Changing Tidal Dynamics and the Role of the Marine Environment in the Maritime Migration to Sahul

Abstract

The marine environment plays a central role in the migration of Homo sapiens to Sahul c. 65,000 years ago. Despite
the lower mean sea level at this time, humans must have made a maritime crossing from Sunda to Sahul. While
tidal dynamics greatly affect the coastal environment, models of changing paleotidal conditions are frequently
missing from reconstructions of coastal landscapes and maritime conditions in the deep past. At present, northern
Australia is known for its high tidal range and strong current velocity, but tidal dynamics are sensitive to coastal
geometry and water depths that were very different in the past. This paper presents a barotropic hydrodynamic
model of the Australian coast to explore how past tidal dynamics would have caused variations in coastal environments north of Australia, and how tidal currents could have affected seafaring. The results indicate profound but
complex changes in tidal dynamics along the northern Australian coast throughout the Upper Pleistocene, linked
to mean sea level fluctuations, which inform the debate about the peopling of Sahul.
This special issue is guest-edited by William Davies (Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins, University of
Southampton) and Philip R. Nigst (Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology, University of Vienna).
This is article #6 of 14.

More information

Identifiers

ORCID for Ivan Haigh: orcid.org/0000-0002-9722-3061

ORCID for Helen Farr: orcid.org/0000-0002-7922-9179

Catalogue record

Export record

Altmetrics