ABSTRACT
At the time of the latest great glaciation the ocean level was considerably lower than it is today. Land bridges formed over much of the Indonesian archipelago. Humans crossed the remaining deep water channels in vessels or rafts, finding their way to Australia and settling the continent. Archaeologists now believe that the earliest settlement of Australia took place more than 60 000 years ago. Humans also made their way across the Bering strait into the Americas. Recent archaeological data suggest that human presence in the Americas may date back some 50 000 years. The indigenous American and Australian peoples developed their forms of life, subsistence and culture in isolation of events taking place in the Old World. With the exception of Iceland, the Antarctic and some isolated islands in the southern ocean, virtually all land was inhabited by human groups long before the era of European exploration.
