Please note: Indigenous Australian and Torres Strait Islander readers, please be warned that this article is accompanied by the image of an ancestor now passed and resting in the Dreaming.
Australia's Mungo National Park is in the Willandra region; the historic meeting place between the Barkindji, Nyiampaa and Mutthi Mutthi peoples, and is one of the most significant archaeological sites in the world. The oldest human remains in Australia, and some of the oldest modern human remains outside Africa, were discovered there - and they irrevocably turned what we thought we knew about our place in the anthropological record upside down.
Behind the park's Visitor Centre, a small amphitheatre has been built, which the Barkindji, Nyiampaa and Mutthi Mutthi elders use as a meeting place to discuss and oversee the running of the park. The ground of the amphitheatre is embedded with casts of the 20,000 year-old footprints of their ancestors, uncovered from the dunes in 2003; the largest unbroken chain of archaic human footprints in the world. Stepping inside them as you follow them along is akin to a spiritual experience. The Visitor Centre also features a display of multiple letters from past guests who took (stole) a piece of Mungo, such as rocks, clay and soil, to take back home with them as a souvenir, and subsequently found themselves smote in some form or another by the ancestor spirits; prompting them to return their ill-gotten gains with an apology note. Do not take anything from Mungo - not even sand…
Originally a series of lakes which dried up completely several thousand years ago, on the eastern side of the Mungo lake bed are the "Walls of China"; a series of lunettes (crescent-shaped sand dunes) ranging up to 40m in height, and stretching for more than 33 km. Wind continually shifts the sand and soil, forming a "mobile sand dune", moving further east at a rate of 10 meters every year. The lunettes mark the edge of Lake Mungo, which once held water 14,000 years ago.
During the last ice age period, the lake's water level dropped, forming a salt lake which made the soil alkaline enough to preserve the remains left behind in the Walls. In 1969, the remains of "Mungo Woman" were discovered by Dr Jim Bowler from the Australian National University. She had been partially cremated before the remainder of her bones were crushed; the time and effort put into her burial demonstrated an advanced ritualistic process. Considering records up until that time placed indigenous occupation of Australia at around 20,000 years, she was initially estimated to be about 25,000 years old, until a more in-depth study in 2003 determined that she was, in fact, almost twice that; closer to 40,000 - 42,000 years old. Mungo Woman was found to be, not only the oldest human remains discovered in Australia, but also the earliest example of ritual cremation in the world.
Then, in 1974, the sands disclosed yet another of its secrets to Bowler, this time revealing the remains of a man. Named "Mungo Man", he was around 50 years old when he died. One of his elbows showed signs of arthritis from 40 years of throwing spears, and his teeth were slightly ground down from stripping water reeds to make twine. His body had been placed with considerable care in culturally specific ways; he had been ritualistically buried, then, once his flesh decayed, his bones were covered with ochre - the same kind used by Australian Aborigines as body paint today. He was then reburied in what is the earliest known incidence of such funerary practices; indicating some of the earliest evidence of spirituality anywhere in the world. And just like Mungo Woman, Mungo Man’s remains turned out to be twice as old as any others found elsewhere in Australia, a record they both still hold today. To put it in better perspective; during this time, Neanderthals still dominated much of Europe - but these discoveries revealed an even more sophisticated culture was already advancing in Australia.
The site in which Mungo Man was found was dated using luminescence dating and found to be around 60,000 years old. There is evidence of human habitation of the area around Lake Mungo from at least 50,000 years ago; stone tools have been found in the dunes which are older than Mungo Man. The incredible significance of this is due to the fact that the different years from which the artifacts and remains were found, calls into question even the amended timeline of Indigenous presence in Australia. Not just that, in fact - if it turns out that Australia was inhabited 60,000 years ago or more; it even challenges the theory that all civilizations derived from Africa. However, if Mungo Man and Mungo Woman are evidence that Australia has been inhabited for about 50,000 years onwards, it further supports the Out of Africa hypothesis, as this would place Mungo Man and Mungo Woman's culture in the same timeframe as other cultures beginning to settle outside of Africa.
The remnants of hearths, tools and animal remains have also been found throughout the lunettes - and continue to be found to this day. As the sand constantly shifts, the earth reveals new insights into the rich history buried beneath the dunes. Discoveries suggest the area supported a thriving community who hunted wild game, and gathered plants and seeds, but predominantly lived off the fish and shellfish caught in the freshwater lake. The lake also served as a watering hole to many varieties of megafauna unique to Australia; such as Procoptodon (short-faced giant kangaroo), Genyornis (the flightless "Thunderbird") and Diprotodons like the Zygomaturus (giant wombat); creatures who inhabited Australia during the Pleistocene epoch, around 10,000-2 million years ago - meaning they would have been considered normal, everyday animals to Mungo Man and Mungo Woman; like kangaroos and wombats are to us today. The fossilised remains of a Zygomaturus were found at the site in 1967, and a life size model is on display at the Visitor Centre. His name is Ziggy.
The discoveries of Mungo Man and Mungo Woman completely re-wrote the established timeline of how long Indigenous Australians have inhabited Australia - as defined by Western anthropology, of course. However; as far as it pertains to Indigenous culture, on the other hand; Aboriginal Australians have long-known from their own history that their ancestors have been in Australia since the Dreamtime; "the beginning that never ended". Mary Pappin, a Mutthi Mutthi elder, famously told Dr Bowler: “You didn’t find Mungo Lady and Mungo Man – they found you. Because they had a story to tell, even after 45,000 years. They wanted to let white Australia know that the Aboriginal people had been here for a long time and they are still here.”
Another incredibly culturally-significant discovery was that one of Mungo Man’s teeth had been removed – which is a ritual still practiced by Indigenous men as part of their initiation into adulthood today. Where else has a tradition been passed down from primeval ancestors to their modern kinsfolk, surviving as an unbroken continuum for over 40,000 years?
"For the next 40 millennia, Mungo Man’s people found a way to survive by sustainably managing the landscape. As the Ice Age waxed and waned, and waters came and went, they adapted and thrived. Many years and countless generations later, Mary Pappin thinks back to the lives of her ancestors. She points out that Europeans have been here for just 200 years, less than 1 per cent of that time, yet have already wrought irreparable damage." (John Pickerell, "Stories from Mungo", Australian Geographic; Issue 123.)
Amazing
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