Australia is the flattest, driest continent inhabited by man. After a long period of isolation, its flora and fauna are highly endemic, and human settlement was only possible by sea. The arrival of man has had a profound effect on the environment. It led to an increase in the number of fires and the disappearance of many animal species, particularly the largest marsupial species. In the north of the continent, at the Malakunanja II site, the oldest archaeological traces date back at least 60,000 years to the present day. Ten thousand years later, humans were already present in the heart of the continent at Warratyi. Australia's archaeological record includes some remarkable features, such as the ancient practice of polishing hard rock. Rock art was already present in Sulawesi around 40,000 years before present, and was most certainly part of the baggage of the modern humans who colonized the continent. From a biological point of view, one of the particularities of aboriginal populations is the high contribution of Denisovian DNA in their genome. These populations underwent a demographic contraction at the time of the last glacial maximum. It was only towards the end of the Holocene, from 5,000 years before present, that their numbers increased dramatically.
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