G’day mlj1mlj1,
What you have said about the arrival of the sasquatch and the Clovis people in North America seems familiar but this is an area in which I am not overly knowledgeable. Regarding Australia, it would seem that there were a number of migrations by different Aboriginal people, over a period of about 50K, so perhaps a low sea level may not have been a critical prerequisite on every occasion throughout this period. Clearly, however, Aboriginals were capable of sea faring, so technologically, migration over water would not have been a barrier for them anyway.
For the hairy ones, however, the Weber Line would have been too formidable. They are only capable of forming rudimentary tools, for example, clubs from tea tree roots and probes from branches and sticks. Fortunately, they can not manufacture fire or maintain it, otherwise we would have major problems in the mountains with bushfires.
I don’t think that boat or even raft construction would have been possible for them. Organizing an expedition requires extensive planning as well as technological skill. Language would be a major requirement, as well as community involvement. Although our dooligahl are capable of rudimentary communication and do associate in family groups, I can’t see this coming together in the manufacture an ocean going craft, or anything else of much significance, apart from a few stick structures. Additionally, there would be a need for repeated voyages, by similarly well prepared groups, in order to keep the population viable.
The only other possibility is that an unknown land bridge somehow arose in the recent past, with falling sea levels. The problem here is that the boundaries of the Indo-Australian Plate, for example, the Sunda Trench, are typically around 7000 metres deep, so this seems extremely unlikely.
“During ice age glacial advances, when the ocean levels were up to 120 metres (390 ft) lower, both Asia and Australia were united with what are now islands on their respective continental shelves as continuous land masses,
but the deep water between those two large continental shelf areas was, for over 50 million years, a barrier that kept the flora and fauna of Australia separated from those of Asia.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_line
Digressing a bit, I have been studying the similarities in locomotion between our dooligahl and other Australian marsupials for some time. As most of us know well, our hairy ones are capable of sustained high speeds. I found the following source interesting. Even though it relates to hopping, I think that it is possibly applicable to bipedal running as well, given shared ancestry.
“A study on a red kangaroo, in which it was trained to use a tread mill after getting used to wearing a mask, found that while the animal was walking the oxygen consumption increased steeply with speed until it reached 10 km/h, at which point it started hopping. From the time it started hopping the oxygen consumption did not increase up to a speed of 35 km/h (Dawson & Taylor, 1973). This explains how the early explorers were astonished at how easily kangaroos could outrun their dogs, especially after being chased for about 2 hours by fox hounds. Gould (1863) reported that ". . . it was also plain that he was still fresh, as, quite at the end of the run, he went over the top of a very high hill, which a tired kangaroo will never attempt to do." This chase is reported to have taken 2 hours to cover a distance of about 29 km, an easy jog for an animal that has been clocked at 40 km/h…
The economy of locomotion achieved by the kangaroo is enabled by the elasticity of the tendons and the leg geometry, the maximum efficiency being achieved at speeds above 10 km/h.”
http://austhrutime.com/kangaroos_hopping.htm
G’day Rusty,
I agree. Australia, Antarctica and South America were once joined and this was the evolutionary route taken by marsupials before the land masses separated. The evolutionary history of
Homo is too short to have made this a plausible migratory route.
Additionally, I have often thought that their night vision ability may have evolved via Antarctica, during those long nights, when Australia was similarly isolated. As was the case with Australian dinosaurs.
Also, just to confuse matters, recent research suggests that marsupials may have first evolved in China.
Neil
