r ecever reason, gave it up. It o say t.”

    As it turned out, t deal else to be puzzled about, and one of tpuzzling findings of all  of tback ofAustralia. In 1968, a geologist named Jim Boed caugicking out of a crescent-sype knote ime, it  ralia for no more t Mungo was anyone doing in sucable place?

    ting,  tat, a dozen miles long, full of er and fis groves of casuarina trees. to everyone’s astonis, turnedout to be 23,000 years old. Oted to as much as 60,000 years.

    ted to t of seeming practically impossible. At no time since arose on Eartralia not been an island. Any  o start a breeding population, aftercrossing sixty miles or more of open er   aconvenient landfall aed tralia’s nort—t ofentry—o a report in tional Academy ofSciences, “t people may  arrived substantially earlier than 60,000 years ago.”

    tions t can’t be ansomost antexts, t people could even speak 60,000 years ago,mucs of cooperative efforts necessary to build ocean- andcolonize island continents.

    “t a  kno ts of people before recordedory,” Alan told me ury ants first got to Papua Neerior, in some of t inaccessible terrain on eartpotatoes. S potatoes are native to Sout to Papua Ne kno est idea. But ain is t people raditionally t, andalmost certainly sion.”

    ts of to term preservation of e goatee and an intent but friendly manner. “If it  for a feiveareas like  Africa le. And le. t oneancient  300,000 years ago. Betnam—t’s adistance of some 5,000 kilometers—t tal in Uzbekistan