500,000 People Once Lived In A Vast Submerged Region Near Australia, Study Finds

Researchers believe that many large islands of Australia's coast - islands that once formed part of the continental shelves - were occupied by around 500,000 people before sea levels rose.

An area of land north of modern Australia that was submerged thousands of years ago by rising seas once hosted as many as 500,000 people, a new study has revealed. In the newly published study in Quaternary Science Reviews, researchers at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, reconstructed the topography of around 400,000 square kilometres of land that is now covered by the Indian Ocean. They found that the land that was once believed to be uninhabitable was home to thriving populations of people for tens of thousands of years. 

According to the study, the now-drowned continental shelves of Australia were thought to be environmentally unproductive and little used by First Nations peoples. However, now authors of the study said that mounting archaeological evidence shows this assumption is incorrect. They believe that many large islands of Australia's coast - islands that once formed part of the continental shelves - were occupied by around 500,000 people before sea levels rose. 

Lead author of the study Kasih Norman noted that Geoscience Australia has recently released detailed sonar data, with each pixel representing an area of just 30 by 30 metres. "This is a high enough resolution to be able to talk about landscape features that were important to people," she said.