Chris Clarkson / Copyright Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation 2015 | Dominic O'Brien / Copyright Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation 2015
Axe head (left) found in an excavation at the Madjedbebe archaeological site (right) in Kakadu National Park, AustraliaChris Clarkson / Copyright Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation 2015 | Dominic O'Brien / Copyright Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation 2015The discovery of some 11,000 artifacts, including grinding stones and axe heads, excavated at a depth of 2.6 meters in Kakadu National Park, northern Australia, suggests that Aborigines from Africa may have arrived on the continent at least 65,000 years ago. Dated using a technique called optically-stimulated luminescence, which determines the last time an object was exposed to sunlight before it was covered by the earth, some of the artifacts could be up to 80,000 years old. This discovery predates the previously estimated arrival of the first inhabitants of Australia by about 20,000 years. The study was coordinated by Chris Clarkson, a professor at the University of Queensland, Australia, who found the artifacts in 2015 while excavating an already explored area of the Madjedbebe archaeological site. He believes that the rocks and fossils found at the site suggest the use of wood as fuel and the consumption of seeds and roots. These findings also indicate that the first humans to arrive in Australia would have been living alongside animals such as the giant marsupials—which were about the size of a small bear—for about 25,000 years, before gradually causing the extinction of such megafauna (Nature, July 20).
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