About ten thousand years ago, an enormous land area, almost twice the size of Great Britain, was submerged off the northern coast of Australia.
This area, now officially called the Northwest Shelf, was widely inhabited by humans 70,000 years ago and is thought to have been inhabited by as many as 500,000 people.
The territory included archipelagos, lakes, rivers and even a large inland sea. Historians believe it was through these lands that ancient people moved from Indonesia to Australia and eventually transformed into today’s aborigines.
The “Australian Atlantis” was hidden underwater during the rise in sea levels due to the melting of glaciers after the end of the Ice Age, and now in its place lies the Timor Sea with a depth of 90 to 250 meters.
The new study of the area was carried out by archaeologist Kasih Norman and his team from Graffiti University, Queensland, Australia.
“We are revealing details of the complex landscape that existed on Australia’s northwest shelf. It was unlike any landscape we find on our continent today.”
The last ice age ended about 18,000 years ago, and melting ice gradually began to flood the territory of the ancient continent of Sahul, which included the countries of Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea.
By sinking underwater, the ‘Australian Atlantis’ disappeared and New Guinea and Tasmania turned into separate islands, as they still exist today.
The lands of the Northwest Shelf had very favorable living conditions during the period when they were inhabited by humans, with an adequate supply of fresh water and animals, as shown by recent archaeological discoveries.
The seabed is difficult to excavate, but even with limited work quite a few stone tools have been found. Archaeologists do not say exactly how many people lived there, but they calculated that there could be at least 50,000 and a maximum of 500,000.
These lands did not suddenly flood, but over the course of about 400 years most people had the opportunity to slowly leave the flooded areas.
And they went to the nearby Australian regions of Kimberley and Arnhem, which is evidenced by the appearance there of a new style of rock art that emerged at this very time.
