First Footprints

70,000 years ago modern people are confined to Africa. But one tenacious bunch races across Asia and makes the first open-ocean crossing in human history. They encounter Sahul or Greater Australia - a virgin continent full of weird and deadly megafauna,

For thousands of years, people live with Australia's strange and ferocious megafauna like the 6-meter giant lizard Megalania and the marsupial lion. These beasts all become extinct as massive climate change hits Australia brought on by the Last Ice Age.

Fifteen thousand years ago, melting polar icecaps send 25% of Greater Australia under water. New Guinea and Tasmania are permanently severed. The isolation of Tasmania has profound consequences on diet, language, and technology.

9,000 years ago agriculture started in different parts of the planet - The Middle East, China and Greater Australia in the Highlands of New Guinea. Agriculture spread to the Torres Strait but not to mainland Australia.