Ola, imagine you're in Spain and you've just poured a refreshing Estriagalicia,

Cervesa. You hear the bubbles in the glass calling out.

In the Penly own and brooding Galicia since 1906, 100% authentic. But not all Spanish

beers are what they seem, a bit like me. I'm not Carlos from Acrouna. I'm Charles from Cambridge. Estreia Gal world. I'm John Bachelor. Professor Nicholas Thomas,

professor of historical anthropology at Cambridge University, also the director of Archaeology and Anthropology

Museum at Cambridge, his new book is Voyagers.

And we plunge into the 19th century and are amazed that a chieftain significant that he's a leadership position in the Cook Islands, this is Polynesia, is able to direct a European sailing master without

use of European tools.

Now we go back to the beginning beginning, at least until the retreat of the last ice.

This is about 11,000 years ago and we're not in Polynesia, that's well to the east. We're not in Melanesia, we're in Formosa Taiwan now and the line, the

north-south line called Wahlacia. Wahlia, forgive my pronunciation professor.

What is it that we understand about the voyagers from the mainland

into and crossing Wallacia.

There are two stages to this incredible chapter in human history and it is worth underscoring just how incredible this story is because

otherwise since the beginnings of human history, since the beginnings of our species, people have been continent-based.

So they, of course, anatomically modern humans evolve in Africa.

They settle Europe, Asia, and the Americas via a land bridge, so people get around almost everywhere in the world

on foot through gradual migrations.

But towards the end of the Pleistocene,

towards the end of the last great Ice Age, People in Southeast Asia start to move beyond land, initially through short distance crossings.

Wilesia is a set of islands,

broadly speaking, between New Guinea and Ireland, Southeast Asia, Java,

...