One-Third of the Globe Summary

The Other One-Third of the Globe Summary

The sea levels near Oceania was accessible to people from Asia during the last glaciation because the water was mainly taken up by ice sheets which made the water level 100 meters or more below than what they are today. Because of this glaciation, the mainland’s of Indonesia to the Asian mainland to make a long peninsular extension of Asia that is called Sunda. The drop in the sea level also connected New Guinea, Australia, and Tasmania to form a greater continent called Sahul. To take advantage of this to settle new lands, migrants needed only some form of watercraft, perhaps rafts of bamboo or wood, or dugout canoes. With wind and current and some paddling groups made it across the icy, narrow gaps between Sunda and Sahul. However, with this simple technology, reaching Sahul was a major step in humankind’s spread over the globe. This was the first step in human expansion beyond the linked African and Eurasian continents. Part of human diversity in the pacific must stem from this differential settlement of near and remote Oceania. For example, consider the contrast between the short, stocky highlanders of New Guinea who speak languages unrelated to Austronesian and live in areas led by “big men,” and the tall, lighter skinned Polynesians who speak Austronesian languages and live in societies ruled by hereditary chiefs. This contrast seems more likely to be a function of these two very different migrations into the pacific than the result of local differentiation from a common source. The Pacific islanders were not totally isolated from the rest of the world before their encounter with Europeans. The introduction of the sweet potato to eastern Polynesia indicates a maritime connection with South America, although at present we do not know whether the sweet potato was carried to Polynesia by South American raft voyagers, or whether some Polynesian seafarers sailed all the way to South