Warratyi << WAHR uh tree >> is an archaeological site in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia . The site is a naturally formed rock shelter that preserves some of the oldest known evidence of human settlement in Australia. Warratyi sits above a desert landscape about 340 miles (550 kilometers) north of Adelaide. Excavations (digs) at the rock shelter have unearthed ancient tools, bones, and other items that are dated to about 49,000 years ago.
The site was discovered by an Adnyamathanha elder, who stumbled across the rock shelter while surveying in the northern Flinders Ranges. The Adnyamathanha people are an Aboriginal people of Australia, and the site is located in their tradtional lands.
Excavations at Warratyi have unearthed thousands of stone artifacts and hundreds of animal bones, emu egg shells, and other materials from layers deep within the shelter. One sharpened bone tool, 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 _Diprotodon and other Australian megafauna (giant animals) became extinct because of hunting by early humans. Some tools bore tiny bits of feathers as well as red ocher and white gypsum, two common minerals that were used as pigments (coloring materials) by Aboriginal people. Archaeologists believe the tools were decorated and perhaps used for ceremonial purposes.
Archaeologists have found evidence indicating that ancestors of today’s Aboriginal peoples lived in Australia more than 65,000 years ago. They had thought that the first people in Australia likely lived along the forested and well-watered coast, where resources were abundant. They believed the dry southern interior of Australia was too inhospitable. The Warratyi evidence shows that Australia’s earliest humans adapted even to the harsh conditions of the continent’s arid interior. Archaeologists estimate that people occupied Warratyi on and off for about 40,000 years. They finally abandoned the site about 10,000 years ago, when the climate in the region became too dry to support even such hardy people.
