Southeast Asia Philippines. The eastern half of Indonesia and East Timor (east of the Wallace Line) are considered to be biogeographically part of Oceania (Wallacea) due to its distinctive faunal features. New Guinea and its surrounding islands are geologically considered as a part of Australian continent, connected via the Sahul Shelf. The region was already inhabited by Homo erectus from 1,000,000 years ago during the Middle Pleistocene age. "Homo sapiens" reached the region by around 45,000 years ago, having moved eastwards from the Indian subcontinent. Rock art (parietal art) dating from 40,000 years ago (which is currently the world's oldest) has been
Sunda Shelf these areas of the Asian continental shelf that were exposed during the last ice age. Sundaland included the Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainland, as well as the large islands of Borneo, Java, and Sumatra and their surrounding islands. The same steep undersea gradients that mark the eastern boundary of Sundaland are identified biogeographically by the Wallace Line, identified by Alfred Russel Wallace, which marks the eastern boundary of Asia's land mammal fauna, and is the boundary of the Indomalaya and Australasia ecozones. The shelf has resulted from millennia of volcanic activity and erosion of the Asian continental mass, and