Mungo Man: 42,000-year-old Aboriginal remains to be reburied

[wnylib]

7. I don't know, but I am guessing that their

raft building skills were passed on through generations of raft and canoe builders, so there are clues from the few modern Polynesian sailors who still use traditional techniques. When Thor Heyerdahl made his experimental trip on a raft from Peru to the Polynesian Islands, he researched Polynesian raft building techniques and copied them, using the same materials, tools, and construction methods.

I watched the film, Kon Tiki, which showed how Heyerdahl did it. Looking up the materials, tools, and methods that he used would probably give some insights into those first rafts to Australia. Improvements would have occurred in the millennia since then, but the basic ideas would still be there - a boyant wood, scrapers if needed, a sturdy plant fiber to braid into a strong rope, some kind of oil or sap material to seal the wood against getting waterlogged.