OUR ANCIENT VOYAGE #502 - SUNDALAND AND THE GREAT DROWNING: THE CATALYST FOR MIGRATION

In the previous insight, we tracked our ancestors out of Africa and along the southern coastlines of Asia. But what transformed a coastal-dwelling people into the greatest blue-water navigators in human history? The answer lies in a catastrophic geological event that reshaped the map of our world: the drowning of Sundaland.

The Lost Continent

During the last Ice Age, the world looked very different. Because so much of the Earth’s water was locked in massive glaciers, sea levels were significantly lower, about 120 metres lower than they are today. This exposed a vast landmass in South-East Asia known as the Sunda Shelf or Sundaland.

Sundaland was a massive, fertile continent that connected what we now know as Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia into a single landmass. It was a tropical paradise of river valleys and rainforests, and for thousands of years, it was the "Hawaiki" of our ancestors, a stable, land-based home where our unique cultural and genetic markers began to crystallise.