page_title: Prehistory of Australia
section_title: Arrival
hierarchical_section_title: Prehistory of Australia / Arrival
caption_attribution_description: English: derviative work of a file listed at commons location http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Australis--Eiszeit%2BSchelfe--RS01.jpg
context_page_description: The prehistory of Australia is the period between the first human habitation of the Australian continent and the colonisation of Australia in 1788, which marks the start of consistent written documentation of Australia. This period has been variously estimated, with most evidence suggesting that it goes back between 50,000 and 65,000 years.
  This era is referred as prehistory rather than history because of the lack of written documentation of human events. As no metal technology was developed, the whole period falls into the Stone Age. Australia, in contrast to New Guinea, has generally been held not to have had a Neolithic period, with a hunter-gatherer lifestyle continuing until the arrival of Europeans, although there is evidence of land management by practices such as cultural burning, and in some areas, agriculture, fish farming, and permanent settlements.
context_section_description: The earliest evidence of humans in Australia has been variously estimated, with most agreement as of 2018 that it dates from between 50,000 and 65,000 years BP.
  There is considerable discussion among archaeologists as to the route taken by the first migrants to Australia, widely taken to be ancestors of the modern Aboriginal peoples. Migration took place during the closing stages of the Pleistocene, when sea levels were much lower than they are today. Repeated episodes of extended glaciation during the Pleistocene epoch resulted in decreases of sea levels by more than 100 metres in Australasia. People appear to have arrived by sea during a period of glaciation, when New Guinea and Tasmania were joined to the continent of Australia.
  The continental coastline extended much further out into the Timor Sea, and Australia and New Guinea formed a single landmass (known as Sahul), connected by an extensive land bridge across the Arafura Sea, Gulf of Carpentaria and Torres Strait. Nevertheless, the sea still presented a major obstacle so it is theorised that these ancestral people reached Australia by island hopping. Two routes have been proposed. One follows an island chain between Sulawesi and New Guinea and the other reaches North Western Australia via Timor. Rupert Gerritsen has suggested an alternative theory, involving accidental colonisation as a result of tsunamis. The journey still required sea travel however, making them some of the world's earliest mariners.
  Scott Cane wrote in 2013 that the first wave may have been prompted by the eruption of Toba, and if they arrived around 70,000 years ago, they could have crossed the water from Timor, when the sea level was low – but if they came later, around 50,000 years ago, a more likely route would be through the Moluccas to New Guinea. Given that the likely landfall regions have been under around 50 metres of water for the last 15,000 years, it is unlikely that the timing will ever be established with certainty.
  The minimum widely accepted timeframe for the arrival of humans in Australia is placed at least 40,000 years ago. Many sites dating from this time period have been excavated. In Arnhem Land the Malakunanja II rock shelter has been dated to around 65,000 years old.
  Radiocarbon dating suggests that they lived in and around Sydney for at least 30,000 years.  In an archaeological dig in Parramatta, Western Sydney, it was found that some Aboriginal peoples used charcoal, stone tools and possible ancient campfires. Near Penrith, a far western suburb of Sydney, numerous Aboriginal stone tools were found in Cranebrook Terraces gravel sediments having dates of 45,000 to 50,000 years BP. This would mean that there was human settlement in Sydney earlier than thought.
  Archaeological evidence indicates human habitation at the upper Swan River, Western Australia by about 40,000 years ago. Tasmania, which was connected to the continent by a land bridge, was inhabited at least 30,000 years ago. Others have claimed that some sites are up to 60,000 years old, but these claims are not universally accepted. Palynological evidence from South Eastern Australia suggests an increase in fire activity dating from around 120,000 years ago. This has been interpreted as representing human activity, but the dating of the evidence has been strongly challenged.
  Charles Dortch has identified chert and calcrete flake stone tools, found at Rottnest Island in Western Australia, as possibly dating to at least 50,000 years ago.  This seems to tie in accurately with U/Th and 14C results of a flint tool found embedded in Tamala limestone (Aminozone C) as well as both mtDNA and Y chromosome studies on the genetic distance of Australian Aboriginal genomes from African and other Eurasian ones.
  The sharing of animal and plant species between Australia-New Guinea and nearby Indonesian islands is another consequence of the early land bridges, which closed when sea levels rose with the end of the last glacial period. The sea level stabilised to near its present levels about 6,000 years ago, flooding the land bridg
caption: The map shows the probable extent of land and water at the time of the last glacial maximum and when the sea level was probably more than 150 m lower than today; it illustrates the formidable sea obstacle that migrants would have faced.
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