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Landmark Oceania archaeological

Ubirr Rock Art

22,000 years ago

Aboriginal rock-art galleries on sandstone outliers in Kakadu, Australia, depicting extinct megafauna, X-ray-style fish, and early contact with outsiders.

See the deep-time shelf

22,000 years ago — older than the timeline's axis, which begins at 9000 BCE. Drawn to the same scale as the rest of the canvas, everything since would be a single pixel, so Ubirr Rock Art sits on the deep-time shelf instead.

Who held this ground

Borders from dated snapshots, up to a century apart; precision varies.

Reconstruction

  1. Aboriginal tribes (3000 BCE) Border precision: Approximate
  2. Australian aboriginal hunter-gatherers (2000 BCE–1815 CE) Border precision: Approximate
  3. Northern Territory (UK) (1880 CE–1900 CE) Border precision: Defined
  4. Australia (1914 CE–2026 CE) Border precision: Defined
Border precision
  • Defined
  • Approximate

Elsewhere in Oceania at the time

Records whose own span overlaps this one, found by the same test the canvas draws with. The bar under each card is where it sits inside this one.

Landmark · Oceania

Great Barrier Reef

3000 BCE – still standing

Polity · Oceania

Malaysian Islamic states

Attested 1492 CE – 1600 CE

Trade route · Oceania

Lapita Expansion (Western Polynesia)

1500 BCE – 500 BCE

Conflict · Oceania

Musket Wars

1807 CE – 1845 CE

Landmark · Oceania

Komodo Island

3000 BCE – still standing

Polity · Oceania

Austronesians

Attested 3000 BCE – 400 BCE

Conflict · Oceania

Wars of Majapahit

1293 CE – 1527 CE

Landmark · Oceania

Uluru (Ayers Rock)

3000 BCE – still standing

Dated moments inside this span

Events the timeline places between 20000 BCE and 2026 CE.

8000 BCE Kuk Early Agricultural Site 6600 BCE Budj Bim Cultural Landscape 1000 BCE Teouma Lapita Cemetery 800 CE Borobudur 850 CE Prambanan 1000 CE Pura Besakih

And in the rest of the world

Records running through the same years, on the other side of the map.

Grand Canyon Landmark · Americas 3000 BCE – still standing Tibet Polity · South Asia 1000 CE – 1960 CE World War I Conflict · Europe 1914 CE – 1918 CE Nile River Trade Trade route · Middle East 3000 BCE – 30 BCE Sargon of Akkad Figure · Mesopotamia 2334 BCE – 2279 BCE Plitvice Lakes Landmark · Europe 3000 BCE – still standing
Image credits 5 pictures from Wikimedia Commons