How did the indigenous get to Australia when the continents drifted apart much earlier?
In: 4730
[The short answer is that they walked.](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-30/research-into-ancient-aboriginal-migration-across-australia/100105902) 60,000 years ago the sea level was much lower, and there would have been a land bridge connecting the northern tip of Australia to south Asia.
Interestingly, but tangential to this as it occured 50,000 years later – there are Australian indigenous tribes with oral history that reach back before the last ice age. At this time sea level would have been at least 30 metres below it’s current level and large tracts of land to the north and south of Australia’s current coastlines would have been dry land. Very loosely, they tell of a time when there were open fields to hunt in the place that is now the Gulf of Carpentaria, and a time afterwards when “the tide came in but never went back out” which correlates with the end of the last ice age. Absolutely incredible to have such a accurate and unbroken oral history as to be able to literally recount the ages of the earth.
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-sea-rise-tale-told-accurately-for-10-000-years/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-sea-rise-tale-told-accurately-for-10-000-years/)
[https://theconversation.com/ancient-aboriginal-stories-preserve-history-of-a-rise-in-sea-level-36010](https://theconversation.com/ancient-aboriginal-stories-preserve-history-of-a-rise-in-sea-level-36010)
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