Archeologists Find Stone Age ‘Factory’ in Australia Outback

Archeologists Friday reported finding a huge Stone Age “factory” in the Outback where aborigines crafted stone blades and cutting tools for barter some 2,000 years ago.

Scattered among weathered stone outcrops were hundreds of thousands of remains of stone tools and implements that point to a sophisticated aboriginal enterprise long before Europeans set foot on the continent.

The site at Tiboobura, 530 miles northwest of Sydney, is so large that archeologists believe its output may have formed the basis for a local export industry.

“Almost certainly, these people operated the workshop to exchange goods,” said Dan Witter, archeologist for the government’s National Parks and Wildlife Service of New South Wales.