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Man leaves car to go to the toilet - finds hugely important prehistoric site

The site is 49,000 years old (Picture ABC)
The site is 49,000 years old (Picture ABC)

In what may be one of the most important calls of nature in history, a man left his car to use the toilet – and stumbled on a hugely important historic site.

The aboriginal site in the Flinders Ranges proves that people moved through central Australia 10,000 years earlier than previously thought – 49,000 years ago.

Artefacts found at the site also show that Aboriginal Australians at the site, known as Warratyi, used technologies such as stone tools far earlier than thought.

Lead author Giles Hamm of La Trobe University said that he found the site while walking with local local Adnyamathanha elder Clifford Coulthard, ‘Nature called and Cliff walked up this creek bed into this gorge and found this amazing spring surrounded by rock art.

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‘A man getting out of the car to go to the toilet led to the discovery of one of the most important sites in Australian prehistory.’

The find came after the pair noticed a cave with a blackened roof – evidence of ancient people lighting fires.

Hamm said, ‘Immediately when we saw that we thought, ‘Wow, that’s people lighting fires inside that rock shelter, that’s human activity.’