For many years, the traditional owners in western New South Wales, the , have long of the 40,000-year-old remains to the shores of Lake Mungo.
This foundation figure awaits his release from 41 years in custody of the Australian National University (ANU). A move has now begun that hopefully will eventually see his return home to those ancient shores of Lake Mungo from where he came.
A public seminar in Canberra on Thursday November 5 will conclude with a private ceremony and the transfer of the collection from ANU to the National Museum of Australia later in the week. Planned by the Indigenous repatriation committee as a celebratory occasion, many will participate in what is a long-awaited removal on one hand, but in no way a final resting place on the other.
The ceremony celebrates more an outing for remains held already too long in distant isolation. Sadly, his final return home remains unscheduled.
The original discovery
An entirely new generation of traditional people has grown up since the late and I removed Mungo Man’s remains from Lake Mungo in 1974. Details of those earliest stimulating days remain only in the hearts and minds of now ageing members of that Aboriginal community.
It is important, then, to record a few moments of those earliest times, when Australian history was changing almost by the day.
In 1974, in that remote saltbush country between the rivers, Aboriginal advice remained unavailable to us. Subsequently, when Mungo Man’s discovery was announced, Aboriginal people expressed anger that this should have been done without the permission of Aboriginal people.
It is important, then, to record a few moments of those earliest times, when Australian history was changing almost by the day.
But had we not removed those remains at the time, the wind-swept slopes of the Lake Mungo dune would have ensured their destruction within a single year. Without their removal there would be no to celebrate today.
Challenged by Aboriginal representatives that this was just another insult inflicted by western science on Aboriginal remains, both Thorne and myself, together with archaeologists of the day, sat down with traditional people in dialogue on the sands of Lake Mungo to build the bridges.
Those were Whitlam years, times of passion, land rights and questions of who owns history.
Those were Whitlam years, times of passion, land rights and questions of who owns history. The dialogue was, at times, quite vigorous!
Aboriginal people protested that, in the establishment of 40,000 years occupancy: “You scientists are only telling us what we already know. We came from this land. We have always been here!”
But to have that reality emblazoned on television screens across the country under the image of Mungo Man was recognised as a bridge of mutual understanding. On those Mungo sands, the passions of science and traditional cultures found common ground.
In what is no less than a remarkable sense of mutual collaboration, each acknowledged learning from the other.
Mutual understanding
In 1989, a formal document of accord was signed between Aboriginal Elders and scientists at Lake Mungo. That accord has provided the basis for mutual understanding for more than two decades.
The excavation and later dating of remains to 40,000 years was marked by an extraordinary phenomenon. Mungo Man’s remains, meticulously laid out in a carefully prepared grave, had been anointed by ochre.
Raw material (hematite) of that precious pigment, the symbolism of blood and life, is unavailable there for several hundred kilometres. It had to be imported, ground and used as anointing symbol on the body.
The remnants of an ancient fireplace alongside the grave – a source of smoke, a symbol of cleansing – completed another detail of this extraordinary ritual.
The remnants of an ancient fireplace alongside the grave – a source of smoke, a symbol of cleansing – completed another detail of this extraordinary ritual.
In that ochre anointing, Mungo Man and his community expressed a connection with the Earth. It was a connection, not only to the climatically changing lake and dune environments of that time, but equally to the wider dynamic of sun in the day and blazing stars at night.
Those people had a deep connection to that land; it was one of cosmic awareness. To find that same connection alive and well in Aboriginal descendants today, expressed so clearly in song-lines, Dreamtime creation spirits and acknowledged so eloquently in many Aboriginal voices is no less than remarkable.
In the 1950s, a remark by an Elder of Port Keats to anthropologist Bill Stanner provided him with the title for his book . To me, that man was really saying: “You white mob don’t know who you are!”
Mungo Man’s final expression of identity with nature has something special to offer. It is one that we of rational market-based Western society have largely lost.
His voice on these issues awaits his return home. For so long waiting in silence, it is a voice with messages for all Australians to hear.
The proprietors of Mungo Station, Albert and Venda Barnes, with Dr Alan Thorne at the 40,000 year old grave, Mungo Man excavation, February 1974. Jim Bowler, Author provided.
A final resting place
This national figure requires a nationally appropriate resting place at Lake Mungo. But despite years of appeal towards that end, both Commonwealth and State governments have failed dismally to honour this request.
Mungo Man’s journey to the National Museum will appear to many as a retrograde step. Although it may be a question of frustration (there is nowhere else to put him), positive leverage follows transfer from academia to now direct Commonwealth responsibility.
Under the museum charter and on his watch in Canberra, the long-awaited return of Mungo Man becomes a challenge for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to address.
The world is watching. This stop-over in the museum must be a short one, securing certainty for that final journey home. That day will be one of national celebration for what it means to be Australian. This move must hasten that event.
About the author
Dr Jim Bowler is a Professorial Fellow, School of Earth Sciences, (Geology), University of Melbourne
Dr Bowler is one of the most distinguished Australian geologists working in the field of geomorphology and environmental reconstruction.
In particular his work has focussed on the evolution of climate, landforms and soils in arid and semi-arid Australia and China.
His research has been successful in elucidating the history of the Australian dune fields and the sequence of events that led to the development of the lunettes of the lower Darling and Murray Rivers. This latter work resulted in the finding at Lake Mungo of the fossil hominid material that changed our views of the period of human habitation of Australia.
He has also had a major influence on the way in which we think about Quaternary climatic changes, thus providing an historical perspective for the national contribution to the International Geosphere Biosphere Program.
