Lake Mungo in brief
Lake Mungo is one of a chain of dry lakes in the Willandra Lakes Region of south-western New South Wales. About 40,000 years ago it held water and fish, and people lived on its shores. Today the lake bed is a flat plain, and on its eastern side the wind has shaped a curved dune of sand and clay called the Walls of China, or “lunette”, that has exposed ancient hearths, shell middens, stone tools and human remains. The Willandra Lakes Region was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1981.
The land belongs to the Paakantyi, Ngiyampaa and Muthi Muthi peoples, who care for Mungo as part of their Country. Aboriginal people have lived in the region for at least 40,000 years, and the three groups are now partners in managing it.
Mungo Lady
In 1969 the geologist Jim Bowler was studying the lake’s history when he saw bones eroding from the dune. They proved to be the remains of a young woman, whose body had been partly burned, her bones broken and then buried in a small pit. Known as Mungo Lady (Mungo 1), she is the oldest known cremation in the world. The bones were first dated at about 26,000 years, and later research gave about 40,000 years, though the dates are debated.
Mungo Man
In 1974 Bowler found a second skeleton, Mungo Man (Mungo 3), a tall, slender adult male whose body had been laid in a grave, with his hands crossed over his groin, and sprinkled with red ochre. The ochre, which must have been brought from a long distance, suggests that it was part of a ritual. He is estimated at about 40,000 years old, and he is one of the oldest known burials in the Southern Hemisphere.
What they tell us
The remains show that modern humans had reached the interior of Australia by about 40,000 years ago, and that they had by then developed complex burial practices, including cremation and the use of ochre. Evidence on the shores of the lakes, such as stone tools, grinding stones, fish bones and shellfish, shows how people lived on the lake. Later, as the climate dried, the lakes shrank, and people left or adapted. Other sites, such as Madjedbebe in northern Australia, suggest the first people arrived on the continent earlier still, perhaps 65,000 years ago, though the date is debated.
Another set of finds, from about 20,000 years ago, is a trail of footprints on the clay surface of a lake nearby, left by a group of people, including children, walking together.
Returning to Country
For decades the remains were held in museums. Mungo Lady was returned to the Aboriginal communities in 1992 and Mungo Man in 2017 (he had been in a museum in Canberra), after long campaigns, and both are now in the care of the traditional owners at Mungo National Park. The Paakantyi, Ngiyampaa and Muthi Muthi decide how the sites are shown and who may study them.
Visiting
Mungo National Park is in the far southwest of New South Wales, about 90 km from Mildura, and is reached by unsealed roads. Tours of the Walls of China are run with the Aboriginal traditional owners, and the park has a visitor centre and campground. The site is of great cultural importance, so please stay on the marked paths. See also Homo sapiens.
Sources
- Bowler, J. M. and others (2003). New ages for human occupation and climatic change at Lake Mungo, Australia. Nature 421: 837 to 840.
- Bowler, J. M. and others (1970). Pleistocene human remains from Australia: a living site and human cremation from Lake Mungo, western New South Wales. World Archaeology 2: 39 to 60.
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Willandra Lakes Region.