ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA—ABC News Australia reports that additional stone artifacts have been found more than 45 feet underwater in the Flying Foam Passage off Western Australia’s Pilbara Coast by researchers from Flinders University. “This is evidence that people were living on a land surface that’s now under water, so that’s really critical,” explained team member Chelsea Wiseman. The depth of the water suggests that the artifacts are at least 9,000 years old, she added. Wiseman and her colleagues have been mapping the seabed in the area and looking for ancient archaeological sites. So far, they have discovered two, but the scientists think that there may be thousands of them. The researchers have called for more protection for underwater cultural heritage. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Quaternary Science Reviews. To read about the discovery of two underwater Aboriginal sites in the Dampier Archipelago, go to "Around the World: Australia."
