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Four Corners: Discoveries at Lake Mungo

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Man crouches in sand
Four Corners: Discoveries at Lake Mungo

SUBJECTS:  History

YEARS:  7–8


Visit the site of a discovery of human remains that are so old they make Egyptian mummies seem recent - Lake Mungo in western NSW.

In this clip from Four Corners, a reporter visits Lake Mungo in the Willandra Lakes region of western NSW to view the site of the discovery of ancient human remains and the ongoing work of archaeologists.


Things to think about

  1. 1.Did you know that Lake Mungo in the Willandra Lakes system was once a fertile area supporting abundant life? Approximately 20,000 years ago the great lakes began to dry up as the temperature cooled and rainfall became scarce. In 1969 evidence was found of Aboriginal occupation at Lake Mungo thousands of years before the climate changed.
  2. 2.What important discoveries were made at Lake Mungo? What did the remains prove about the length of human occupation of Australia? Why did Professor Jim Bowler immediately know the approximate age of the male skeleton when it was found? What differences were there in the condition of the remains of Mungo Lady and Mungo Man?
  3. 3.What do you know about radiocarbon dating? For archaeologists it is extremely useful. Living things absorb or ingest radioactive carbon called carbon-14. Because scientists know the rate at which carbon-14 breaks down, they can work out roughly how long ago someone or something died by working out how much carbon-14 remains. What was so significant about the dates worked out for the human remains at Lake Mungo?
  4. 4.Since 1969 further excavations have been carried out at Lake Mungo and improved technologies suggest that the remains are even older than was thought in 1969. Find an appropriate source to identify the revised dates. Look at the scenes of archaeological work in the clip and describe the tools and methods used by members of the excavation team.



Date of broadcast: 7 June 1975


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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