SYDNEY: Axeheads and grinding stones from a cave in Australia’s far north suggest humans arrived on the continent about 65,000 years ago, or 18,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to research published today.
A technique called luminescence dating was used to date the ancient tools which were found in a rock shelter at the bottom of a cliff, on the edge of a sandy savannah plain some 300 km (186 miles) east of Darwin.
Finding of a new minimum age for the arrival of humans in Australia pushes back the origins of aboriginal culture, the world’s oldest continuous civilisation, from a previously agreed consensus of around 47,000 years ago.
It also changes scientific understanding of the date humans migrated out of Africa, the study’s lead author Chris Clarkson told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.
Scientists believed that humans first left Africa some time between 100,000 years ago and 60,000 years ago, Clarkson said.
(Reuters)
