# New underwater discoveries in Australia show how First Peoples lived before the ocean swallowed their land

Source: [Earth.com](https://www.earth.com/science/new-underwater-discoveries-in-australia-show-how-first-peoples-lived-before-the-ocean-swallowed-their-land/) · 2026-11-12 · Earth & Climate
Page: https://themorning.science/story/new-underwater-discoveries-in-australia-show-how-first-peoples-lived-before-the-1a4bd95470a00f31
Kind: research · Impact: medium

## In 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.

## Coverage

- [New underwater discoveries in Australia show how First Peoples lived before the ocean swallowed their land](https://www.earth.com/science/new-underwater-discoveries-in-australia-show-how-first-peoples-lived-before-the-ocean-swallowed-their-land/) — Earth.com, 2026-11-12

Tags: archaeology, australia, sea-level-rise, ice-age, indigenous-history

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Brief generated by AI (claude-haiku-5-5) from the reporting listed under Coverage. Headlines belong to their publishers. The Morning Science – https://themorning.science