A study of the most likely way for the first masses to get in in Australia has resolve that it was a careful expedition , by people who know where they were going with the organizational skill to plan it . The finding draw together enquiry on genetics , archaeology , and palaeogeography .
Settlement of Australia dates back at least65,000 years , but we know little about the journey . One hypothesis , nickname the southern route , involves a gravy holder voyage from either Timor or Roti . The other involves island - hopping to what is now New Guinea , which was then link up to Australia as part of the supercontinent Sahul .
Professors Sean UlmandMichael Birdof James Cook University have modeled the southerly route , inQuarternary Science Reviews , using the fact that sea level were 75 meters ( 250 foot ) low than today . Although it is now 640 kilometers ( 400 statute mile ) fromDarwin to Dili(the Das Kapital of East Timor ) , at the time the Australian coastline extended much of this way , with a serial publication of roadblock islands 130 kilometers ( 81 miles ) from Timor and 87 kilometers ( 54 international mile ) from Roti .
Timor has coastal mountains so high , Ulm severalise IFLScience , mass standing on their summits could have seen the row of islands in the space . Nevertheless , mother there would have been no casual twenty-four hours jaunt . reckon the prevailing winds and ocean stream of the sidereal day , the researchers concluded the voyage would have taken 4 - 7 days even with active paddling . Such a trip would only be possible in boats stocked with wad of food , confirming the much - debate technological development of the day . “ inadvertent err was unlikely to lead to successful crossings , ” Bird said in astatement .
Once these now - drowned islands were reached , the Australian mainland was less than 10 kilometers ( 16 miles ) beyond .
Genetic analysis of Indigenous Australians has refute the musical theme ( occasionally revive forracist determination ) that they arrived in several wave , each largely sack the previous populations . Instead , the founders were 100 - 200 people who get either as a exclusive migration , or a serial publication of small event closely pack in time . By at least35,000 years agoAustralians were largely genetically isolate from the remainder of the world – whatever drove the original ocean trip apparently ceased .
This closing off is part of what makes Ulm favor the southerly route . He pointed out to IFLScience that Australia was connected to New Guinea by land until around 10,000 years ago , yet there was little inherited intermingling . The cause for this is unknown , and the theme of much speculation by anthropologist , but it suggests that anyone coming via New Guinea would have involve to make not one but two hard ford , making it more likely that people standing on those Timorese mountains looked south and said , “ That looks nice , let ’s go there . ” unusually , they had the organisation and engineering science to do it .
