The Lost Atlantis Continent Found Under the Sea of Australia, Once Inhabited by Half a Million People 70 Thousand Years Ago

"The Lost 'Atlantis' Continent Found Under the Australian Sea, Once Inhabited by Half a Million People 70 Thousand Years Ago"

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

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We are talking about a landscape that is quite submerged, more than 100 meters below sea level today,” said Kasih Norman, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, and the lead author of the study, as reported by Live Science. “This ‘Atlantis’ of Australia consists of a vast expanse that, if it were above sea level, would connect the Kimberley and Arnhem Land regions, which are currently separated by a wide sea gulf.

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The Lost Atlantis Continent Found Under the Sea of Australia, Once Inhabited by Half a Million People 70 Thousand Years Ago

The ancient land of Australia was once part of a paleo continent that connected modern Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania into a single entity known as Sahul.

"Regardless of its vastness, there is still little research on whether the continent was ever inhabited by humans. Norman stated that there is an assumption that the continental boundary is unproductive and not utilized by humans. "Although the fact is that we have evidence from various parts of the world that people must have been on this continental shelf in the past," he said."

The new study overturns that assumption. This research presents regional data on sea levels between 70,000 and 9,000 years ago, along with detailed maps of the seafloor features of the submerged continental shelf, provided by sonar mapping from ships. The data shows that, between 71,000 and 59,000 years ago, sea levels were approximately 40 meters lower than today. This reveals a series of curved islands on the far northwestern edge of the Australian continent.

This archipelago is located within reachable distance by cruise 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 a more drastic drop in sea levels, coinciding with the peak of the last ice age.

This is the time when a large amount of water is trapped in ice, which subsequently lowers the sea level. The decrease in this level reveals most of the continental shelves right next to modern Australia.

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We really saw land that is about 1.6 times the size of England,” said Norman. “This means that basically there is a nearby archipelagic environment that moves from the Indonesian archipelago, crossing to Sahul, and then from that archipelago to the supercontinent itself,” said Norman.

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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 talking about is not the actual population count, this is just a matter of projecting the carrying capacity of our landscape," he said. However, there are indications from other research that this plain was indeed once inhabited by hundreds of thousands of people."

A recent study published in the journal Nature analyzes the genetics of people living in the Tiwi Islands. At the end of the last ice age, there was a change in genetic markers indicating the arrival of new populations there.

Around 14,000 years ago, and then between 12,000 and 9,000 years ago, archaeological records in the modern Australian coastal region indicate an increase in the number of stone tools, which is usually interpreted as the presence of many people in the area.

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