Sahul (Greater Australia) – Drowned Shelf Continent
Sahul · Sahul Shelf · Greater Australia · Sahul continent
Pleistocene exposure maximally 18k BCE – flooded 12k–8k BCE·Aboriginal Australian / Papuan first peoples 65k BCE settlement·🇦🇺 Sahul Shelf – Gulf of Carpentaria, Torres Strait, Arafura Sea between Australia and New Guinea, Australia
About
About Sahul (Greater Australia) – Drowned Shelf Continent
Sister to Sundaland and Beringia – 2 million km² Sahul continent exposed 65k–8k BCE linking Australia, New Guinea, Tasmania via Bassian Plain, with enormous paleo-lake Carpentaria (600×300 km fresh lake) and wide savanna corridors. First Sahul humans 65k (Madjedbebe). Now Torres Strait 12 m narrows flooded, Arafura Sea 30–80 m, Gulf lake breached to sea 10k BCE. Paleo-river Carpentaria and submerged Aboriginal songlines (Gulf). Lesser-known but crucial for Wallace–Lydekker's Lines separation from Sundaland. No Atlantis claims – teaches real drowned continent spectrum end.
Why it mattersCritical human route: Sahul colonization 65k the earliest ocean crossing beyond Sundaland; explains megafaunal extinction province.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Coastline camps now under Arafura – Any intact 50k shell middens submerged?
Theories
- 01Aboriginal oral history of Warraber Islet drowning encodes strait flooding memory akin to Ys
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- Natural – human rock art / shell middens now submerged margins
- Period
- Pleistocene exposure maximally 18k BCE – flooded 12k–8k BCE
- Culture
- Aboriginal Australian / Papuan first peoples 65k BCE settlement
- Purpose
- Natural continent and human dispersal corridor via Lake Carpentaria
- Abandoned
- Flooded Holocene transgression
- Rediscovered
- 1970s Lake Carpentaria cores (Torgersen); 2010 songline documentation
- Excavation
- Not applicable
65k BCE
Madjedbebe first habitation northern Sahul margin
18k BCE
LGM Lake Carpentaria fresh with 2m isthmus to Arafura
10k BCE
Torres Strait breach isolates Australia from NG
1978
Torgersen Lake Carpentaria paleolake cores prove fresh lake
On the ground
Structures & features
12.5000° S · 138.0000° E · -30 m · 3 mapped features
Paleo-Lake Carpentaria center
paleo lakeFresh lake bed 30 m under Gulf of Carpentaria
12.5000° S · 138.0000° ETorres Strait sill (breach point)
strait12 m deep Torres sill breached 10k BCE
9.8000° S · 142.5000° EMadjedbebe rockshelter (70 m above old plain)
rockshelter65k occupation edge of plain not submerged
12.6000° S · 132.9000° E
Gallery