The Australian Aborigines (or what are now called such) first reached Australia from the Indonesian islands. Even from the closest islands to Australia (Timor and Tanimbar), the new continent is invisible on the horizon, even considering the decline in sea levels due to glaciations. The Aborigines must therefore have crossed the deep sea channel in boats equipped with advanced technology, developed almost 40,000 years (!) before any other civilization on the planet! This (enormous) initial advantage, however, was not enough for the Aborigines to dominate the other civilizations on the planet, due to severe local environmental constraints, such as the absence of significant domesticatable species (perhaps due to extermination by the Aborigines themselves).
