People sailed to Australia while Neanderthals still lived in Europe.
Aboriginal ancestors arrived at least 50,000 years ago; the last Neanderthals vanished only about 40,000 years ago.
The events
- People sail to Australiac. 48,000 BC · Arnhem Land, northern Australia. Even with low sea levels, getting from Asia to Australia meant crossing tens of kilometres of open water. People did it at least 50,000 years ago, and by some datings of the Madjedbebe site as early as 65,000. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians form one of the oldest continuous cultures on Earth.
- The Neanderthals vanishc. 38,000 BC · Europe (late traces at Gibraltar). Neanderthals lived in Europe and western Asia for hundreds of thousands of years, but vanished about 40,000 years ago. The causes are debated: competition with incoming sapiens, cold snaps, small numbers. They did not disappear without trace: about 2% of the genes of non-Africans today are Neanderthal.
More amazing facts
- 60,000 BC · 50,000 BC As recently as 50,000 years ago, humans about 1.1 metres tall lived on the Indonesian island of Flores.
- 43,000 BC · 2008 One of the oldest modern human genomes came from a bone spotted by a sculptor.
- 38,000 BC · 2010 Neanderthals died out, yet part of them lives on in us. Their genome, decoded in 2010, showed that people of non-African descent carry a small share of Neanderthal DNA, a trace of ancient interbreeding.
- 38,000 BC · 1939 The world's oldest statue spent 30 years in a museum as a heap of fragments.
- 34,000 BC · 2000 BC The mammoths painted in Chauvet Cave 36,000 years ago could still be seen alive in the age of the pharaohs: the last ones, on Wrangel Island, died out around 2000 BC.
- 22,000 BC · 12,500 BC A boy buried 24,000 years ago near Irkutsk was a genetic relative of both Native Americans and Europeans.