Hi ,
I’ve read the theory that the first people to inhabit Australia walked there from what is now Papua New Guinea. I have also read the island-hopping theory. I’ve seen more articles about the latter. Which theory is correct? Are they both correct?
“It is a debateable question due to the fact that nobody seems to agree on when they actually arrived. Depending on who you choose to believe, the Aborigines arrived in Australia somewhere between 40,000 and 120,000 years ago. One argument runs that they virtually walked to Australia because of low sea levels during one of the many Ice Ages, alternatively, they island hopped along the Indonesian archipelago and via New Guinea.”
"The earliest evidence of humans in Australia suggests that some from of boatbuilding had been developed at that time. Although the earliest inhabitants may have walked from New Guinea at some point they would have had to use some sort of boat to get across the Java Trench which created a water barrier between Indonesia and New Guinea.
It seems likely that the first human inhabitants of Australia arrived from Timor, 55 miles from Australia, when Australia’s shore stretched further north during the ice age. To reach Australia would have involved traveling in the open sea with no view of land. It seems unlikely that early swam the distance.
Some scientists speculate that early homo sapiens might have crossed the open ocean in rafts made of bamboo logs. “Bamboo makes sea travel wonderful,” anthropologist Alan Thorne told National Geographic. “You don’t have any waves breaking over you—you just sort of flex over them.” He and other scientists have re-created log and bamboo crafts and found them to seaworthy enough to make a 50 mile trip."
I look forward to your feedback
davidmich
I don’t believe that group of people came to a new place in just one time. It doesn’t make sense. If the first people from Indo-Niuguini walked, subsequent waves were sure to have sailed and paddled over.
I’m not clear on what you are asking? The first humans in Australia either walked or paddled? We can never know but its not particularly useful information. People arrived survived and flourished as they have everywhere around the globe.
If its any help, some enthusiastic Australians paddled kayaks from Papua New Guinea island hopping to Cape Carpentier a few years ago. Their objective was to prove how easy such a journey was.
From that, we can assume that New Guinea was of “paddling distance” from Australia (each was visible to the other?) Sailing ala Kon-tiki may cover longer distances but it’s more of a blind exploration.
The Torres Strait has many islands and they kayaked from island to island usually being able to see the next one before starting off. Mind you this was not a small journey - apparently they covered 3500km and it took 4 months.
It’s entirely possible some walked and some paddled, but only one set could have been “first”. It all hinges on the possible earliest timing in relation to global seal level. I’m inclined to think “paddled” myself, because, as mentioned, you definitely need the “boats” achievement anyway, just to get to PNG, but who knows? Maybe they lost that tech for a while, so walked.
I recall reading a theory that around 60,000BC there was a group among the wave of humans that had reached eastern Asia that developed a “boat people” culture. They had learned basic sea travel, and spread back along the coast from Indochina to east Africa. This is the group that eventually settled in Australia, and also spread among the Indonesian islands, and along the coast of India, Sri Lanka, etc.
One theory said that liveing on or near water with its reflection of UV rays (i.e. more than just the regular sun’s dose) explained their excessively pigmented skin compared to other arrivals.
If humans could walk between Papua New Guinea and Australia, other land animals could too. Is there any evidence of a general faunal exchange around this time? If humans were the only species migrating, that points in favour of technology being required.
Australia/New Guinea have a lot of similarities in animal species, compared to across the straits in Indonesia.
The only placental land mammals on New Guinea are rodents, bats, humans, and dogs. Everything else is a marsupial or monotreme.
So humans would have had to use boats to travel to from the Sunda (Asian) shelf to the Sahul (Austro-New Guinea) shelf. The line between Australia and New Guinea has been dry land and ocean at varying times, so whether they walked or boated depends on exactly what time the very first human reached Australia. But note that the very first human to reach Australia probably hung out for a bit, then headed back home.
