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, said.

"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 beneath the floor of a rock shelter on the edges of an iron ore mine site in Australia's remote northwest, about 950 kilometers northeast of Perth, the capital of Western Australia.