Episode 8.4 · 18 min
how the first people reached Australia and the Americas during the Ice Age
How did people cross open sea to reach Sahul, then find a way through the Ice Age world into the Americas? This episode follows those extraordinary journeys, from planned voyages toward Australia and New Guinea to life on Beringia, the White Sands footprints, and the spread of people across two continents. It also asks what happened to the giant animals they encountered—and what remains uncertain about who arrived first.
Watch this film on YouTube ↗Visual credits
42 sourcesSources and credits for imagery used in this film, including material incorporated into explanatory animations.
White Sands fossil footprints
U.S. Geological Survey
View original source ↗Source licence: Public domainThylacoleo skeleton, Naracoorte Caves
Karora
View original source ↗Source licence: Public domainZygomaturus trilobus
Paleocolour
View original source ↗Source licence: CC0 1.0Lake Mungo panorama
Davidspicerj
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY-SA 4.0Inside Liang Bua cave, Flores
Felix Dance
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 2.0Columbian mammoth discovered with Clovis points
James St. John
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 2.0Salmon River at Cooper's Ferry, Idaho
Roger Peterson, U.S. Forest Service Northern Region
View original source ↗Source licence: Public domainLeang Karampuang rock art, Figure 3
A. A. Oktaviana et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 4.0Selected photograph and tracing panels cropped from the published figure. The authors enhanced the photographic panorama using DStretch_ac_lds_cb.
© The Author(s) 2024. Nature 631, 814–818.
Liang Metanduno hand stencils, Figure 2
A. A. Oktaviana et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0Photograph and digital tracing shown as separate panel crops.
© The Author(s) 2026, modified publication 2026.
Diprotodon skeleton
Ghedoghedo
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY-SA 3.0Burnt Genyornis eggshell, Figure 2
G. H. Miller et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 4.0Photographic panels a and b cropped from the published figure.
Nature Communications 7, 10496 (2016).
Diprotodon, Natural History Museum, London
John Cummings
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY-SA 3.0Cooper's Ferry projectile points, Figure 4
L. G. Davis et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 4.0Figure cropped from the published article.
Science Advances 8, eade1248 (2022).
Sahul megafauna sites, Figure 1
S. A. Hocknull et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 4.0Figure cropped from the published article. The authors composited the basemap and altered it to delineate Lake Carpentaria.
© Crown 2020. Nature Communications 11, 2250. Basemap sources credited by the authors: NOAA NGDC shoreline data, GNU Lesser General Public License v3 or later, https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/shorelines/; Geoscience Australia drainage basin data (2013), CC BY 4.0, https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/f55ec9b3-ab74-4056-93a2-b4b8aa65ead1; T. Whiteway / Geoscience Australia, Australian Bathymetry and Topography Grid (June 2009), CC BY 4.0, https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/australian-bathymetry-and-topography-grid-june-2009.
NADI-1 North American ice margins, Figure 5
April S. Dalton et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 4.0Ice-sheet outlines traced, simplified and animated in original maps. Source arrows, lettering and legends omitted; schematic opening and retreat states added.
© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Quaternary Science Reviews 321, 108345.
White Sands dating stratigraphy, Figure 2
J. S. Pigati et al.
Panel A, the composite stratigraphy and dating results, cropped from the published figure.
Copyright © 2023 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Science 382, 73–75 (2023).
Diprotodon and Genyornis skeletons
David Jackmanson
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 4.0Mammoth panorama with bison
Chris Light
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY-SA 4.0Walls of China, Mungo National Park
Caroline Jones
View original source ↗Source licence: CC0 1.0Crossing the Kuroshio
Yousuke Kaifu et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY-ND©2025 Kaifu et al. CC-By-ND. University of Tokyo, “Ancient canoe replica tests Paleolithic migration theory,” 26 June 2025. Photograph of the 2019 experimental voyage.
Building a canoe the old-fashioned way
Yousuke Kaifu et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY-ND©2025 Kaifu et al. CC-BY-ND. University of Tokyo, “Ancient canoe replica tests Paleolithic migration theory,” 26 June 2025. Experimental canoe construction using replica tools.
Lake Mungo from Landsat 9
Wanmei Liang, NASA Earth Observatory; U.S. Geological Survey
View original source ↗Source licence: Public domainNASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
MISR Sights the Bering Strait
NASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Team
View original source ↗Source licence: Public domainNASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Team.
Mastodon skeleton, Museum of the Earth
Jayu
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY-SA 2.0Paleontological Research Institution, Museum of the Earth, Ithaca, New York.
Megalonyx skeleton, Natural History Museum of Utah
Daderot
View original source ↗Source licence: CC0 1.0Liang Metanduno hand-stencil photograph, Figure 2a
A. A. Oktaviana et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0Photographic panel cropped from the published figure.
© The Author(s) 2026, modified publication 2026.
Burnt Genyornis eggshell fragments, Figure 2a
G. H. Miller et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 4.0Photographic panel cropped from the published figure.
Nature Communications 7, 10496 (2016).
Blackened Genyornis eggshell fragment, Figure 2b
G. H. Miller et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 4.0Photographic panel cropped from the published figure.
Nature Communications 7, 10496 (2016).
Leang Karampuang painted-scene tracing, Figure 3c
A. A. Oktaviana et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 4.0Tracing panel cropped from the published figure.
© The Author(s) 2024. Nature 631, 814–818.
Leang Karampuang rock-art panorama, Figure 3a
A. A. Oktaviana et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 4.0Photographic panel cropped from the published figure. The authors enhanced the panorama using DStretch_ac_lds_cb.
© The Author(s) 2024. Nature 631, 814–818.
Liang Metanduno hand-stencil tracing, Figure 2b
A. A. Oktaviana et al.
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0Digital tracing panel cropped from the published figure.
© The Author(s) 2026, modified publication 2026.
White Sands composite stratigraphy, Figure 2A
J. S. Pigati et al.
Stratigraphy panel cropped from the published figure.
Copyright © 2023 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Science 382, 73–75 (2023).
Human fossilized footprints, White Sands National Park
National Park Service, White Sands National Park
View original source ↗Source licence: Public domainSelected excerpts.
Courtesy of the National Park Service.
Columbian mammoth footprints, White Sands National Park
National Park Service, White Sands National Park
View original source ↗Source licence: Public domainSelected excerpts.
Courtesy of the National Park Service.
Footprint trench research, White Sands National Park
National Park Service, White Sands National Park
View original source ↗Source licence: Public domainSelected excerpt.
Courtesy of the National Park Service.
Clovis Lanceolate
Steve Davis; RLA Archaeology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
View original source ↗Source licence: CC0 1.03D model rendered as a turntable animation by AgentHouse.
McLean Clovis Projectile Point
Museum of Texas Tech University
View original source ↗Source licence: CC BY 4.03D model rendered as a turntable animation by AgentHouse.
Natural Earth land polygons, 1:50 million
Tom Patterson, Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso and Natural Earth contributors
View original source ↗Source licence: Public domainLand polygons projected, styled and animated in original maps.
Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com.
ETOPO 2022 Global Relief Model: Sunda–Sahul subset
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
View original source ↗Source licence: Free use and redistributionRegional subset sampled at 2 arc-minute spacing via NOAA CoastWatch ERDDAP; elevation thresholds used to draw exposed shelves and land at an illustrative sea level.
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (2022), ETOPO 2022 15 Arc-Second Global Relief Model. doi:10.25921/fd45-gt74.
GEBCO 2026 Grid: Wallacea subset
GEBCO Bathymetric Compilation Group 2026
Wallacea subset used to derive exposed land, straits and crossing gaps at an illustrative sea level; combined with ETOPO relief in original animations.
GEBCO Bathymetric Compilation Group 2026 (2026). The GEBCO_2026 Grid - a continuous terrain model for oceans and land at 15 arc-second intervals. doi:10.5285/4f68d5c7-45eb-f999-e063-7086abc036fa. The GEBCO Grid should NOT be used for navigation or for any other purpose involving safety at sea.
ETOPO 2022 Global Relief Model: eastern Beringia subset
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
View original source ↗Source licence: Free use and redistributionRegional subset sampled at 2 arc-minute spacing via NOAA CoastWatch ERDDAP, joined to the western subset at the antimeridian and thresholded to illustrate exposed and flooded shelves.
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (2022), ETOPO 2022 15 Arc-Second Global Relief Model. doi:10.25921/fd45-gt74.
ETOPO 2022 Global Relief Model: western Beringia subset
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
View original source ↗Source licence: Free use and redistributionRegional subset sampled at 2 arc-minute spacing via NOAA CoastWatch ERDDAP, joined to the eastern subset at the antimeridian and thresholded to illustrate exposed and flooded shelves.
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (2022), ETOPO 2022 15 Arc-Second Global Relief Model. doi:10.25921/fd45-gt74.
Stock footage
56 itemsLicensed stock footage used in this film, with each item’s creator and source page.
Dense Stone Forests Of Rammang-Rammang Village In Maros Near Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Ae
BlackBoxGuild
Aerial view of karst mountains and lush valleys in Maros, Indonesia.
AmazingAerial
Aerial View of Large Caribou Herd Moving Across Field
Vitema
Bison Herd Grazing in a Golden Prairie
duallogic
Close up of bison moving through heavy winter snow in Yellowstone National Park.
BlackBoxGuild
Kepa Island Alor Indonesia Aerial View of the Kepa Island and Alor Island in Indonesia
duckdivetales
The Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) walking in Komodo island, Indonesia
PD-media
Guanacos Grazing in Patagonian Landscape from Above
siriusimagens
Tropical turquoise sea and lush green trees. Alor Island, Indonesia
duckdivetales
Grassy Terrain And Wetlands At Kakadu National Park In Northern Territory, Australia. - Aerial Drone
BlackBoxGuild
Sand Dunes at Mungo National Park, New South Wales, Australia Aerial Drone 4K
joshtagi
Deep Blue Ocean Waves with Whitecaps in Bright Daylight
Pro-Studio
Aerial Shot of Braided River Channels in a Vast Arctic Tundra
BlackBoxGuild
Cinematic Drone Glide Over Tundra Lakes and Marshland Chukotka Russia
TDFly
Brooks Range tundra forests with multibranch streams formed from melted ice and snow in Alaska durin
BlackBoxGuild
Breathtaking And Aerial View Of Lake Baikal
DELOZA
Tropical Beach Waves at Golden Sunrise
MikkoVideos
Scenic drone flight over a shallow lagoon in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska
BlackBoxGuild
Aerial View of a Braided Glacial River
BlackBoxGuild
Soaring over the rainforest and through the fog one early morning in Tasmania Australia
BlackBoxGuild
Drone flyover dense tropical rainforest of New Guinea.
BlackBoxGuild
Common Wombat Feeding On Grassy Hills Of Maria Island In Tasmania, Australia. wide shot
BlackBoxGuild
Bird eye view of a patch of kelp forest in the Pacific Northwest in Canada.
BlackBoxGuild
Aerial Drone View of a Massive Arctic Glacier Terminus and Coastline
skrip169
Ice calving from the glacier in Alaska due to climate change. Ice melting in Alaska, Margerie glacie
BlackBoxGuild
A wild emu standing in a wild flower field in spring time, outback Australia.
BlackBoxGuild
Kangaroo Grazing with Baby Joey in Pouch
silverstudio778
Aerial drone perspective over White Sands National Park in New Mexico
BlackBoxGuild
Green Foothills of the Spanish Peaks, Within the Madison Mountain Range, Near
HeroImages
bright white gypsum dune fields at White Sands National Park, New Mexico, displaying rolling
BlackBoxGuild
British Columbia Circa-2018. Flying Over Inlets And Islands Along The British Columbia Coast. Sho...
ShiftDrive
Isolated tropical Northern Australia coast in Kimberley region, Aerial tracking forward
BlackBoxGuild
Mud Sandflats in Derby, Kimberley, Western Australia 4K Aerial Drone
joshtagi
Western Australia Outback Looma Camballin Kimberley landscape red rocks drone aerial aboriginal land
BlackBoxGuild
Boab tree Western Australia Outback Kimberley landscape drone aerial Looma Camballin aboriginal land
BlackBoxGuild
Flight Over the Sea Surface Towards the Volcano Alor Island Indonesia
duckdivetales
Aerial view of a volcanic island with a crater lake, Indonesia.
AmazingAerial
Aerial View of River Flowing Through Dense Forest
BlackBoxGuild
Ocean Waves Rolling Gently to Shoreline
PolonioVideo
Cruising along the Adelaide River in Australia's Northern Territory, passing dense mangrove forests
BlackBoxGuild
View from the mountains of Papua New Guinea.
BlackBoxGuild
Dramatic Aerial View of Rocky Coastline and Ocean Waves
joshtagi
Wide Aerial Orbit of Lush Tropical Coastline and Blue Sea in Flores Indonesia
ryanpadjo27
Aerial view of vast tundra with winding river
TDFly
Drone Shot of Rugged Tundra Landscape Under Cloudy Sky
TDFly
Tiger Walking Through Lush Green Forest
geargodz
Majestic One-Horned Rhinoceros Grazing Peacefully in Forest
BlackBoxGuild
Orangutan Climbing in Tropical Rainforest Canopy
BlackBoxGuild
Tuna Swimming in Deep Blue Open Ocean
BlackBoxGuild
Aerial view of Australian outback dry desert landscape
BlackBoxGuild
Florida Alexander Springs Underwater Wildlife Fresh Water Vegetation and Wild Fish Beautiful
bilanol
Pine Tree Blowing Pollen in Springtime Breeze
BlackBoxGuild
Mountain Lakes Of Tierra del Fuego National Park In Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Timelapse
BlackBoxGuild
Wolf Trotting Through a Snowy Winter Forest
Mikekolesnikov
Close Up of Sparkling Sand and Seashells
PhotOleh
Dramatic Desert Landscape with Distant Rainfall Cloud
BlackBoxGuild
Research references
Selected sources from the episode’s research and scientific figures.
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- NOAA study 19982 ↗
- Kealy, Louys & O'Connor 2018 ↗
- Bradshaw et al. 2019 ↗
- Kaifu 2025 ↗
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- Meltzer 2020 ↗
- Metcalf et al. 2016 ↗
- Massone and colleagues 2026, Tres Arroyos 1 ↗
- Pico 2020 ↗
- Tides and the migration to Sahul ↗
- ANU repository PDF ↗
- institutional abstract ↗
- Chang 2025 ↗
- National Museum of Nature and Science page ↗
- University of Tokyo dugout press images ↗
- Bednarik 2000, Anthropos 95:37–47 ↗
- project account ↗
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- Williams and colleagues' termite/site-formation study, author manuscript ↗
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- Kaifu et al. 2024 ↗
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- team's UCL account ↗
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- Larena et al. 2021 ↗
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- WA government / museum account ↗
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- Australian Museum ↗
- Queensland Museum guide ↗
- Flinders author PDF ↗
- publisher release ↗
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- DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10511 ↗
- Rule et al. 2012 ↗
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- USGS FS 2025-3046 ↗
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- Holliday et al. 2025 ↗
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- Davis et al. 2019 ↗
- Davis 2022 ↗
- Nakatsuka et al. 2020 ↗
- Surovell et al. 2026 ↗
- University of Wyoming's source-team account ↗
- lead author's publication list ↗
- Raghavan et al. 2014 ↗
- Moreno-Mayar et al. 2018 ↗
- Skoglund et al. 2015 ↗
- NPS fossil-footprint media ↗
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- https://doi.org/10.1080/20555563.2026.2644781): ↗
- NPS Waco summary ↗
- NPS Tule Springs ↗
- Author PDF ↗
- Grayson & Meltzer 2002 ↗
- restatement ↗
- 2015 reassessment ↗
- author copy ↗
- Surovell & Waguespack 2008 ↗
- author PDF ↗
- Ben A. Potter et al. 2026 ↗
- Bustos et al. 2018 ↗
- Graf et al. 2026 ↗
- Halligan et al. 2016 ↗
- Hocknull et al. 2009 ↗
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- Hands in Pettakere Cave.jpg ↗
- Diprotodon optatum display WA.jpg ↗
- ULiège LB1 skull and jaw ↗
- MGL LB1 cast photograph ↗
- footprints media page ↗
- Clovis point NHMU DSC07376 ↗
- RLA Clovis Lanceolate ↗
- McLean Clovis Projectile Point ↗
- OCPC Columbian Mammoth Skull ↗
- Smithsonian woolly mammoth STL ↗
- Mal'ta mammoth engraving drawing ↗
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Woolly-mammoth-150k_(Smithsonian_Institution).stl ↗
- https://www.nps.gov/nps-audiovideo/audiovideo/ ↗
Music
- Original score
AgentHouse · Project-made score (From Cosmos to Civilization score catalog v4 with bespoke opening and closing)
Impulse responses: Detmold University of Music SRIR database, CC BY 4.0.
Footage and image usage
Credits and usage times retained from the published edition or its production credit record. Where present, times identify visual appearances, not documentary chapters. Source and licence corrections are listed in the visual credits above.
- A. A. Oktaviana et al. — 2:51-2:54, 2:54-2:56, 3:07-3:10, 3:10-3:19
- AmazingAerial — 2:37-2:43, 3:04-3:07
- April S. Dalton et al. — 12:18-12:25, 12:28-12:40, 13:00-13:06, 14:01-14:07, 14:37-14:46, 16:12-16:20, 17:53-18:01
- bilanol — 14:07-14:13
- BlackBoxGuild — 1:58-1:59, 1:59-2:01, 2:56-3:04, 5:12-5:18, 5:33-5:43, 7:13-7:15, 7:27-7:29, 7:57-7:59, 7:59-8:04, 8:14-8:18, 8:18-8:19, 9:13-9:19, 9:29-9:32, 9:56-10:01, 10:26-10:28, 10:28-10:31, 11:50-11:52, 12:13-12:17, 12:40-12:42, 13:17-13:23, 13:23-13:27, 14:13-14:18, 14:48-14:51, 16:23-16:25, 17:26-17:30, 17:30-17:32, 17:32-17:33, 17:33-17:35
- Caroline Jones — 10:10-10:15
- Chris Light — 17:02-17:08
- Daderot — 16:57-16:59
- David Jackmanson — 7:21-7:23
- Davidspicerj — 10:22-10:26
- DELOZA — 15:29-15:35
- duallogic — 11:53-11:55
- duckdivetales — 2:10-2:15, 3:57-4:01, 4:10-4:12
- Felix Dance — 3:35-3:44
- G. H. Miller et al. — 8:43-8:48, 8:48-8:51
- geargodz — 1:54-1:58
- GEBCO Bathymetric Compilation Group 2026 — 1:20-1:51, 2:15-2:33, 4:01-4:10, 8:08-8:14
- Ghedoghedo — 7:06-7:13
- HeroImages — 12:42-12:45
- J. S. Pigati et al. — 14:21-14:27
- James St. John — 16:39-16:45
- Jayu — 16:47-16:51
- John Cummings — 8:28-8:36
- joshtagi — 8:19-8:23, 9:36-9:42, 10:05-10:10
- Karora — 7:40-7:45
- L. G. Davis et al. — 13:12-13:17
- Mikekolesnikov — 18:34-18:40
- MikkoVideos — 4:12-4:16
- Museum of Texas Tech University — 17:12-17:18
- NASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Team — 18:01-18:03
- National Park Service, White Sands National Park — 13:45-13:48, 13:48-13:51, 13:51-13:54, 14:27-14:33, 14:33-14:37, 15:06-15:11, 17:40-17:47, 17:47-17:53
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information — 1:20-1:51, 2:15-2:33, 4:01-4:10, 8:08-8:14, 11:34-11:45, 12:17-12:25, 12:28-12:40, 13:00-13:06, 14:01-14:07, 14:37-14:46, 16:12-16:20, 17:53-18:01
- Paleocolour — 8:36-8:40
- PD-media — 3:30-3:35
- PhotOleh — 14:18-14:21
- PolonioVideo — 0:43-0:48
- Pro-Studio — 1:51-1:54
- Roger Peterson, U.S. Forest Service Northern Region — 13:06-13:12
- ryanpadjo27 — 3:19-3:25
- S. A. Hocknull et al. — 9:42-9:47
- ShiftDrive — 14:51-14:54
- silverstudio778 — 2:01-2:10
- siriusimagens — 16:29-16:35
- skrip169 — 12:25-12:28
- Steve Davis; RLA Archaeology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — 12:52-13:00
- TDFly — 0:57-1:03, 11:45-11:50, 15:38-15:43
- Tom Patterson, Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso and Natural Earth contributors — 1:16-1:51, 2:15-2:33, 4:01-4:10, 8:08-8:14, 10:35-10:37, 11:08-11:25, 11:33-11:45, 12:17-12:25, 12:28-12:40, 13:00-13:06, 14:01-14:07, 14:37-14:46, 16:12-16:20, 17:53-18:01, 18:03-18:15
- U.S. Geological Survey — 13:54-14:01
- Vitema — 11:55-11:57
- Wanmei Liang, NASA Earth Observatory; U.S. Geological Survey — 10:15-10:22
- Yousuke Kaifu et al. — 4:22-4:28, 4:28-4:35
How this film was made
Created and editorially directed by Anders Lunde using a custom production system developed over six months. AI assists research, drafting, programming, and visual production; I review and edit the material and make the final editorial decisions. Narration uses text-to-speech. Visuals combine custom-built scientific animations, AI-generated reconstructions, and credited scientific imagery.
Generated reconstructions illustrate scientific interpretations. They are distinct from photographs, specimens, and measured data.
More about the creator and production →