Australia’s coastal waters are rich in Indigenous cultural heritage, but it remains hidden and under threat

<https://theconversation.com/australias-coastal-waters-are-rich-in-indigenous-cultural-heritage-but-it-remains-hidden-and-under-threat-166564>

"When people arrived in Australia more than 65,000 years ago, they landed on
shores that are now deep under water. The first footprints on this continent
took place on these now-submerged landscapes.

More than 2 million square kilometres of Australia’s continental landmass — an
area larger than Queensland — was drowned by sea-level rise over the last
20,000 years. This land was once home to thousands of generations of Indigenous
peoples.

Despite the scale of this vast drowned cultural landscape, Australia has fallen
behind international best practice in locating, recording and protecting
submerged Indigenous cultural places.

Last year, our team reported the discovery of nearly 300 stone artefacts
submerged on the continental shelf off northwestern Australia.

This discovery demonstrated that submerged Indigenous sites are likely to exist
around the continent, but remain unknown due to a lack of investigation."

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics