Australia's lost ancient colony, where thousands once lived, now found

A massive forgotten colony – which was once off the coast of Australia and was home to hundreds of thousands of people – has now been found by the scientists.

Various signs of human life and artefacts were discovered on Sahul's northwest shelf, which was located off the coast of Kimberley's northern region on a piece of land that was connected to New Guinea, as per a study publishedin Quaternary Science Reviews.

The piece of land, which was drowned, was most probably a thriving ecosystem which existed in the Late Pleistocene period that dates back2.5 million years.

The now-submerged landmass was spread in the area of 250,000 square miles which was 1.6 times the size of the United Kingdom.

The continental shelf, which was once believed to be a desert, was filled with rivers and streams, habitable fresh and saltwater lakes, as well as a large inland sea, which is likely to have supported around 50,000 and 500,000 people.

As per the scientists, the shelf may have also served as a bridge for people to walk into Australia before the country turned into the massive island it is today.

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Continental shelf drowned amid global sea level rise

Nearly half of the shelf had drowned around 12,000 to 9,000 years ago which marked the first of two phases of rapid global sea level rise.

“This likely caused a retreat of human populations, registering as peaks in occupational intensity at archaeological sites,” wrote the scientists.

The people who funnelled into an archipelago on the continental shelf became the “first maritime explorers from Wallacea, creating a familiar environment for their maritime economies to adapt to the vast terrestrial continent of Sahul.”

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The scientists have been working to uncover the lost colony's history and plan to carry on the reconstruction of the palaeoecology of the landscapes.

“Now submerged continental margins clearly played an important role in early human expansions across the world,” stated the study.

“The rise in undersea archaeology in Australia will contribute to a growing worldwide picture of early human migration and the impact of climate change on Late Pleistocene human populations,” it added.

(With inputs from agencies)