Oldest plant artefact found outside Africa reveals Pacific's role in early human migration

This palaeo-island split into a series of smaller islands including Waigeo at the end of the Ice Age, when sea levels rose. The latter was directly dated at the University of Oxford’s radiocarbon accelerator to show it is 55,000–50,000 years old and the oldest plant artefact made by our species outside of Africa. The study ‘Human dispersal and plant processing in the Pacific 55,000–50,000 years ago’ has been published in Antiquity. This is based on the islands of Waigeo and Batanta which were connected during the last Ice Age. Mololo, meaning the place where the currents come together, since it is an area of choppy water and whirlpools.