2013 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
The First Islanders
Published in:
A History of the Pacific Islands
Sea levels were as much as 120 metres lower than today’s during the last Ice Age — the Pleistocene epoch — which lasted from 1.8 million to 12,000 years ago. Southeast Asia then included the maritime subcontinent of Sunda, that ancient and immense ‘Boot of Asia’ which separated the South China Sea from the Indian Ocean (Map 1). East and southeast of the Sunda subcontinent lay enormous Sahul: ancient Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, which were then still connected as one massive continent.