Source: indiatribune.com --- Thursday, July 20, 2017
Sydney: The first settlers arrived in Australia at least 65,000 years ago, drastically altering the known history of the trek out of Africa by modern humans, a study has found. The world-first finding, which follows years of archaeological digging in an ancient camp-site beneath a sandstone rock shelter within the Jabiluka mining lease in Kakadu, Northern Territory, also found that the settlers were sophisticated tool-makers of their time. Aboriginal people have lived in Australia for a minimum of 65,000 years, a team of archaeologists has established, 18,000 years longer than had been proved previously and at least 5,000 years longer than had been speculated by the most optimistic researchers, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The findings, which are already causing intense interest in archaeological circles across the world, have been peer reviewed by internationally recognised scientists and are published this week in the world’s most prestigious science journal, Nature. Among the trove of discoveries are the world’s oldest stone axes with polished and sharpened edges, proving that the earliest Australians were among the most sophisticated tool-makers of their time: no other culture had such axes for another 20,000 years. “The axes were perfectly preserved, tucked up against the back wall of the shelter as we dug further and further,” leader of the international team of archaeologists, associate professor Chris Clarkson of ...
from Australia http://ift.tt/2uGQkS4
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