Archaeologists unearth 35,000-year-old tools in Australia (AP/CNN)

[eppur_se_muova]

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- A piece of flint the size of a small cell phone and hundreds of tiny sharp "knives" unearthed deep in a rock shelter in Australia date back at least 35,000 years, archaeologists said Monday.

While the archaeologists hailed the find as one of the oldest inhabited sites uncovered so far in Australia, one local Aboriginal elder saw it as vindication of what his people have said all along -- that they have inhabited this land for tens of thousands of years.

"I'm ecstatic, I'm over the moon, because it's now indisputable," Slim Parker, an elder of the Martidja Banyjima people, told The Associated Press by telephone from Western Australia. "This area of land, in regard to our culture and customs and beliefs, is of great significance to us. We have songs and stories relating to that area as a sustaining resource that has provided for and cared for our people for thousands of years."

The tools, along with seeds, bark and other plant material, were found nearly two meters (6.5 feet) beneath the floor of a rock shelter on the edges of an iron ore mine site in Australia's remote northwest, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) northeast of Perth, the capital of Western Australia.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/04/07/australia.stone.tool.ap/index.html

[easy_b94]

1. John W. McCain.

[HereSince1628]

2. ?

[coriolis]

3. They're his tools.

:rofl:

[trotsky]

4. I read it as McCain *being* a 35,000-year-old tool. :-)

[xchrom]

5. recommend

[On the Road]

6. Oh, Man, I Just Read the Middle of the Sentence:

"...a small cell phone and hundreds of tiny sharp "knives" unearthed deep in a rock shelter in Australia date back at least 35,000 years..."

[ptolomeus]

7. But my religious right-wing friend don't think the world is that old

they told me the world is 4,000 years old. What happened?

</sarc>

[Tesha]

8. God renovated.

Now, the Earth is "almost like new" with a new kitchen
and a Jacuzzi in the master bathroom and it's located
in a "up-and-coming neighborhood" of the Solar System.

Tesha