Evidence confirms people in Australia 35,000 to 45,000 years ago

In 2016, archaeologist Giles Hamm and local Adnyamathanha Elder Clifford Coulthard discovered a rock shelter in the Northern Flinders Ranges. At Warratyi, they found 4,300 artefacts and 200 bone fragments from mammals and one reptile. The fossils, artefacts and ochre date the site to between 46,000 and 49,000 years ago.

Prior to the arrival of humans in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, these places were inhabited by another species of hominoid, Homo heidelbergensis or Neanderthals. Neanderthals begin to show on the archaeological record at around 400,000 years ago and became extinct at about 35,000 years ...

Previous archaeological work in Tasmania4,5,6 and the Australian Alps7,8,9,10,11 has only uncovered evidence for high-altitude occupation during the Holocene (11,700 years ago to present day). Occupation during the Late Pleistocene (~35,000–11,700 years ago) was restricted in all instances to at or below the periglacial limit (Fig.

The timing of the settlement of Sahul—the Pleistocene landmass formed by present-day New Guinea, Australia, and Tasmania that existed until ~9000 years ago (~9 ka)—remains highly contentious. The so-called “long chronology” posits the first main arrivals at ~60 to 65 ka, whereas a “short chronology” proposes 47 to 51 ka.

Aboriginal people are known to have occupied mainland Australia for at least 65,000 years. It is widely accepted that this predates the modern human settlement of Europe and the Americas.

Aboriginal Australian culture is regarded as humanity’s oldest continuous living culture. Existing scientific literature estimated their arrival on the continent of Australia at 65,000 years ago.

In fact, the size of the blocks showed that the 43,000-45,000-year-old Ust’-Ishim specimen could only be a maximum of 230-430 generations after that initial Neanderthal liaison, dating our movement out of Africa to no more than 50,000-55,000 years ago.

Against the backdrop of theories that place humans in Australia anywhere between 47,000 and 60,000 years ago, the concept of earlier settlement calls into question the argument that humans caused the extinction of unique megafauna such as giant ...

Their findings showed that the most ancient lineages seen either in Aboriginal Australians, New Guineans, or both, but nowhere else, dated to around 60,000 years, coming down firmly in support of the long chronology.