Archaeologists discover the r bone of a juvenile Diprotodon ( Diprotodon optatum ) , a 13 - foot - long herbivore weighing or so 3 tons , in Warratyi Rock Shelter ’s former moving in story . This is the first time its bones have been found near human artefact . Image Credit : Peter Murray
Archaeologists have discovered a cozy but artifact - rich rock candy shelter in Australia ’s arid interior where hoi polloi wipe out rhino - sized marsupials and Dromaius novaehollandiae eggs around campfire up to 49,000 years ago — about 10,000 old age earlier than antecedently reported . The cave might be the oldest archeological situation in the southern interior , and its gem treasure trove of datum , covering tens of G of years of periodical occupation , could help leaven that former human settlers circulate quite quickly through the continent . The researcher write their findings [ PDF ] today in the journalNature .
Giles Hamm , an archeologist at Melbourne ’s La Trobe University , discovered the so - called Warratyi Rock Shelter on a craggy slope in the Flinders Ranges — about 340 miles northwards of Adelaide — as part of his doctoral enquiry about six yr ago . He had been take care at prehistoric rock fine art along a nearby gorge when he happen the cave and note its blacken roof — a sign of past campfires . A tryout pit proved that the soil was full of artefact and animal bones as deep as 1 measure below the cave ’s current floor . “ We realized we hit earnings grease , ” Hamm tellsmental_floss .
A profile sentiment of the Warratyi Rock Shelter , elevated above a local watercourse . For scale , observe the soma at lower mighty . Image course credit : Giles Hamm
The cave was belike only enceinte enough to put up a diminished kinsfolk , Hamm says , but humans kept coming back to the site for ten of thousands of year , probable because it was near resource - productive springs with water , flora , and animals like wallabies and lounge lizard for hunt .
Within the cave ’s layers of malicious gossip , Hamm and his colleagues found red ochre and white-hot gypsum powder that might have been used as pigments for body picture . They obtain a 40,000 - year - honest-to-goodness needle that could be Australia ’s oldest pearl tool ( see below ) . They also found modern stone tools like spears and blades that are 10,000 years older than alike peter base elsewhere in Australia .
This taper bone point is 40,000–38,000 years old and is now the oldest bone tool yet found in Australia . It was probable ground from a lower leg ivory of an fauna about the size of it of a yellow - footed rock-and-roll brush kangaroo . Image cite : Giles Hamm
The oldest depository in the cave escort back to 49,000 years ago , not too long after the first humans are thought to have arrive in northern Australia . That means people migrated to the southern part of the continent over a relatively light sentence span . Hamm thinks these prehistoric pioneers might have even jaunt by a northward - due south path through Australia ’s abrasive upcountry desert landscape , rather than by a strictly coastal road .
AfterHomo sapiensevolved in Africa , they ventured out into the quietus of the world . But because of gaps in the genetic and archaeological record , there ’s lively argumentation about how and when theseearly migrationsoccurred . Today the prevailing theory among scientists is that human arrived in Southeast Asia around 70,000 year ago , and then island - hopped to Australia at least 50,000 years ago , ground the innovative - day primordial universe .
“ We ’ll believably never know the the date for the first people to tread on the continent , ” Gifford Miller , a geologist at the University of Colorado - Boulder who was not call for in theNatureresearch , tellsmental_floss . “ But the new study supports bunch of late work show that humans were jolly much launch throughout the continent earlier than most people thought . ”
Archaeologist Mike Smith , who was also not involve in the new inquiry , concluded in his 2013 bookThe Archaeology of Australia ’s Desertsthat the interior of the continent was probably settled by at least 45,000 year ago . But he tellsmental_flossthat researcher had been missing important part of the archaeological record old than 35,000 years .
There have been some scattered finds that suggested humans spread throughout Australia traveling across some juiceless desert landscape quite soon after they come on the continent . Radiocarbon dates from Devil ’s den — a cave near the southwest bakshish of Australia that was dig in the seventies — show that humans had occupied the site at least 48,000 eld ago . And consort to another study publish by Miller and his workfellow inNature Communicationsearlier this year , there are more than 200 sites across Australia ( including some in the interior ) with grounds that humans had been fudge egg of the flightless , man - sized birdGenyornis newtoni , a species that went extinct about 47,000 years ago .
Smith says the Warratyi Rock Shelter facilitate fulfill a gap in Australian pre - account with solid evidence .
The animal bone left in the cave also volunteer new info about how former settler conform to and took advantage of their environment . The shelter is the first known site to have human artifacts alongside the clappers of the extinct speciesDiprotodon optatum , a giant marsupial that look almost like a hippo covered in wombat pelt . ( See top effigy . ) This could be the first tangible evidence that human race hunt these lumbering marsupials , and it could help settle the debate about whether human depredation pushed the species to defunctness .
