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Not may people appreciate that at the peak of the last ice age, "sea level" was 400 feet lower than it is today. It's likely that there's a whole bunch of arch
by curtis 8y ago
Not may people appreciate that at the peak of the last ice age, "sea level" was 400 feet lower than it is today. It's likely that there's a whole bunch of archaeological sites that we can't easily get to right now, even if we could find them.
- Bucephalus355 8y agoYes, it’s very likely most of the human pathway out of Africa to Australia would have gone over these kinds of routes. For instance, Indonesia would have been connected to Australia more or less and so one could cross over land from Southeast Asia to Australia.
- brailsafe 8y agoAs an aside, Indonesia was also home to a now extinct species of human called homoaflorensis.
- jcranmer 8y agoNot quite. There are some oceanic trench faults in between Indonesian islands, so there was no full land connection. At the last glacial maximum (and sea-level minimum), the big islands of Sumatra, Java, and Borneo would have been portions of a massive Southeast Asia peninsula. In addition, New Guinea would have been attached to Australia. The other Indonesian islands, such as Sulawesi and Timor, would still have been islands. The gaps between the islands would be somewhat smaller, perhaps about 25mi (even between Timor and Australia), which is close enough that you can sail between them without ever losing sight of land.
- guessthejuice 8y agoPeople don't realize that just 8000 years ago, you could walk from britain to continental europe as it was connected by land to europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland It's amazing how in a short period of time ( in geological terms though it seems like a lot of time for us ), how much of the earth changed. Another interesting tidbit, we had a little ice age not too long ago which ended in the mid 1800s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age https://www.eh-resources.org/timeline-middle-ages/ https://www.eh-resources.org/timeline-middle-ages/
- ryanmclovin 8y agoIs there any nice visualisation of that anywhere?
- dugmartin 8y agohttp://www.donsmaps.com/images30/britainshorelineiceageimg269sm.jpg http://www.donsmaps.com/images30/britainshorelineiceageimg26...
- tribune 8y agoThinking about this always dismays me. Given humans' proclivity for living near the coast, it seems likely than many (even most?) interesting sites from this period are gone.