mainland from 135 ky to 43 ky, there were brief connections of the eastern sill at 76 ky, 68–62 ky and 46 ky, but the elevation of the narrow Bassian land bridge was only around five metres, which made it susceptible to flooding and the dangers of storms common in the area (Lambeck and Chappell, 2001). So, if people arrived on the south coast after 63 ky, they had to wait till 43 ky before they could continue their explorations.
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- The First Boat People , pp. 252 - 270Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006