Lake Mungo

A dry lake with an associated lunette in the Willandra Lakes, a complex of former Pleistocene lakes in western New South Wales, Australia. Excavation of the lunette has produced the best authenticated series of radiocarbon dates for the earliest evidence of man's occupation of Australia, and the remains of a cremated human female date to c 26,000 bp, the oldest evidence of cremation in the world. The remains of a man in an extended inhumation covered with red ochre is dated to c 30,000 bp. Stone tools belong to the Australian Core Tool and Scraper Tradition and there are artifact scatters, freshwater shell middens, and hearths dated by thermoluminescence to 31,400-36,400 years ago. The Willandra Lakes started to dry up c 13,000 BC. The appearance of grinding stones in this period suggest adaptation to wild grain exploitation. Intensive occupation ceased with increasing aridity, although sporadic visits occurred during the Holocene.

A dry lake with a lunette in the Willandra Lakes, a complex of former Pleistocene lakes in the arid region of western New South Wales, Australia. Excavation of the lunette has produced the best authenticated series of radiocarbon dates for the earliest evidence of man’s occupation of Australia, from 30,800 ± 1200 be onwards when the lake was full. Stone tools belong to the Australian core tool and scraper tradition. Fossilized skeletal remains of three individuals were found, with evidence for ritual cremation 24,000 be, together with the use of ochre in burial rites. Analyses of the Mungo I and III skeletons show extreme gracility in cranial morphology, resembling the Keilor and Green Gully fossils and contrasting with those from Kow Swamp. Faunal remains in middens around the former shoreline have provided dietary and Pleistocene environmental evidence, while the burnt clays in Pleistocene hearths have been tested by archaeomagnetic and thermoluminescence dating methods. The Willandra Lakes started to dry up cl3,000 be. The appearance of grinding stones in this period suggests an adaptation to wild grain exploitation. Intensive occupation ceased with increasing aridity, although sporadic visits occurred during the Holocene.