Re: Mouse click reveals ancient coastline of Sahul, the ancient continet

On Oct 3, 6:01 am, Jack Linthicum <jacklinthi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Australian university project creates a version of the Google Earth
that shifts the area known as Australasia in time, creating the
ability to visualize the environment of the original sea-bourn
settlers of Australia.

News in Science - Mouse click reveals ancient coastline - 03/10/2007

[This is the print version of storyhttp://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/2044960.htm]

Mouse click reveals ancient coastline
Anna Salleh
ABC Science Online

Wednesday,?3?October?2007

at sea
How exactly humans migrated across oceans is a key question in
archaeology. Now a new tool brings theories to life (Image:
iStockphoto)

The changing shape of Australasia can now be seen in a new interactive
digital map that mimics the rise and fall of sea levels over the past
100,000 years.

The map also has pop-up images and text about key archaeological sites
and possible routes humans took from Asia to Australia during the last
ice age.

"What I've done is take a lot of the paradigms of Google Earth and
extend them by the extra dimension of time," says designer, Matthew
Coller who presented his map at the recent Australasian Archaeological
Conference at the University of Sydney.

Understanding the effect of sea level changes over time is fundamental
to archaeology, says Coller, a Monash University multimedia lecturer
with an interest in archaeology.

He wanted to find a way to visualise such changes to help both the
general public and archaeologists better understand routes of human
migration and other archaeological questions.

Coller used data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration and Geoscience Australia of the sea floor and changes
in sea level around Australia and Asia.

He then embedded other information into the map, which can be made to
appear at different periods through time.

By sliding a marker back and forwards, you can see how coastlines
changed, when it might have been possible for humans to cross land
bridges or to island hop between continents.

By hovering over or clicking on various icons possible migration
routes from Asia to Australia become visible.

It is also possible to see photographs of various locations as they
appear at times and information boxes on archaeological theories.

Important archaeological sites such as Lake Mungo are also tagged at
the appropriate time.

Theories come to life

The map is called Sahul Time, after the name for the ancient continent
of Australia and New Guinea.

Coller hopes it will be useful for archaeologists in visualising their
data and testing theories.

"Often the process of concretising these difficult concepts makes it
easier to form a mental model so you can analyse things at a deeper
level," he says.

As well as helping archaeologists, Coller hopes the map will help to
communicate archaeology to the public.

"It puts archaeologists' discoveries into the geo-morphological
context," he says.

He hopes ongoing input from archaeologists will help him improve the
map.

"It's not a piece of crappy multimedia that doesn't change," he says.
"It will be updated as theories change."

http://www.archaeologynews.org/story.asp?ID=233086&Title=Mouse%20clic...

SahulTime
Sahul, the ancient Australia-PNG continent
Click to enter SahulTime

Imagine we could turn back time and view Australia's ancient past.
What would we see?

During the Ice Age, sea levels fluctuated much lower than today's
levels, and Australia and PNG were connected as a single continent
(known to archaeologists as 'Sahul'). The first settlement of
Australia probably occurred around this time, when the sea voyage from
the Eurasian continent (Sunda) was a set of shorter 'island hops'.

SahulTime is a Monash research project that presents an interactive
model of the Australia/PNG continent over the last 100,000 years.

You can explore SahulTime here. SahulTime is still a work-in-progress,
and further functionality will be added with time.

The concept of SahulTime is similar to GoogleEarth, except that
SahulTime extends each of GoogleEarth's paradigms through a further
dimension in time. Satellite-style images change to reflect
coastlines, the icons are time-aware, and even photographs can can be
taken through a timewarp to view reconstructed ancient landscapes.
System requirements:

Flash Player: Get Adobe Flash Player
At least 1024 x 768 screen resolution
Fast Internet connection (500kB download)

SahulTime is a collaborative research project between Matthew Coller,
lecturer in Multimedia, and the Monash Faculty of Arts (Centre for GIS
and Centre for Indigenous Archaeology.

http://sahultime.monash.edu.au/

Wow tghis ios too cool. I've been needing something like this for a
long time.

Do you happen to have a map of the paleolithic world showing each
continent/regions exploited resources?

i.e. where's the richest flint, obsidian, ivory, etc circa 28,000 BC?

.

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