How ancient people moved and migrated across the area known as Sahul – the expansive single landmass including Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania that existed up to 75,000 years ago – is being explored using a new landscape evolution model.

“The new landscape evolution model allows for a more realistic description of the terrains and environments inhabited by the first hunter-gatherer communities as they traversed Sahul,” explained Dr Tristan Salles from the University of Sydney.

“The model shows the impact of the physical environment on human mobility by combining time-evolving landscapes with foraging patterns, which accounts for a combination of short-distance steps and occasional longer moves that hunter-gatherers likely used for efficient exploration of new environments.”

The research was conducted by an interdisciplinary team from The University of Sydney, Southern Cross University, Flinders University and Université Grenoble-Alpes and used a newly developed landscape evolution model that accounts for climatic evolution from 75,000 to 35,000 years ago. It offers a fresh take on Pleistocene archaeology by examining the impact of a changing landscape on the dispersion of first humans in Sahul.

The model didn’t identify well-defined migration routes, but instead showed a “radiating wave” of migrations across Sahul following riverine corridors and coastlines. However, it did indicate a high likelihood of human presence near several already-proposed pathways of Indigenous movement (called super-highways), including those to the east of Lake Carpentaria, along the southern corridors south of Lake Eyre, and traversing the Australian interior.

Associate Professor Ian Moffat, an archaeological scientist from Flinders University said:

“One aspect that has been mostly overlooked when evaluating this spread of first humans across Sahul is the impact of climate-driven evolution of Earth’ surface geography which took place during the time of migration.”

The researchers are hopeful the new model can now potentially pinpoint areas of archaeological significance and provide an indication of how much specific sites may have eroded or received extra sediment.

They also believe the model could be applied to other locations that could improve our understanding of humanity’s extraordinary journey out of Africa.

Click on this link to access, Physiography, foraging mobility, and the first peopling of Sahul, published in Nature Communications.