Key findings associated with stone tool residue work from UQ Adjunct Research Fellow Birgitta Stephenson show humans settled in Australia’s arid interior 10,000 years earlier than originally thought.
According to new archaeological evidence found at a rock shelter in the Flinders Ranges, 550km north of Adelaide, Aboriginal Australians settled this region of Australia around 49,000 years ago and findings also show that they developed key technologies and cultural practices much earlier than previously thought for Australia and Southeast Asia.
The site revealed the earliest known use of resin for composite hafting technology in Australian and south east Asia at 38-35kyr as well as the oldest use of ochre in Australia and south east Asia at 49-45kyr.
The paper, Cultural innovation and megafauna interaction in the early settlement of arid Australia was published online in Nature earlier this week.
