Evolution And History

222 CHAPTER 9 | The Global Expansion of Homo sapiens and Their Technology

oceanic navigation. Once in Australia, these people cre-

ated some of the world’s earliest sophisticated rock art,

perhaps some 10,000 to 15,000 years earlier than the

more famous European cave paintings.

Interestingly, considerable physical variation is seen

in Australian fossil specimens from this period. Some

specimens have the high forehead characteristic of

anatomical modernity while others possess traits pro-

viding excellent evidence of continuity between living

Aborigines and the earlier Homo erectus and archaic

Homo sapiens fossils from Indonesia. Willandra Lakes—

the fossil lake region of southeastern Australia, far from

where the earliest archaeological evidence of human

habitation of the continent was found—is particularly

rich with fossils. The variation present in these fossils

illustrates the problems inherent with making a one-to-

one correspondence between the skull of a certain shape

and cultural capabilities.

Other evidence for sophisticated ritual activity in early

Australia is provided by the burial of a man at least 40,000

and possibly 60,000 years ago from the Willandra Lakes

region. His body was positioned with his fingers inter-

twined around one another in the region of his penis, and

red ochre had been scattered over the body. It may be that

this pigment had more than symbolic value; for example,

its iron salts have antiseptic and deodorizing properties,

and there are recorded instances in which red ochre is as-

sociated with prolonging life and is used medicinally to

treat particular conditions or infections. One historically

known Aborigine society is reported to have used ochre

to heal wounds, scars, and burns. A person with internal

pain was covered with the substance and placed in the

sun to promote sweating. See this chapter’s Globalscape to

learn about the importance of Willandra Lakes to global

and local heritage today.

As in many parts of the world, paleoanthropologists

conducting research on human evolution in Australia are

essentially constructing a view of history that conflicts

with the beliefs of Aborigines. The story of human evolu-

tion is utterly dependent on Western conceptions of time,

relationships established through genetics, and a defini-

tion of what it means to be human. All of these concepts

are at odds with Aboriginal beliefs about human origins.

Still, while conducting their research on human evolution,

paleoanthropologists working in Australia have advocated

and supported the Aboriginal culture.

The Americas

While scientists concur that American Indian ancestry

can be traced ultimately back to Asian origins, just when

people arrived in the Americas has been a matter of lively

debate. This debate draws upon geographical, cultural,

and biological evidence.

the Wallace Trench, after Alfred Russel Wallace, who,
as described in Chapter 2, discovered natural selection
at the same time as Charles Darwin) always separated
Sunda and Sahul.
Anthropologist Joseph Birdsell suggested several
routes of island hopping and seafaring to make the cross-
ing between these landmasses.^40 Each of these routes
still involves crossing open water without land visible
on the horizon. The earliest known site in New Guinea
dates to 40,000 years ago. Sites in Australia are dated to
even earlier, but these dates are especially contentious
because they involve the critical question of the relation-
ship between anatomical modernity and the presence
of humanlike culture. Early dates for habitation of the
Sahul indicate that archaic Homo rather than anatomi-
cally modern forms possessed the cultural capacity for

GREATER

AUSTRALIA

(SAHUL)

NEW

GUINEA

Pacific

Ocean

Indian

Ocean

SOUTHEAST

ASIA

(SUNDA)

Flores

IND

ONESIA

Figure 9.9 Habitation of Australia and New Guinea (joined
together with Tasmania as a single landmass called Sahul) was
dependent upon travel across the open ocean even at times
of maximum glaciations when sea levels were low. This figure
shows the coastlines of Sahul and Sunda (Southeast Asia plus
the island of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and Bali) now and in the
past. As sea levels rose with melting glaciers, sites of early
human habitation were submerged under water.

(^40) Birdsell, J. H. (1977). The recalibration of a paradigm for the first peo-
pling of Greater Australia. In J. Allen, J. Golson, & R. Jones (Eds.), Sunda
and Sahul: Prehistoric studies in Southeast Asia, Melanesia, and Australia
(pp. 113–167). New York: Academic.