Older than the pyramids: historic find in the ocean

Working with Aboriginal traditional owners, archaeologists have made an amazing discovery in the waters off Western Australia.

Australia’s oldest ever underwater archaeological discovery has been made off the coast of Western Australia in the Dampier Archipelago, with the whole process caught on camera.

Stone tools dating back at least 9000 years were retrieved 15 metres below the surface in a tidal channel that was dry land inhabited by the Murujuga people during the last ice age.

To the untrained eye the artefacts look like rocks, but for Flinders University archaeologists Professor Jonathan Benjamin and Dr Chris Wilson, and the Murujuga elders who accompanied them on their expedition, the sheer edges used for cutting and scraping are unmistakably signs of culture, not nature.

“(These tools) tell us that the people were very good at using the material around them, and they also had cognitive ability to have an idea about what a finished product looked like,” Prof Benjamin said.

“They were going for deliberate shapes; they weren’t just bashing two rocks together and hoping for an edge. They had an idea for what worked for the task at hand. They’re experts in survival in their environment, and using the material around them with great efficiency and great expertise.”

Murujuga elder Vince Adams tells archaeologists Dr Chris Wilson and Professor Jonathan Benjamin what they have found. Picture: Supplied

Murujuga traditional owners had advised the archaeologists about the probability of artefacts at the site, the location having been passed down through ancient stories, and once the tools were discovered, they were quickly able to discern their purpose.

Video footage of the moment when the artefacts were retrieved shows Murujuga elder Vince Adams inspecting one tool, and telling the team it would have been used for skinning the meat of smaller animals like possums and hill kangaroos.

Prof Jonathan Benjamin and Dr Chris Wilson check out their latest discovery.

“This was old science and new science working together that picked this up,” Mr Adams said. “We knew straight away that this belonged to our old people. We recognised it as something we still use today.”

The tools are at least 9000 years old, making them older than the oldest known settlements in Mesopotamia. Dr Benjamin said this was a time when there were no metalworking societies anywhere around the world, and when some humans were only just starting to practice farming.

They might look like rocks to the untrained eye, but archaeologists believe these were tools used by Aboriginal tribes some 9000 years ago.

While the Murujuga site will likely now be subject to heritage protections, Dr Benjamin said many other underwater sites of Aboriginal cultural significance are not protected.

“The Commonwealth will protect, in any waters, shipwrecks of 75 years or older, automatically without any questions … but they will not do that for other types of archaeology. In fact it requires ministerial approval to be protected if it’s an indigenous site,” he said.

The Murujuga discovery was filmed for the new TV series The First Inventors, which aims to tell the story of Aboriginal culture before white settlement.

“[Australia-wide] there is a lot of hidden indigenous archaeology,” Mr Adams said.

“This is about learning where we came from and how we have got to where we are now.”

The First Inventors screens on Channel 10 on Thursday at 8.30pm and on 10 Play.

Originally published as Older than the pyramids: historic find in the ocean