This is a written pattern (with photographs) of a flat map of Australia, New Guinea and their shared continental shelf (collectively known as Sahul) created and shared as a free resource for National Archaeology Week (NAW) 2022.

This is a recreation of my NAW 2020 Bake It/Make It entry (winner: People’s Choice). The original was not designed to be recreated; as part of this redesign, all attempts have been made to make this a replicable pattern but creating the continental shelf does require stitching in the edges of rows which is an inexact method. Annotated photos are provided for these trickier sections. Proceed with caution!

During times of lower sea levels, Australia and New Guinea were connected by their shared continental shelf to form the continent of Sahul. They were connected for the majority of the past 100,000 years, allowing the first human arrivals in the region (~65,000 years ago) to walk between lands that are today separated by the ocean.

This pattern uses US terminology. Stitch types used:
Ch – chain
Sl st – slip stitch
SC – single crochet
INC - single crochet increase
DEC - single crochet decrease
HDC - half double crochet
DC – double crochet
Treb - treble crochet
Back and front loop crochet