What is significant about Mungo Man and Mungo Woman?
Mungo Lady and Mungo Man are perhaps the most important human remains ever found in Australia. They led to the establishment of Mungo National Park and the recognition of the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area as a place that is important to all humanity.
What age did Mungo Lady Die?
Bowler and his colleagues named her Mungo Lady and discovered that she had been ritually buried. We now know that the remains of Mungo Lady are 40,000 to 42,000 years old, making them the oldest human remains found anywhere in Australia.
Where is Mungo Man today?
Mungo Lady was returned in 1992 and has been safely kept in the Mungo National Park visitor centre. Mungo Man has been kept in the same place since returning in 2017.
How was Mungo Man dated?
The skeletal remains found at Lake Mungo have recently been dated by 3 different methods, uranium series, electron spin resonance and optically stimulated luminescence, to arrive at a new, older, age of 62,000 years ± 6,000 years. Previously it was thought to be 30,000-40,000 years old.
What was Mungo Man’s Diet?
He grew into a man nearly 1.7m in height. Over the years his molar teeth became worn and scratched, possibly from eating a gritty diet or stripping the long leaves of water reeds with his teeth to make twine.
What did Jim Bowler say about Mungo Man?
“If only those people 40,000 years ago could imagine what happened to the man they buried, it’s absolutely amazing,” Dr Bowler said. Mungo Man is finally home but he continues to provoke heated debate about who owns history and who has the power to uncover and tell its many stories.
What is a dried up lake called?
A dry lake bed, also known as a playa, is a basin or depression that formerly contained a standing surface water body, which disappeared when evaporation processes exceeded recharge.
Where was the Mungo Man and Lady found?
In the remote desert of Western New South Wales, scientists in the late 1960s and early 1970s made some of the most important archaeological discoveries ever found in Australia: the remains of an Aboriginal Australian, a woman was found by geologist Jim Bowler and then some year later, a man was discovered.
Why are the Mungo Lady and Mungo Man important?
Many believe that Mungo Man and Mungo Lady returned to teach something to all people. The return of Mungo Lady and Mungo Man put Lake Mungo on the world map. They led to the establishment of Mungo National Park and the recognition of the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area as a place that is important to all humanity.
Where does the Mungo Lady rest in the safe?
So Mungo Lady rests in a locked safe at Mungo National Park, where two keys are required for access. One key is held by scientists, the other by the Elders.
When did the Mungo Lady come back to Australia?
After lengthy negotiations with Aboriginal Elders of the three traditional tribal groups, Mungo Lady was brought back to her Country in 1992.