"Very old sites are rare, and this is one of the oldest" in this region, Draper said by telephone from Adelaide in central Australia.
"We're filling in a picture of who the first Australians were and what they were doing," Draper said.
Draper said the team has sent other materials for carbon sampling—including a piece of charcoal—that were found in the dirt layers below the tools.
"These could be another 5,000 to 10,000 years old, and that would be really exciting," Draper said.
A dozen similar rock shelters in the area will also be excavated, he said.
Significant Find
Iain Davidson, an archaeology professor at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, said the find was significant because it confirmed that the first people had moved into the more arid parts of Australia earlier than previously known and had adapted and stayed.
(See a map of how humans migrated throughout the world.)
"This appears to significantly extend the date of occupation" of the remote Pilbara region, said Davidson, who was not involved in the dig. "They learned to survive there relatively quickly."
Australia's Aborigines have been called the world's oldest continuous culture; some archaeological sites elsewhere in Australia date Aboriginal presence to at least 40,000 years ago.
(Related: "First Humans in Australia Dated to 50,000 Years Ago" [February 24, 2003].)
Aborigines are now an impoverished minority of 450,000 within Australia's population of 21 million. They have been battling to reclaim their traditional lands since the early 1990s, when the country's highest court cleared the way for so-called native title claims.
