In search of Gondwanaland

Around 400 million years ago, before Australia was a continent on its own, we were lying on our side, attached to Antarctica, India, South America, Africa, Madagascar, Arabia, and New Zealand, in a giant land mass called Gondwanaland (also commonly known as ‘Gondwana’).

This ancient supercontinent – tucked away deep in time – existed well before humans, before human ancestors, even.

It was on Earth, but not an Earth that we’d recognise: the world was split into two supercontinents, with no ice caps on either end, and carbon dioxide levels were about seven times higher than they are today. Earth was hot, humid, and full of lush vegetation – and dinosaurs were starting to dominate the land.

But then about 200 million years ago, deep under the ocean, our connecting plates started to crack.

One by one, the pieces of the supercontinent started to break up, each floating our separate ways across the globe – South Asia migrating to the global north, Antarctica to the southern pole, while the rest of us stretched across the southern oceans. Each land mass took with it living flora and fauna as evidence of the life we once lived together.

But that isn’t where Gondwanaland’s story ends.

Fast-forward to today, and Gondwanaland has a modern history – a present, even – that’s being uncovered as part of an international research project called ‘Gondwana/Land’, led by UNSW Sydney, with Flinders University.

This collaborative project is tracing a modern history of Gondwanaland and what it means to us today: whether it’s the remnants we protect, the relics we burn, or the way we use – and misuse – the idea of Gondwanaland.

“We’re writing a modern history from the 1880s onwards of something that’s over 200 million years old,” says UNSW Scientia Professor Alison Bashford, a historian, director of UNSW’s Laureate Centre for History & Population, and leader of the project with partners Dr Alessandro Antonello, Flinders University; Professor Pratik Chakrabarti, University of Houston; and Professor Saul Dubow, University of Cambridge.

“How did late nineteenth-century geologists think about Southern Hemisphere continents and the Earth’s deep past, and why does the term ‘Gondwanaland’ have such popular purchase now, in Australia more than any other of Gondwanaland’s fragments?” asks Prof. Bashford.

“Understanding the history of science helps explain the parameters of today’s research questions, and how the current consensus on plate tectonics and a dynamic Earth came to be.”

The multi-disciplinary team behind the project – which includes historians, geologists, anthropologists and more – is made up of researchers from every continent across former Gondwanaland. The project is supported by the Australian Research Council and UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council.

“All the parts of former Gondwanaland have very different modern histories to tell, and it’s only by bringing that big team together that we can think about the Southern Hemisphere story,” says Prof. Bashford.

“In a way, our project brings Gondwanaland back together again.”