Page 214 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

The sea level at present is about the same as it was 7,000 years ago (Lambeck et al.,
2014) . The single land mass of Sundaland has been replaced with a patchwork of islands.
Any early humans who wanted to migrate would have had to have used seafaring skills and
sailing technology. The period when the sea level was at its lowest, about 800,000 years
ago, coincided with the movement of early pre-humans. This area is now part of a shallow
sea of less than 200 meters.
Sea levels are also thought to have aided the first emergence of the earliest human
ancestors from Africa about two million years ago. Below graphic shows how changes in
CO2 and CH4 levels influence global temperatures which in turn cause the fluctuation of
average sea levels.

The dynamics of global climate sensitivity and its relation to the content of CO2 and CH4
(Hansen et al., 2013)

214 Chapter 5

MELANESIA BOOK FA LAYOUT 051216.indd 214 2/10/17 2:10 PM