Strong 6.1 earthquake hits South Australia's Far North   News.com.au - March 23, 2012
The earthquake's epicentre was recorded at shallow depth near Ernabella, 415km north west of Coober Pedy and about 320km south west of Alice Springs, just before 8pm. Geoscience Australia reported the quake could have been felt by people up to 500km away and damage experienced within a 40km radius of the epicentre. Geoscience Australia seismologist David Jepsen said the quake was the biggest in Australia in 15 years.

Lock of hair pins down early migration of Aborigines   BBC - September 22, 2011
A lock of hair has helped scientists to piece together the genome of Australian Aborigines and rewrite the history of human dispersal around the world. DNA from the hair demonstrates that indigenous Aboriginal Australians were the first to separate from other modern humans, around 70,000 years ago. This challenges current theories of a single phase of dispersal from Africa.

Australia's earliest contact rock art discovered   PhysOrg - July 24, 2010

Researchers have discovered evidence of Southeast Asian sailing vessels visiting Australia in the mid-1600s -- the oldest contact rock art in Australia. Rock engravings from the Copper Age found all over Europe in remote, hidden locations, indicate the artwork was more than mere images, researchers from Cambridge University and Sankt Poelten's university of applied sciences (FH) in Austria believe.

Prehistoric man enjoyed a primitive version of cinema   PhysOrg - June 29, 2010

The ancient Aboriginal rock carving known as 'Climbing Man' is shown in this photo taken on the Burrup Peninsula in Australia in 2008.

Australian archaeologists uncover 40,000-year-old site   PhysOrg - March 10, 2010

Australian archaeologists have uncovered what they believe to be the world's southernmost site of early human life, a 40,000-year-old tribal meeting ground, an Aboriginal leader said Wednesday.

Early Aussie Tattoos Match Rock Art Discovery - June 2, 2008

Body art was all the rage in early Australia, as it was in many other parts of the ancient world, and now a new study reports that elaborate and distinctive designs on the skin of indigenous Aussies repeated characters and motifs found on rock art and all sorts of portable objects, ranging from toys to pipes. The study not only illustrates the link between body art, such as tattoos and intentional scarring, with cultural identity, but it also suggests that study of this imagery may help to unravel mysteries about where certain groups traveled in the past, what their values and rituals were, and how they related to other cultures.

  Dust Turns Sydney Red   National Geographic - September 24, 2009

Electrical Storm Over Sydney Harbour (Photos) March 4, 2007

Ancient human footprints found in Australia MSNBC - July 28, 2006

Researchers believe prints were made approximately 20,000 years ago

Australian 'Nessie' fossils found BBC - July 27, 2006

Australia was once home to ancient reptiles that swam in huge icy lakes, fossil evidence suggests. The large, carnivorous reptiles lived 115 million years ago, during the age of the dinosaurs, when much of the continent was covered in water. Fossils of two new species of plesiosaur were discovered near Coober Pedy in South Australia. Plesiosaurs, famed for their long necks, are said to resemble Scotland's mythical Loch Ness monster.

Weird Australia Rocks Are Earliest Signs of Life, Study Says National Geographic - June 8, 2006

Weird cone- and egg-carton-shaped formations in Western Australia are almost certainly among the earliest evidence of life on Earth, according to a new study. The 3.43-billion-year-old Strelley Pool Chert formations, called stromatolites, are sediment structures, not fossilized life forms. But their unusual features have inspired scientists to debate their origin.

Climate wiped out mega-marsupials BBC - May 31, 2005
It is unlikely humans exterminated in a short killing spree the immense marsupial Diprotodon and other huge beasts that once roamed Australia. Two new studies reject the theory that humans moving on to the continent more than 42,000 years ago took out its megafauna in a 1,000-year "blitzkrieg". The studies suggest instead a more complex pattern to the extinctions. Their authors say humans certainly had a role but it was not as important as the period's climate changes.

Extinct Australian "Lion" National Geographic - March 2004
Two million years ago bizarre creatures roamed the Australian continent - the flesh-eating giant rat-kangaroo, the thunder bird, the marsupial wolf, and a giant monitor lizard. But these animals have never taken center stage in the public's imagination or even the scientific community like the large prehistoric creatures of other continents - in part, because a poor fossil record revealed few specimens that looked either large or ferocious.

1.8 Million-Year-Old Hominid Jaw Found National Geographic - February 2003

Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge has yielded an impressive pile of fossilized bones and stone tools that may reshuffle the evolutionary tree of the early hominids and shed light on the behavior of some of human kind's earliest ancestors. The gorge is most noted for the abundant fossil discoveries of esteemed anthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey from 1959 to 1976 which helped shape modern understanding of human origins.

Australia unearths fossilized giants BBC - July 30, 2002

The marsupial lion was Australia's largest carnivorous mammal. A treasure trove of fossilized bones of prehistoric marsupial lions, giant kangaroos and a wombat the size of a small car has been unearthed in caves on the Nullarbor Plain.

Aborigines Were the First Americans BBC - August 27, 1999 - BBC

The first Americans were descended from Australian aborigines, according to evidence in a new BBC documentary. The programme, Ancient Voices, shows that the dimensions of prehistoric skulls found in Brazil match those of the aboriginal peoples of Australia and Melanesia. Other evidence suggests that these first Americans were later massacred by invaders from Asia. Until now, native Americans were believed to have descended from Asian ancestors who arrived over a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska and then migrated across the whole of north and south America. The land bridge was formed 11,000 years ago during the ice age, when sea level dropped.