Long lost land once home to 500,000 people discovered under the ocean

‘Long last land’ from ‘long ago’ sounds like the start of some kind of kids’ film. Or even a sci-fi story.

But in this case, it’s not fiction. It’s real life.

Because a long-lost land that was once home to about 500,000 people has been discovered under the ocean.

Just off the coast of northern Australia, the now totally-under water continental shelf covered an area even bigger than New Zealand at around 242,300 miles.

The scientists who made this discovery were led by Kasih Norman of Queensland’s Griffith University.

They say the ‘complex landscape’ that was once a habitable spot on the Northwest Shelf of Australia was ‘unlike any landscape found’ on the continent today.

But despite the stark differences, it’s said the humans who once lived there spoke similar languages and created ‘similar styles of rock art’ to those living in nearby lands.

Norman and her team explain in a release that when the last Ice Age ended about 18,000 years ago, sea levels rose and drowned out vast parts of continents across the globe.

US Geological Survey, Geoscience Australia

Therefore, the supercontinent of Sahul was split up into Australia and New Guinea with what is now the state of Tasmania cut off from the mainland – it’s just south of Melbourne.

It was originally thought that this now-submerged shelf of the down under country was environmentally unproductive, so the original indigenous communities pretty much ignored it.

However, we now know otherwise.

The researchers write that the ‘mounting archaeological evidence’ shows that assumption is ‘incorrect’.

“Many large islands off Australia's coast – islands that once formed part of the continental shelves – show signs of occupation before sea levels rose.”

Norman and her colleague have been able to fill in plenty of blanks of what were once just speculations about the pre-Ice Age landscapes.

US Geological Survey, Geoscience Australia

They’ve found that this Shelf was quite the spot with archipelagos, lakes, rivers and a large inland sea.

The scientists say: “The region contained a mosaic of habitable fresh and saltwater environments. The most salient of these features was the Malita inland sea.”

Modelling by the team finds that the found land could have supported anywhere between 50,000 to 500,000 people at various points across the last 65,000 years.

And that population would’ve been at its peak at the height of the last Ice Age, approximately 20,000 years ago.

They noted that the original residents will have fled the land and have passed down the history of the rising sea levels and drowning for thousands of years.

Norman and her team concluded: “As we face an uncertain future together, deep-time Indigenous knowledge and experience will be essential for successful adaptation.”