Current Event: South Australia’s Ancient Warratyi

An Aboriginal man recently discovered a site preserving some of the oldest known evidence of human settlement in Australia. Clifford Coulthard, an Adnyamathanha elder, stumbled across a rock shelter while surveying in the northern Flinders Range. The Adnyamathanha are the Aboriginal people of Australia native to the Flinders Range of South Australia. Subsequent excavations at the rock shelter, called Warratyi, unearthed ancient tools, bones, and other artifacts that are dated to about 49,000 years ago–only about 1,000 years after the first humans arrived in Australia. Archaeologists excavated some 4,300 stone artifacts and hundreds of animal bones, emu egg shells, and other materials from layers deep within the site. They estimate that people occupied Warratyi on and off for about 40,000 years, finally abandoning the site about 10,000 years ago when conditions became impossibly dry. One sharpened bone tool from Warratyi, called a uni point, was used to hunt big game. Archaeologists also excavated bones from a Diprotodon—a prehistoric giant wombat that was the largest marsupial that ever lived. Many archaeologists believe these animals and other Australian megafauna (giant animals) became extinct because of hunting by early humans. The Warratyi rock shelter proves that Australia’s earliest humans were capable explorers who could quickly adapt even to the harsh conditions of the continent’s arid interior.

Profile view of Warratyi Rock Shelter elevated above local stream catchment. Credit: © Giles Hamm, La Trobe University

Objective:

The Aboriginal people of Australia, also called Aborigines, are the first people of Australia. Australia’s Aborigines live on mainland Australia and the nearby islands, including Tasmania. The ancestors of today’s Aboriginal people arrived in Australia at least 50,000 years ago. Scientists believe that these first people came by boat from Southeast Asia, the closest land that was inhabited by human beings at that time. By 30,000 to 25,000 years ago, they had colonized most of the diverse regions of the country, from the tropical rain forests to the central deserts. There were probably from 300,000 to 1 million Aboriginal people living in Australia when European settlers first reached the island continent in 1788. After 1788, European diseases, malnutrition, and violent conflicts with the settlers greatly reduced the Aboriginal population. As European settlers pushed Aboriginal people off their homelands, the Aboriginal people lost their livelihood and became poor and dependent. Whole families and clans died. By 1921, Australia had about 62,000 Aboriginal people. Today, Australia has about 500,000 Aboriginal people—about 2 percent of the country’s population. The Behind the Headlines news story and related World Book articles explore the Aboriginal people of Australia and other Australian topics.

Words to know:

• Aboriginal people of Australia
• Aboriginal people of Tasmania
• Australia
• Diprotodon (giant wombat)
• Flinders Range
• Marsupial
• Prehistoric people
• South Australia
• Tasmania

Discussion Topics:

1. Ask your students to name some marsupials. (Students might name bandicoots, kangaroos, koalas, opossums, platypuses, Tasmanian devils, Tasmanian tigers, wallabies, wombats.)

2. Ask your students to name some famous Australians. (Students might say Tony Abbott [former prime minister], Julian Assange [founder of WikiLeaks], Cate Blanchett [actress], Graeme Clark [doctor and inventor], Julia Gillard [former prime minister], Chris Hemsworth [actor], Steve Irwin [wildlife expert], Hugh Jackman [actor and singer], Ned Kelly [bushranger], Nicole Kidman [actress], Kylie Minogue [pop singer and actress], Rupert Murdoch [media executive], Greg Norman [golfer], Banjo Paterson [poet and lawyer], Kevin Rudd [former prime minister], Samantha Stosur [tennis player], Malcolm Turnbull [prime minister]).

3. Archaeologists work in many places, including Egypt, Greece, the Middle East, North America, and even underwater. Ask your students, “If you could be an archaeologist, where would you want to work? Why?”

4. Ask your students to use World Book’s Timelines feature to view or add to the History of Australia timeline. (Students may wish to use World Book’s “History of Australia” article for help.)