Blog post revisits 1930 discovery of one million unknown highlanders in New Guinea
A widely shared essay recounts how Australian gold prospector Mick Leahy, while pushing inland from New Guinea's coast in 1930, stumbled upon a densely populated highland region previously unknown to colonial governments and coastal peoples alike. The essay draws on the book 'First Contact: New Guinea's Highlanders Encounter the Outside World' to explain how roughly a million people had lived isolated in the island's mountainous interior, unaware of any world beyond it.