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Magazine article
This stone tool is over 1 million years old. How did its maker get to Sulawesi without a boat?
The Conversation
07/08/2025
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Abstract
Stone tools dating to at least 1.04 million years ago have been found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. This means early hominins made a major sea crossing from the Asian mainland much earlier than previously thought – and they likely didn’t have any boats.
This discovery, made by a team of Indonesian archaeologists working in collaboration with Australian researchers, is published today in Nature.
It adds to our understanding of how extinct humans once moved across the Wallace Line – an imaginary boundary that runs through the Lombok Strait in the Indonesian archipelago.
Beyond this line, unique and often peculiar animal species – including hominins – evolved in isolation.
Details
- Title
- This stone tool is over 1 million years old. How did its maker get to Sulawesi without a boat?
- Creators
- Adam Brumm - Griffith UniversityBasran Burhan - Griffith UniversityGerrit (Gert) van den Bergh - University of WollongongMaxime Aubert - Griffith UniversityRenaud Joannes-Boyau - Southern Cross University
- Publication Details
- The Conversation
- Publisher
- The Conversation Media Group Ltd
- Identifiers
- 991013306428002368
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Science and Engineering; Science
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Magazine article