Ancient Mystery Unveiled: Humans May Have Roamed Australia 55,000 Years Sooner Than We Believed
You ever wonder if we’ve been giving ancient Australians short shrift on the timeline front? Well, buckle up, because some seriously blackened stones found way down in southern Victoria are stirring the pot — suggesting humans kicked it on the Aussie continent not 65,000 years ago like we thought, but a whopping 120,000 years back. Yeah, that’s right: nearly double. Imagine the ancestors of the Gunditjmara people cozying up to campfires beside the Hopkins River while the world was still figuring out glacial grooves. This isn’t just a dusty rock tale either; it’s led by Jim Bowler, the same geologist who flipped archaeology on its head decades ago with Lake Mungo discoveries. Now, his latest research claims those scorched stones weren’t the handiwork of nature’s wildfires, but of ancient hearths — sparking a fiery debate that could rewrite human history in Australia. So, how do you prove people lived 120,000 years ago without tools or bones? Well, that’s the million-dollar question Bowler wrestles with, and let’s just say his evidence has plenty of folks thinking twice. Ready to explore the ashes of time and rethink how old “down under” really is?
Previous evidence put the first humans in Australia some 65,000 years ago. But these blackened stones show it’s more like 120,000.
John SherwoodThe site of the blackened stones in southern Victoria, Australia.
A site filled with blackened stones in southern Victoria, Australia has raised the possibility that humans existed on the continent 120,000 years ago — twice as long as the previously established timeframe of early human life in the land “down under.”
According to The Guardian, the research at the site was led by renowned geologist Jim Bowler, and presented to the Royal Society of Victoria. The 88-year-old famously discovered the bones of Mungo Lady and Mungo Man in 1969 and 1974, respectively, which are the oldest human remains ever found on the continent.
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