Timor Island might not have been a stepping stone. Many archeologists have theorized that the island, served as a sort of way station for travelers en route to destinations further south and east, like Australia. The island lies southeast of Indonesia and about 450 miles from Australia’s northern coast.
But the sheer number of artifacts — and the fact that many dated to the same time period about 45,000 years ago — instead indicates the island was targeted for colonization, according to a study in Nature Communications.
