At https://phys.org/news/2025-12-humans-australia-years-routes-dna.html … a new study claims Aboriginal peoples first entered Australia 60,000 years ago. This would include the peoples of New Guinea and Tasmania as one land mass known as Sahul. Basically, Indonesia beyond the Wallace line. This seems a rather convenient change from the Out of Africa date that had a between 47,000 and 51,000 years ago squeeze in. Genetic studies have favoured the short chronology but why this is so is not crystal clear. It is something to do with the mix of older human types with modern human types which appears to be transfixed towards the Out of Africa theory. The slightly longer date of 60,000 years ago provides time for modern humans to reach Sahul – but would that include new immigrants out of Africa? It would rely on the idea modern humans were around before 50,000 years ago.
Archaeological confirmation of either set of dates is hampered by lack of evidence of human activity. Or, at leat, archaeology that can be reliably dated. It is the dating issue that is the major stumbling block, it would appear. Various methods have been used to date sediments and rock art, for example. Genetic methods have also been used to deliver a likely date but they use certain parameters which may be invalid. In the latest study we have 2,456 DNA samples from not just Austraila but New Guinea and Pacific islands such as the Solomons. Molecular clock techniques have also been used in the study and these are thought to isolate mutations over a given period of time. It doesn’t take into consideration the idea of catastrophic events, such as the Laschamp magnetic reversal around 42,000 years ago, as having any bearing on the dating process. See https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.ady9493 …
At https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/12/skhul-child-first-hybrid-human-neanderthal/ …. an update on the Neanderthal child found in a cave on Mount Carmel. The bones are thought to date to the last interglacial period – somewhere close to the onset. In this case, around 140,000 years ago. According to analysis of the skull the child exhibits features in common with both Neanderthals and modern humans.We are now told the child was not entirely modern human, as once claimed, but is an hybrid between the two. Apparently, the top of the skull, or rounded cranium, looks remarkably like modern humans. However, its jaw, and below, is very similar to that of Neanderthal. So much so that the excavators have been blamed for erroneously putting the skull together. As that was in the early 20th century they aren’t around to argue otherwise. Neither is it clear which bit of the skull is dated to 140,000 years ago. Other critics, however, say morphology alone cannot confirm interbreeding. DNA ia required.