The jungle

[Graeme H]

In my paleontology days (fascinated and read a lot for my Anthropology course at Uni), Australian Aboriginis are one of the oldest races on earth. I believe they came from Africa (as we know it now) but before the continents shifted.

Definitely not the case Glenda.

The first Australians migrated into Australia via the land when the sea level was much lower than it currently is. That was during the ice ages, and sea levels at that time (~60 to 40 thousand years ago) were something like 200m lower than now. They also walked to Tasmania during that period.

Gondwanaland, the super continent that was the basis of both Australia and Africa, broke up well before the dinosaurs became extinct, 65 million years ago. Homo Sapiens only evolved in the last 200,000 years. The continents are still shifting, and Australia, being one of the fastest moving, moves north at about the same rate that your fingernails grow (about 2-3 cm a year.)

Incidentally, I seriously doubt the contention that the rain forest Paul is in is actually 130 million years old. Flowering plants (including most tropical trees) didn't become predominant until near the end of the dinosaurs' reign. There may have been a forest there, but it would not be recognisable as a current tropical rainforest. Cycads and ferns would have dominated, without trees, vines, shrubs, etc. I guess it would depend on the definition of a rainforest ...

Cheers,
Graeme

[Paul Arden]

From Wikipedia,

Scholars had disagreed whether their closest kin outside Australia were certain South Asian groups or African groups. The latter would imply a migration pattern in which their ancestors passed through South Asia to Australia without intermingling genetically with other populations along the way.[15] A 2009 genetic study in India found similarities among Indian archaic populations and Aboriginal people, indicating a Southern migration route, with expanding populations from Southeast Asia migrating to Indonesia and Australia.

In a genetic study in 2011, researchers found evidence, in DNA samples taken from strands of Aboriginal people's hair, that the ancestors of the Aboriginal population split off from the ancestors of the European and Asian populations between 65,000 and 75,000 years ago—roughly 24,000 years before the European and Asian populations split off from each other. These Aboriginal ancestors migrated into South Asia and then into Australia, where they stayed, with the result that, outside of Africa, the Aboriginal peoples have occupied the same territory continuously longer than any other human populations. These findings suggest that modern Aboriginal peoples are the direct descendants of migrants to leave Africa up to 75,000 years ago.[16] [17] This finding is supported by earlier archaeological finds of human remains near Lake Mungo that date to 45,000 years ago. The same genetic study of 2011 found evidence that Aboriginal peoples carry some of the genes associated with the Denisovan peoples of Asia; the study suggests that there is an increase in allele sharing between the Denisovans and the Aboriginal Australians genome compared to other Eurasians and Africans. Examining DNA from the finger, researchers from the Harvard Medical School in the US and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany concluded that the Denisovans - a primitive group of humans descended from Neanderthals - migrated from Siberia to tropical parts of Asia. The researchers concluded that Denisovans interbred with modern humans in South-East Asia 44,000 years ago, before Australia separated from Papua New Guinea. They contributed DNA to Aborigines along with present-day New Guineans and an indigenous tribe in the Philippines known as Mamanwa. This study makes Aboriginal Australians one of the oldest living populations in the world and possibly the oldest outside of Africa, confirming they may also have the oldest continuous culture on the planet.[18] The Papuans have more sharing alleles than Aboriginal peoples. The data suggest that modern and archaic humans interbred in Asia before the migration to Australia.[19]

[Paul Arden]

Yes I imagine it would have looked quite different then! Here's what wikipedia says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belum-Temengor

Cheers, Paul

[Glenda]

I am talking millions of years ago but I stand corrected.....Wikipedia is, after all, factual and always correct.

[Graeme H]

For humans, there was no "millions of years ago". We didn't evolve until 200,000 years ago. We left Africa about 80,000 years ago. Soon after that, the Australian Aborginals reached what we now call Australia by walking along coastal regions through Asia.

No wikipedia involved. I'm a geologist.

Cheers,
Graeme