section_path: Homo sapiens/Coastal migration/Nearby Oceania
section_name: Nearby Oceania
paragraph_text: Nearby Oceania
  
  Migrations continued along the Asian coast to Southeast Asia and Oceania, colonising Australia by around 65,000–50,000 years ago. By reaching Australia, H. sapiens for the first time expanded its habitat beyond that of H. erectus. Denisovan ancestry is shared by Melanesians, Aboriginal Australians, and smaller scattered groups of people in Southeast Asia, such as the Mamanwa, a Negrito people in the Philippines, suggesting the interbreeding took place in Eastern Asia where the Denisovans lived. Denisovans may have crossed the Wallace Line, with Wallacea serving as their last refugium. Homo erectus had crossed the Lombok gap reaching as far as Flores, but never made it to Australia.
  
  During this time sea level was much lower and most of Maritime Southeast Asia formed one land mass known as Sunda. Migration continued Southeast on the coastal route to the straits between Sunda and Sahul, the continental land mass of present-day Australia and New Guinea. The gaps on the Weber Line are up to 90 km wide, so the migration to Australia and New Guinea would have required seafaring skills. Migration also continued along the coast eventually turning northeast to China and finally reaching Japan before turning inland. This is evidenced by the pattern of mitochondrial haplogroups descended from haplogroup M, and in Y-chromosome haplogroup C.
  
  Sequencing of one Aboriginal genome from an old hair sample in Western Australia revealed that the individual was descended from people who migrated into East Asia between 62,000 and 75,000 years ago. This supports the theory of a single migration into Australia and New Guinea before the arrival of Modern Asians (between 25,000 and 38,000 years ago) and their later migration into North America. This migration is believed to have happened around 50,000 years ago, before Australia and New Guinea were separated by rising sea levels approximately 8,000 years ago. This is supported by a date of 50,000–60,000 years ago for the oldest evidence of settlement in Australia, around 40,000 years ago for the oldest human remains, the earliest humans artifacts which are at least 65,000 years old and the extinction of the Australian megafauna by humans between 46,000 and 15,000 years ago argued by Tim Flannery, which is similar to what happened in the Americas. The continued use of Stone Age tools in Australia has been much debated.