Sahul Explained
Sahul, also called Sahul-land, Meganesia, Papualand and Greater Australia,[1] was a paleocontinent that encompassed the modern-day landmasses of mainland Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and the Aru Islands.
Sahul was in the south-western Pacific Ocean, located approximately north to south between the Equator and the 44th parallel south and west to east between the 112th and the 152nd meridians east. Sahul was separated from Sunda to its west by the Wallacean Archipelago. At its largest, when ocean levels were at their lowest, it was approximately 10600000km2 in size.
After the last Ice Age global temperatures increased and sea levels gradually rose, flooding the land bridge and separating mainland Australia from New Guinea and Tasmania. New Guinea was separated from the Australian mainland approximately 8,000 years ago, and Tasmania approximately 6,000 years ago.
Sahul hosted a large variety of unique fauna that evolved independently from the rest of the world. Most notably nearly all mammals on Sahul were marsupials including a range of browsers, burrowers, scavengers and predators; bats and rodents represented the only placental mammals.
It is estimated humans first colonized Sahul between 45,000 and 60,000 years ago, making the ocean crossing from Sunda through Wallacea. From Sahul humans spread throughout Oceania.
The name Sahul is used by archeologists, while the name Meganesia tends to be used by zoogeographers. The name Greater Australia has been used, but it has been criticised as "cartographic imperialism" because it places greater emphasis upon what is now Australia at the expense of New Guinea.
See also
References
Bibliography
- Book: Ballard, Chris . 1993 . Stimulating minds to fantasy? A critical etymology for Sahul . Smith . M. A. . Spriggs . M. . Fankhouser . B. . Sahul in review: Pleistocene archaeology in Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia . Canberra . Australian National University . 17–23 . 0-7315-1540-4.
- Book: Groves, Colin P. . 1996 . Hovering on the brink: nearly but not quite getting to Australia . Rousham . Emily . Freedman . Leonard . Perspectives in human biology: volume 2 humans in the Australasian region . Singapore . World Scientific Publishing Co, Pte Ltd . 83–87 . 981-02-3023-0 . 1038-5762 .
- Book: Kennett . B. L. N. . Chopping . R. . Blewett . R. . 2018 . The Australian continent: a geophysical synthesis . Canberra . Australian National University Press . 9781760462475.
- Book: O’Connell . James F. . Allen . Jim . Hawkes . Kristen . 2010 . Pleistocene Sahul and the origins of seafaring . https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281283058 . Anderson . Athol . Barrett . James H. . Boyle . Katherine V. . The global origins and development of seafaring . Cambridge . MacDonald Institute for Archeological Research . 57–68 . 978-1-902937-52-6.
- Book: O'Connor . Sue . Hiscock . Peter . The people of Sahul and near Oceania . https://books.google.com/books?id=JZRODwAAQBAJ&q=prehistoric+continent+sahul . Cochrane . Ethan E. . Hunt . Terry L. . 2018 . The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania . New York . Oxford University Press . 26–45 . 978-0-19-992507-0.
- Book: Oliver, Douglas L. . 1961 . The Pacific Islands . New York . The American Museum of Natural History .
- Thomas . Nicholas . Nicholas Thomas (anthropologist) . June 2021 . From Sunda to Sahul: the first crossings and early settlement of the Pacific . . Research Triangle Park . Natural History Magazine, Inc. . 0028-0712 . 7 January 2022.
- Book: White . J. Peter . O'Connell . James F. . 1982 . A prehistory of Australia, New Guinea and Sahul . Sydney . Academic Press Australia . 0-12-746750-5.
Notes and References
- Gillespie . Richard . Dating the First Australians . Radiocarbon . January 2002 . 44 . 2 . 455–472 . 10.1017/S0033822200031830. free . 2002Radcb..44..455G .
