Dream - Approximately 70 thousand years ago, the vast land that is now submerged off the coast of Australia may have been inhabited by half a million people. In the Quaternary Science Reviews journal on December 15, 2023, it was stated that the underwater region is so extensive that it could have served as a stepping stone for migration from Indonesia to Australia.

"We are talking about a landscape that is quite submerged, more than 100 meters below the current sea level," said Kasih Norman, an archaeologist from Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, and the lead author of this study, as quoted from Live Science. This "Atlantis" of Australia consists of a vast expanse that, if above sea level, would connect the Kimberley and Arnhem Land regions, which are currently separated by a wide sea bay."

Regardless of its vastness, until now there has been little research on whether the continent has ever been inhabited by humans. Norman said, there is an assumption that the continent's boundaries are unproductive and not utilized by humans. "Although in fact we have evidence from various parts of the world that people have definitely been on this continental shelf in the past," he said.

These islands are located within a reachable distance by sailing ships, from the island of Timor in Southeast Asia, which is not far from Indonesia. Between 29,000 and 14,000 years ago, there was an even more drastic sea level drop, coinciding with the peak of the last ice age.

"Kami benar-benar melihat daratan yang luasnya sekitar 1,6 kali luas Inggris," kata Norman. "Berarti pada dasarnya terdapat lingkungan kepulauan yang berdekatan yang berpindah dari kepulauan Indonesia, menyeberang ke Sahul, dan kemudian dari kepulauan itu ke benua super itu sendiri," kata Norman.

This allows what is referred to as "gradual migration" between Indonesia and Australia at present. Norman estimates that the island, with its supporting features for life, can accommodate between 50,000 to half a million people.

"It is important to remember that what we are discussing is not the actual population size, this is only a matter of projecting the carrying capacity of our landscape," he said. However, there are indications from other studies that this plain was indeed once inhabited by hundreds of thousands of people."