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Ice Age arrival

The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) lasted 100 thousand years, from about 120,000 to 20,000 years ago. The LGM typically created drier environments compared to today. However, a warmer, wetter period was experienced between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago. These extreme environmental changes may have been one reason that led to a wave of modern humans leaving Africa, and moving south east into Asia and Oceania. First Nations peoples arrived on the Australian continent as part of this movement, as the Madjedbebe rock shelter in Australia’s Northern Territory demonstrates. First Nations people were living at Madjedbebe, on Gaagudju or Kakadu Country at least 50,000 years ago and maybe as long as 65,000 years ago. The evidence uncovered at Madjedbebe rock shelter shows people living together, modifying locally available materials, and using different techniques to make specific tools to obtain and process plants and animals in the local environment.

Local occupation evidence

By 20,000 years ago, our climate had become colder and drier again, about 6°C colder than today. Globally, vast ice sheets formed that locked up liquid water, so the sea level along the northern coast of Australia was 125 metres lower than today. We know that First Nations people lived 350 km to the north west of Miles at Mount Moffat in the Carnarvon Ranges.