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Exploring Australia

Gondwanaland Over 200 million years ago all the land in the world formed one continent. Eventually the land started to break into two. Scientists think that 95 million years ago one half of these two supercontinents (called Gondwanaland) began to split into pieces. The continent of Australia was one of these pieces. Voyages Across the Sea Unlike traditional Aborigines, archaeologists and prehistorians do not believe that humans have always lived in Australia. So where did the first Australians come from? Archaeological evidence shows that people probably traveled from Southeast Asia to Australia at least 50,000 years ago. At that time, Australia and Asia were separated by sea. But the sea levels of the world were lower than they are now and more land was exposed. There was probably only about 60 miles (100 km) between some of the islands of Indonesia and northern Australia. This was still a dangerous journey on a small raft or in a canoe. No one knows whether people came to Australia when their rafts and canoes were accidentally carried there by the ocean currents, or whether their voyages were planned.

T his is what the world looked like over 200 million years ago. The shaded area of land eventually became Australia. W e do not know what the first explorers to Australia looked like or what type of boats they used. This is an artist’s impression of what these ancient travelers might have been like.

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