Finds Shake Timetable On Humans Artifacts, Rock Art In Australia Point To Much Earlier Migration

Archeologists claim they have discovered stone tools and other artifacts that suggest humans lived in Australia up to 176,000 years ago, more than 100,000 years earlier than previously thought, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The discoveries by Australian Museum scientists at a remote site in Australia’s tropical northwest could radically alter the direction of research into mankind’s past, the Sydney Morning Herald said.

Until now, scientists theorized that Australia was inhabited only 60,000 years ago by humans who came via Asia.

Most scientists theorize that Homo sapiens, or modern humans, did not migrate off the African continent until about 100,000 years ago. The findings, if accurate, suggest some form of human was capable of crossing large bodies of water thousands of years earlier.

The scientists said that they discovered engravings that could be the world’s oldest rock art, dating back 75,000 years. The oldest reliably dated rock art has been 32,000-year-old cave paintings at Chauvet in France.

The newspaper said the findings were discovered over the past four years among a collection of sculptured rock outcrops at Jinmium in the Kimberley region, 280 miles southwest of Darwin.

Artifacts, such as stone tools and ochre pigments, were found below the base of the monoliths in soil sediments dated at between 116,000 and 176,000 years old.

Samples were dated by University of Wollongongby researchers applying widely used techniques.

The newspaper said the findings are to be published in the respected London-based archeological journal “Antiquity” in December.

The site of the discovery is still frequented by aborigines, whose traditional beliefs say the rocky outcrops are the remnants of ancient beings who turned to stone.

The findings already have begun to stir discussion among archeologists.

“I have no problem contemplating a 100,000- to 200,000-year occupation of Australia,” Kim Ackerman of the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery told the Herald.

The newspaper said aborigines, who are fighting for greater land rights, have hailed the discovery.