Re: (no subject)
Richard Spear (rspear@primenet.com)
Sun, 13 Aug 1995 19:31:42 GMT
Dominique Scarfone <scarfond@ere.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>Could anyone tell a complete layman what is (are) the theory(ies) about
>the origins of Australian Aboriginals? Was there anything equivalent to
>Behring's Strait to be crossed in order to get to the Australian
>continental area? etc.
No Homo erectus remains have ever been found in Australia ... this
means that the earliest entry into Australia would have been around
100,000 years ago, and that date is probably too early. Fossil remains
suggest human entry around 754,000 years ago, when there was not a
land bridge, and settlers would have had to "island hop", crossing
some fairly wide regions of water. About 20,000 years ago the crossing
would have been easier, as at glacial maximum island hopping would
have been alot easier.
Pick up one of Brian Fagan's many books ("People of the Earth" is
really readable) to get more info on the evidence.
Richard
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