How did the flooding of Bass Strait affect Tasmanian Aboriginal people?

The flooding of the Bass Strait, which occurred approximately 10,000 to 12,000 years ago due to a general rise in sea levels, resulted in the physical isolation of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people from the Australian Aboriginal people on the mainland.21

This geographic separation effectively cut off the Tasmanian population, leading to the development of distinct cultural and linguistic characteristics that were unintelligible to mainland groups. Following this isolation, the Tasmanian Aboriginal people maintained a traditional way of life based on hunting land and sea mammals and collecting shellfish and vegetable food until the arrival of European explorers and the subsequent colonization of the island.2