Remaining on the theme of Palaeolithic boat travel we have another study, from the other side of the world, concerning humans getting around the Philippines – go to https://phys.org/news/2025-06-philippine-islands-technologically-advanced-maritime.html … where once again we are hampered by unknown land masses now submerged. There was considerable submergence around the same time the southern basin of the North Sea was flooded – but the situation between the end of the Ice Age to mid Holocener is a matter of assuming a general sea level rise rather than of one involving drowned continental shelf systems. Or a shift in the position of the equatorial bulge. The situation in northern Australia is a case in point. The research has found evidence of migration over wide geograpical parts of what is now the Philippines and Indonesia. How much of the region was connected to SE Asia is a debated question but here the researchers say that it is not possible that all of the Philippines had a land bridge and sophisticated boat travel, probably, once again, played a role in the movement of people.
At https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/06/9000-year-old-dna-just-turned-human-history-on-its-head/ … presented as a dramatic shift in ideas but also one that would have been obious to 19th century anthropologists. DNA from 9 skeletons in South Africa, found in rock shelters on the southern coast, date back 9000 years – the very early Holocene period. It suggests, rather strongly, that genetic lineage wih minimal outside influence, existed in the region until 1300 years ago. In other words, San people, or Bushmen, have been in occupation of southern Africa for the whole of the Holocene. However, 1300 years ago, a combination of pastoral people from East Africa and Bantu farmers from West Africa, migrated into the region – and San isolation came to an end.