by Five decades after his discovery of ancient “Mungo man” dramatically improved understanding of the thousands of years modern humans have lived in Australia, Jim Bowler has returned to the dry lake which set off the massive encounter.
That day – 26 February 1974 – would change scientific understanding of human history and prove what Aboriginal Australians had always known: they were here as good as ever or, in the case of Mungo Man and Mungo Lady – found by Bowler in. 1968 – 42,000 years and counting.
Bowler, 94, thought it was “essential” to be in the Willandra Lakes region last Monday, 50 years to the day, with family and representatives of three recognized traditional owners – the Barkandji/Paackantji, Mutthi Mutthi and Ngiyampaa . He wanted to be there among them, especially some of the elders, to reflect on all that Mungo Man had done and what he would now encourage for the racial harmony of Australia in the future.
Bowler was a young, adventurous man when he encountered the bones of Lady Mungo and later Mungo Man. The father of six worked alone, wandering the Willandra Lakes for weeks at a time exploring rock formations and finding ancient signs of human life around what was once a large inland sea.
Bowler’s main professional interest was the geological evidence of climate change and the “ice age story”. But he knew – especially after finding the bones of Lady Mungo – that there was “much more waiting to be told” about the antiquity of man on the Australian continent. It could be argued that his discoveries would contribute as much or more to the sum of knowledge on evolutionary biology as climate change and the ice age.
It is perhaps not surprising, then, that on a cool sunny late summer morning he should recall coming across the complete skeleton of Mungo Man which, like the fragmentary remains of Lady Mungo, had been subjected to the sophisticated funeral rites of hunger and fire.
Related: ‘We’re talking about 2,000 generations’: Mungo Man and Lady Mungo revivals divide traditional owners
“When the rain stopped there was an opportunity to go out and explore because the rain often revealed the new [archaeological material],” he says. “I’ve always been very aware of the importance of … Lady Mungo. [But] her remains were very fragmented – they were burnt and they were already sitting exposed – so there was no real sense of the environment [at time of burial] … but it was always in the back of my mind that there was more evidence of people so you keep looking.”
“There were so many rich signs of human habitation … fish remains, stone tools, midges – it was a gold mine for a geologist. When I noticed the sliver of white bone, I thought at first it was a wombat… but I went over and had a quick look and it was very different and I brushed off a bit of sand and exposed a bit of mandible, teeth and jaw. So, this was clearly a human being.
“I had no idea at the time whether the cranium meant the whole body was there but it was enough to trigger the possibility that here we had evidence of another ancient being deep in the dunes.”
During the 19th century and well into the 20th century, physical anthropologists and anatomists attempted to prove that Aboriginal Australians were a step in the evolutionary chain between avian and modern humans, through widespread skull theft and collection. Although this theory was already being debunked, some researchers were still looking for signs of Neanderthal and Homo erectus in the remains of Aboriginal people stolen from traditional burial grounds – although none are nearly as old as Mungo Man and Lady, the inhabitants of the last ice age .
“I realized it was the beginning of a new day [of knowledge],” says Bowler.
Within 48 hours his colleagues from the Australian National University – mainly Bowler’s mentor John Mulvaney – known as the father of Australian archeology – arrived to dig up the bones.
“So we were just brushing away the covering of sand and very quickly we saw this amazing testament to human history deep in the heart of the ancient dunes emerging before our eyes.”
Bowler admits today that the events were “inspiring” and inspired a “feeling of compassion” among the academics, of whom he is the last living. But in retrospect, he suggests that such academic sadness and pride could be “dangerous” when dealing with the removal of ancestral remains regardless of the scientific knowledge they may promote or the myths they may promote. wakes up.
Removal – or as some indigenous people say, theft – was not generally controversial at the time, as it was after Australia’s long tradition of cultural theft of ancestral remains, notably by Murray Black, who provided hundreds of skeletons. and skull to the Australian Institute of Anatomy. As a much younger man in Gippsland, Bowler Black knew and was horrified.
Asked if it felt “heretical or disrespectful” to remove Mungo’s remains, Bowler says, “not at the time”.
“Unfortunately at that point there was no information about Indigenous people [as local custodians] – without anyone we could consult with, let alone share the importance of that event, or [from whom to] request to remove [of the remains],” he says.
“Science was operating on some disgraceful treatment of Indigenous remains. The sense of that lack had not yet emerged … There was no … conscious expression of shame at the time. But it is now seen as a gross misrepresentation of what we should be doing… We will deal with those in a very different way today.”
Contact with traditional owners – led in part by the late Mutthi Mutthi elder Alice Kelly – had not occurred for several years, by which time Mungo Man and Lady had been sponsored by the ANU.
Related: Mungo Man: the last journey of our 40,000-year-old ancestor
Despite the exhaustion of scientific testing of the remains and Mungo National Park being declared a Unesco world heritage site in part because of its unique global human connection, there was entrenched institutional opposition to Mungo Man’s return to the country. As the traditional owners, Bowler and Mulvaney were excited to bring the remains home and give them a respectful burial. Mungo Man was brought back to the country in 2017 after Mungo Lady was brought back in 1992. Both were kept in a secure facility associated with Mungo national park.
Some senior traditional custodians are deeply concerned that these bodies will be secreted in 2022. The Aboriginal advisory group made up of members of the three traditional owner groups that advise the New South Wales bureaucracy on traditional land management in the Willandra Lakes region the reburial advanced. . Some individual members of the advisory group opposed the rebuild.
The reburial was divisive in the local Aboriginal communities. Some wanted a more impressive burial, others wanted a memorial. Jason Kelly, grandson of Alice Kelly, is still angry about the secret burial, which he tried to stop.
“It’s going against my grandmother’s wishes, who didn’t want to send them secretly – but [into] place of custody, respectfully and securely.”
Kelly and his father, Danny Kelly (Alice’s only living child), and his uncle, Ngiyampaa elder Roy Kennedy, now in his 90s, were among those traditional owners who joined Bowler and his family on shore Lake Mungo this week.
Bowler and some elders had hoped to visit the burial site. But the advisory group rejected the proposal.
“It was vital for them to be there with Jim,” says Kelly. “It was great to be there but it was disappointing that the seniors couldn’t go out to their own [secret] burial site. And it was a disappointment to my father and Uncle Roy that the whole country did not realize that this was the 50th anniversary and what Mungo Man means to the country and to the world.”
Although Bowler said he felt the need to be close to where he found Mungo Man, the day was also disappointing that he could not go to the reburial site and that these oldest Indigenous Australians had been unceremoniously removed .
“They didn’t deserve to be secretly dishonored,” says Bowler. “In contrast to the ritual ceremony enacted there 40,000 years ago, the secret reburial is a sad moment. Although it’s not one we want to focus on. Time has passed. Some mistakes have been made – we’ve all made mistakes. We now have to move on to the next step.”
That step, he says, should be a year-long reconciliation dialogue “to find that healing glue” after the constitutional recognition referendum was defeated last October.
“There is a need for healing – the need for dialogue between the different cultures has not been resolved. With the failure of the referendum, the search for the healing device is urgently needed. What can the nation unite now? I am suggesting that it is the example of the Mungo people and their deep connection to the land and the spiritual aspect that encompasses, as the closest people to the cosmos.”
Kelly agrees.
“His proposal for a dialogue around Mungo is immediate. My grandmother always promoted it as a healing place. And as a place of education for all Australians … we have not come close to achieving Mungo’s potential as a place of global cultural, spiritual and human significance.”
Bowler, at 94, may yet return to Loch Mungo. But no matter, the conversation that sparked its discovery 50 years ago is likely to continue – because of its human importance and all the misery it has caused.
