[3][4] The first pastoralists in the area were the Ragless brothers in 1881, who moved there from the northern Flinders Ranges, opening a sheep-run.

[5] After examination of the skeletons an expedition funded by Sir Thomas Elder and E. C. Stirling, director of the South Australian Museum, was organised and Hurst led the team back to the site.

[6] Lake Callabonna is the location of a site where the “articulated skeletons of Diprotodon,” an extinct genus of marsupial, were found in the late 19th century by the South Australian Museum.

The site is considered to have “a very high palaeontological significance.” A fossil reserve was dedicated in 1901 under state law, which is in force, as the Crown Lands Act 1929.

[7] In 2002, it pointed out that the lake received “negligible management effort as a Fossil Reserve under the Crown Lands Act 1929” and that proclamation under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 may provide a higher level of protection against “degradation arising from uncontrolled access.”[8] It was listed on the South Australian Heritage Register in February 1997.