Research
New underwater discoveries in Australia show how First Peoples lived before the ocean swallowed their land
Earth.com · By Luis Arrais ·
The Brief
- Divers have found underwater sites off northwestern Australia, according to Earth.com (the exact number is cut off in the source).
- The coastal land these people lived on for tens of thousands of years was submerged when the last Ice Age ended and sea levels rose.
- Stone tools are among the finds from the submerged sites.
Why it matters
Submerged coastal sites can preserve evidence of early human occupation that would otherwise be lost as sea levels rise, so they help fill gaps in the record of how First Peoples lived.
Who’s affected
- archaeologists
- researchers studying Indigenous Australian history and sea-level change
- #archaeology
- #australia
- #sea-level-rise
- #ice-age
- #indigenous-history
The seabed off a coast looks like the last place an archaeologist would dig. Yet when the last Ice Age ended and the oceans rose, the coast people had lived on for tens of thousands of years went under, stone tools and all. Off northwestern Australia, divers have now found 21…