Man searching for toilet stumbles across 49,000 year-old evidence of earliest human settlement in Australia (1 Viewer)

[sports_fan]

Man searching for toilet stumbles across 49,000 year-old evidence of earliest human settlement in Australia

An Australian man searching for a toilet stumbled across the oldest-known evidence of Aboriginal settlement in existence. 

The chance discovery happened while Adnyamathanha elder Clifford Coulthard was surveying gorges in the area and “nature called”. 

He came across the arid site, known as Warratyi, which showed  Aboriginal Australians settled there 49,000 years ago, 10,000 years earlier than previously thought. 

The shelter, found 550 kilometres north of Adelaide, also contains the first reliably-dated evidence of human interaction with large or giant animals, known as megafauna. 

Lead author Giles Hamm, a consultant archaeologist and doctoral student at La Trobe University, found the site with Mr Coulthard.

"A man getting out of the car to go to the toilet led to the discovery of one of the most important sites in Australian prehistory,” Mr Hamm told ABC. 

"Nature called and Cliff walked up this creek bed into this gorge and found this amazing spring surrounded by rock art.”

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[wadegarrett]

I thought GM lived in Oregon?  

 

[sports_fan]

They say he was so surprised he nearly #### himself

 

[Osaurus]

HFS!!

 

[Ditkaless Wonders]

This makes me wonder if I have ever duked on an archeological site and simply was not aware of it. 

 

[Leroy Hoard]

Excellent if only for the thread title.

 

[gianmarco]

No ####.

 

[jonessed]

It would be pretty awesome to just stumble across something like this.  Those pictures are incredible.  To walk around knowing that you were the first person in 50,000 years to see it.