Australia’s Enigmatic Boab Tree Seeding The Out-Of-Australia-Theory
The Out of Africa Theory is the dominant - though not only - model for the geographic origins and subsequent migration of modern humans. While it has been tweaked over time to generally now encompass multiple migrations from the African continent, the arguably most significant of these migrations under the theory is thought to have taken place some 70,000 years ago. In this migration, modern humans left Africa, crossing the southern coast of Asia before ultimately arriving at and settling in Australia from around 65,000 years ago. It is a popular theory. But it remains that – a theory (indeed, there is disagreement even amongst its advocates as to these dates). Amongst other models proposed, there is one that turns this theory completely on its head. What if it was not to Australia that these modern humans migrated, but from Australia? Out of Australia and into Africa!
Putative migration waves out of Africa and back migrations into the continent, as well as the locations of major ancient human remains and archeological sites (López et al.2015)(CC BY-SA 3.0)
Out of Australia
Authors such as Bruce Fenton and Steve and Evan Strong have in recent years developed persuasive grounds, both genetic and archaeological, for the theory that modern humans migrated from Australia some 70,000 years ago. As these authors note, there are multiple sites and artifacts in Australia which suggest that humans may well have been there at least tens of thousands of years before this migration. Indeed, many indigenous Australians believe that their ancestors have been on the continent from ‘time immemorial’.
