Archeologists map hidden landscape where the first Australians emerged.

Archaeologists have mapped a hidden landscape where Australia's first people made inroads more than 60,000 years ago.

This now-inland region was once a coastal mangrove swamp and, before that, a semi-arid savannah plain hundreds of kilometers from the seashore.

During the late Pleistocene epoch, sea levels were so low that Australia was connected to its northern neighbors, New Guinea and Indonesia, in a supercontinent known as Sahul.

But then, at the end of the last ice age, around 10,000 years ago, vast swathes of land were flooded as ice sheets melted.

We know that Australia's first peoples occupied these parts of northern Australia for at least 65,000 years based on thousands of stone tools and remnants of food scraps unearthed at the Madjedbebe rock shelter in the 2010s.

Their presence indicates a remarkable journey of skilled mariners traversing seas and land bridges to inhabit the driest continent on Earth.

Source: www.sciencealert.com

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