PrehistoryLate Pleistocene to early Holocene · Murujuga (Dampier Archipelago), Western Australia, Australia
Stone tools on the seabed off Murujuga show Aboriginal people moved stone across land the sea later drowned
Divers working with Aboriginal Rangers found two submerged sites in Western Australia, one at an ancient freshwater spring.
In brief 3 key points
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- Two submerged sites off Murujuga were drowned at least 9,000 years ago, and the artefacts may be older
- One site is at an ancient freshwater spring, the other at a hill above an old river channel
- Some stone came from around Rosemary Island, about 23 kilometres away
Archaeologists and Aboriginal Rangers diving off Murujuga in north-western Australia have found stone artefacts at two sites on the seabed. The finds come from a landscape that was drowned when sea levels rose after the last Ice Age, and they show how people moved stone across land that is now under water.
The study was published in Quaternary Science Reviews. It was led by Jonathan Benjamin of Flinders University, with The University of Western Australia, James Cook University, the University of York and the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation.
A spring and a hill
One site centres on an ancient freshwater spring, which the researchers say would have been a place where people gathered. The other lies at a rocky hill overlooking an old river channel, from when the islands of the archipelago were still joined by dry land.
The sites were submerged at least 9,000 years ago, but the artefacts could be considerably older. Some were made from stone sourced around Rosemary Island, about 23 kilometres from where they were found. That suggests people carried valuable raw material across the landscape before the sea covered it.
Part of a wider drowned landscape
More than two million square kilometres of Australia's continental shelf was flooded as the seas rose. Earlier underwater finds at Murujuga were reported in 2020 and 2023 by the Deep History of Sea Country project. The new sites show those were not isolated, but part of a broader submerged cultural landscape in this World Heritage-listed region.
Two Rangers from the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, Malik Churnside and Richard Variakojis, trained as scientific divers. They surveyed the seabed, made some of the discoveries and are co-authors of the paper.
“The Ngarda-Ngarli people have cared for Murujuga for at least 50,000 years. What this research shows is that our cultural landscape extends far beyond the shoreline and into Sea Country.”
Vincent Adams, director, Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation
Sources (1)
Peer-reviewed paperfrom Flinders University, The University of Western Australia and James Cook University
Paper: Underwater archaeological discoveries demonstrate raw material selection and transport of stone artefacts: new evidence from the submerged cultural landscape of Murujuga, Western Australia, Quaternary Science Reviews (2026)
Edited by Guiseppe Weijermars
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