Editing 5th millennium BC (section)

===Oceania===
*The powerful chiefdoms of the [[Indigenous people of New Guinea|Proto-Papuan polities]] continue to practice and advance their agricultural system. In the form of ancient irrigation systems in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, are being studied by archaeologists. The [[New Guinea Highlands]] with immense population density were an early and independent center of agriculture, with evidence of irrigation going back at least 10,000 years.<ref>"The team also dated features consistent with the planting, digging, and tethering of plants and localized drainage systems to 10,000 years ago. Mounds constructed to plant water-intolerant plants such as bananas, sugarcane, and yams are dated to about 6,500 years ago." "Was Papua New Guinea an Early Agriculture Pioneer?" By John Roach, for ''National Geographic News'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20050311082543/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/06/0623_030623_kukagriculture.html June 23, 2003]</ref> [[Sugarcane]] continued to be farmed on mass scale since 6000 BC.<ref>[http://www.plantcultures.org/plants/sugar_cane_history_early_origins_and_spread.html Sugar cane early origins and spread] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090706140248/http://www.plantcultures.org/plants/sugar_cane_history_early_origins_and_spread.html |date=2009-07-06 }}. Plant Cultures (2004-11-18). Retrieved on 2013-07-29.</ref>
*Mesolitihic hunter-gatherers continue to dominate most parts of Indonesia. Notable cultures are the [[Toalean culture]]. Trade and intercourse between the separated lands of Australia and Indonesia continued across the newly formed Torres Strait, whose 150&nbsp;km-wide channel remained readily navigable with the chain of Torres Strait Islands and reefs affording intermediary stopping points.
*[[Melanesians|Melanesian]] peoples and tribes continue to inhabit and thrive in Melenasia. Individuals with [[Australo-Melanesian]] [[phenotype]]s existed possibly also in East Asia (in and toward the south of East Asia) at least since the [[Middle Paleolithic]]. These represent seafaring, trade routes and migration from Melenasia and [[South-East Asia]] and overall, from Western [[Oceania]] to [[South Asia]] in the 5th millennium BC. 
These people were in the following millennium later, largely displaced by migrations of [[Eastern Eurasian]] [[rice]] [[farmer]]s since [[Neolithic]] and later migrations from Central China to Southeastern Asia after adopting [[farming]] to the rest of Southeast Asia and Oceania.<ref name="urlCraniometrics Reveal">{{cite journal |last1=Matsumura |first1=H. |last2=Hung |first2=H. C. |last3=Higham |first3=C. |last4=Zhang |first4=C. |last5=Yamagata |first5=M. |last6=Nguyen |first6=L. C. |last7=Li |first7=Z. |last8=Fan |first8=X. C. |last9=Simanjuntak |first9=T. |last10=Oktaviana |first10=A. A. |last11=He |first11=J. N. |last12=Chen |first12=C. Y. |last13=Pan |first13=C. K. |last14=He |first14=G. |last15=Sun |first15=G. P. |year=2019 |title=Craniometrics Reveal "Two Layers" of Prehistoric Human Dispersal in Eastern Eurasia |journal=Scientific Reports |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=1451 |bibcode=2019NatSR...9.1451M |doi=10.1038/s41598-018-35426-z |issn=2045-2322 |pmc=6363732 |pmid=30723215 |last16=Huang |first16=W. J. |last17=Li |first17=X. W. |last18=Wei |first18=X. T. |last19=Domett |first19=K. |last20=Halcrow |first20=S. |last21=Nguyen |first21=K. D. |last22=Trinh |first22=H. H. |last23=Bui |first23=C. H. |last24=Nguyen |first24=K. T. |last25=Reinecke |first25=A.}}</ref><ref name="urlBioarchaeology of Southeast Asia - Google Books">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RrM7jKx-HysC&q=Hoabinhian+wajak&pg=PA36 |title=Bioarchaeology of Southeast Asia - Google Books |isbn=9780521825801 |last1=Oxenham |first1=Marc |last2=Tayles |first2=Nancy |date=20 April 2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref>

*Examination of mitochondrial DNA lineages shows that they have been evolving in ISEA for longer than previously believed. Ancestors of the Polynesians arrived in the [[Bismarck Archipelago]] of Papua New Guinea at least 6,000 to 8,000 years ago, representing an early phase of colonisation.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08obpolynesia.html?_r=0 ''DNA Sheds New Light on Polynesian Migration'', by Sindya N. Bhanoo, Feb. 7, 2011, The New York Times]</ref> These Polynesian polities did not adopt nor intermarry on a large with the Australo-Melanesians like the Austronesians in [[Island Melanesia]] had done so. Regardless, both show admixture, along with other Austronesian populations outside of Taiwan, indicating varying degrees of intermarriage between the incoming Neolithic Austronesian settlers and the preexisting [[Paleolithic]] Australo-Melanesian populations of [[Island Southeast Asia]] and [[Melanesia]] as early as the late 5th millennium BC.<ref name="Lipson2014">{{cite journal |last1=Lipson |first1=Mark |last2=Loh |first2=Po-Ru |last3=Patterson |first3=Nick |last4=Moorjani |first4=Priya |last5=Ko |first5=Ying-Chin |last6=Stoneking |first6=Mark |last7=Berger |first7=Bonnie |last8=Reich |first8=David |title=Reconstructing Austronesian population history in Island Southeast Asia |journal=Nature Communications |date=2014 |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=4689 |doi=10.1038/ncomms5689 |pmid=25137359 |pmc=4143916 |bibcode=2014NatCo...5.4689L }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lipson |first1=Mark |last2=Loh |first2=Po-Ru |last3=Patterson |first3=Nick |last4=Moorjani |first4=Priya |last5=Ko |first5=Ying-Chin |last6=Stoneking |first6=Mark |last7=Berger |first7=Bonnie |last8=Reich |first8=David |title=Reconstructing Austronesian population history in Island Southeast Asia |journal=Nature Communications |date=19 August 2014 |volume=5 |issue=1 |page=4689 |doi=10.1038/ncomms5689|pmid=25137359 |pmc=4143916 |bibcode=2014NatCo...5.4689L }}</ref><ref name="Kayser, M. 2006">{{cite journal |last1=Kayser |first1=Manfred |last2=Brauer |first2=Silke |last3=Cordaux |first3=Richard |last4=Casto |first4=Amanda |last5=Lao |first5=Oscar |last6=Zhivotovsky |first6=Lev A. |last7=Moyse-Faurie |first7=Claire |last8=Rutledge |first8=Robb B. |last9=Schiefenhoevel |first9=Wulf |last10=Gil |first10=David |last11=Lin |first11=Alice A. |last12=Underhill |first12=Peter A. |last13=Oefner |first13=Peter J. |last14=Trent |first14=Ronald J. |last15=Stoneking |first15=Mark |title=Melanesian and Asian Origins of Polynesians: mtDNA and Y Chromosome Gradients Across the Pacific |journal=Molecular Biology and Evolution |date=November 2006 |volume=23 |issue=11 |pages=2234–2244 |doi=10.1093/molbev/msl093 |pmid=16923821 |doi-access=free |hdl=11858/00-001M-0000-0010-0145-0 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Immense population densities, and urbanised cultures in Taiwan and China made these early explorers and group explore what was beyond the frontier, Eastwards of coastal [[China]] herself.
*The very earliest wave of [[Austronesian peoples|Austronesian]] migrants, originating ultimately from Taiwan, arrived in Melanesia, circa 4000 BC. They settled mostly along the north coast of New Guinea and on the islands to its north and east.<ref name="genome">[http://news.temple.edu/news/genome-scan-shows-polynesians-have-little-genetic-relationship-melanesians "Genome Scans Show Polynesians Have Little Genetic Relationship to Melanesians"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171110034207/https://news.temple.edu/news/genome-scan-shows-polynesians-have-little-genetic-relationship-melanesians |date=2017-11-10 }}, Press Release, Temple University, 17 January 2008, accessed 19 July 2015</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Friedlaender|first1=Jonathan S.|last2=Friedlaender|first2=Françoise R.|last3=Reed|first3=Floyd A.|last4=Kidd|first4=Kenneth K.|last5=Kidd|first5=Judith R.|last6=Chambers|first6=Geoffrey K.|last7=Lea|first7=Rodney A.|last8=Loo|first8=Jun-Hun|last9=Koki|first9=George|date=2008-01-18|title=The Genetic Structure of Pacific Islanders |journal=PLOS Genetics |volume=4|issue=1|pages=e19|doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.0040019|issn=1553-7404|pmc=2211537|pmid=18208337 |doi-access=free }}</ref> When they arrived, they came into contact with the much more ancient indigenous Papuan-speaking peoples. These earliest colonisations by Austronesian people's will pale in comparison to the later more rapid and expansive waves in the great [[Austronesian peoples|Austronesian expansion]] (also called the "Out of Taiwan" model).

====Australia====
It is estimated that the distinctive [[Sydney rock engravings|Aboriginal rock carvings]] near [[Sydney]] were created sometime between 5000 BC and 3000 BC.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/jul/23/hidden-in-plain-sight-indigenous-australian-rock-art-on-sydneys-doorstep |title=Hidden in plain sight: Indigenous Australian rock art on Sydney's doorstep |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |author=Delaney, Brigid |date=23 July 2015 |access-date=1 June 2019}}</ref>

Sea levels had become relatively stabilized by the time of 4500 BC around the coastlines of Australia. This occurred after several thousands of years of sea level rising, due to glaciers melting after the [[Younger Dryas]] event. This knowledge was passed down in oral history among the Aboriginal tribes of Australia as they recalled the drastic sea level rises that ended up swallowing their once lower coastlines.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Upton |first1=John |title=Ancient Sea Rise Tale Told Accurately for 10,000 Years |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-sea-rise-tale-told-accurately-for-10-000-years/ |website=scientificamerican.com |publisher=Scientific American |access-date=25 November 2023}}</ref>

Around the time of the 5th Millennium BC, there was a proliferation of stone tool, plant processing and landscape modification technologies. Elaborate fish and eel traps involving channels up to three kilometres long were in use in western Victoria from about 6,500 years ago. Semi-permanent collections of wooden huts on mounds also appeared in western Victoria, associated with a more systematic exploitation of new food sources in the wetlands.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Veth |first1=Peter |last2=O'Connor |first2=Sue |title=The past 50,000 years: An archaeological view |url=https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/publications/the-past-50000-years-an-archaeological-view |via=The University of Western Australia |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/CHO9781107445758.005 |isbn=9781107011557 |access-date=25 November 2023}}</ref>

The [[Furneaux Group]], which is a set of islands off the Northeast portion of Tasmania, had been inhabited since at least 33,000 BC, but the Aboriginal Tasmanians stopped living there permanently around the time of 4,000 BC.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tasmanian Aboriginal History In The Furneaux Region |url=https://www.flinders.tas.gov.au/furneaux-history |website=flinders.tas.gov.au |publisher=Flinders Council |access-date=25 November 2023}}</ref>

Rock art in the Northern Territory of Australia, specifically from the area of [[Arnhem Land]] is said to have a portion of its depictions dating to around 4,000 BC, which show battle scenes or skirmishes between the people in the local area. The art also includes animals and other ceremonial meanings. These scenes have been dated to up to 10,000 years old and down to 6,000 years old when painted continuously over time.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Taçon |first1=Paul |title=Australia's Ancient Warriors: Changing Depictions of Fighting in the Rock Art of Arnhem Land, N.T. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/abs/australias-ancient-warriors-changing-depictions-of-fighting-in-the-rock-art-of-arnhem-land-nt/6558318B6DBDEDABE81075FB7998C7D5 |journal=Cambridge Archaeological Journal |date=1994 |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=211–248 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/S0959774300001086 |s2cid=162983574 |access-date=25 November 2023}}</ref>

Stone points for spears and distinct stone point technology have been found dating from 5–7 thousand years ago in Australia. Many of the early stone point technologies are specifically found in the [[Kimberley (Western Australia)|Kimberley Region]] of the northern portion of West Australia. Spear throwers or more specifically developed and used by Australian Aboriginals, '[[Woomera (spear-thrower)|Woomeras]]' are believed to have become in widespread use around this time around Australia.<ref>{{cite web |title=Kimberley Point |url=https://stonetoolsmuseum.com/artefact/australia/kimberley-point/2050/ |website=stonetoolsmuseum.com/ |publisher=Museum of Stone Tools |access-date=25 November 2023}}</ref>