Mungo Man: back on Country
Traditional owners in the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area have welcomed home a long-lost ancestor, as a 42,000-year-old skeleton taken without permission 44 years ago is finally returned.
IN 1974, WHILE combing the dunes of Lake Mungo in far western New South Wales, geologist Jim Bowler found something that would transform our understanding of Australian prehistory: an ancient human skull and, just under the sandy surface, much of the rest of the skeleton.
Dubbed Mungo Man, the f ind was dated at 42,000 years, extending the known arrival date of Aboriginal people in Australia by tens of thousands of years (see AG 123). Aside from his scientif ic signif icance, Mungo Man conf irmed Aboriginal people’s claim that this land has been theirs since time immemorial and was a boon to the Aboriginal rights movement. Now, to the joy of the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area’s three tribal groups, Mungo Man has returned home after spending four decades in a box as part of an Australian National University (ANU) collection in Canberra.
On 15 November 2017 the traditional owners collected him as well as the remains of more than 100 other people taken from Willandra and carried them in a historic Aboriginal Funeral Service hearse across NSW to Mungo National Park. They stopped en route for Welcome to Country smoking ceremonies at Wagga Wagga, Hay, Balranald, Mildura and other communities where Willandra custodians live today and arrived on 17 November.
The repatriation of Mungo Man, and 100-plus other similarly aged fragmentary human skeletons, is an “important statement of recognition of the traditional owners”, says Dr Michael Westaway, a Griff ith University biological anthropologist who’s studied the material. “The Mutthi Mutthi, Ngiyampaa and Paakantyi people have been keen to have them returned for many years,” he says.
Mungo Man’s 1974 excavation and collection of the other remains was led by late ANU palaeoanthropologist Alan Thorne. His controversial removal of the material without consulting tribal groups, who consider these people direct ancestors, caused great distress. “It’s exciting for him to be coming home, because he’s been away for many years,” explains Aunty Mary Pappin, a Mutthi Mutthi elder who’s long campaigned for this day. Mungo Man’s return “shows just how much Australia has grown up”. Mary could not conf irm if research on Australia’s most important palaeoanthropological remains would continue at Willandra, or if Mungo Man would be reburied, and therefore placed beyond the reach of scientists.
Elders of the three tribal groups are yet to reach a unif ied decision. If Mungo Man is reburied, researchers will continue with other research on the ancient climate, landscape and wildlife of Willandra, Mary says.
“What you’ve got is a cultural issue against a scientif ic issue,” says Dr Steve Webb, an archaeologist at Bond University in Queensland, who has studied the ANU collection and says it is the most important set of ancient human fossils in the wider South-East Asian–Australian region. “We all agree the remains are very important and they’ve taught us a lot of things, but we never know how much more they can teach us in the future.”
Now a University of Melbourne professorial fellow, Jim Bowler has worked closely with Mungo Man’s ancestors for his return and believes the best option would be to construct a ‘keeping place’ – a partially subterranean research and education facility, where scientists could study the bones. He remains hopeful for a dignif ied resting place and memorial to the dead of Lake Mungo.