Mungo Lady cremation
Cremación funeraria de Mungo Lady
- Date
- c. 42 ka · confidence medium
- Place
- Lake Mungo, Willandra Lakes region, New South Wales, Australia
- Credited to
- Aboriginal peoples of the Willandra Lakes (discovered by Jim Bowler, 1968)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
The remains of a woman, burnt, crushed and burnt again, found in 1968 by Lake Mungo. It is the oldest known ritual cremation and, together with Mungo Man (1974), evidence of complex funerary rites in Australia more than 40,000 years ago.
Dates have been debated between 25 and 42 ka; an estimate of c. 40-42 ka (Bowler et al., 2003) is now the most widely accepted.
What it led to
- revision of the chronology of the peopling of Australia
- recognition of the antiquity of Aboriginal culture
- repatriation of remains to their traditional custodians (2017)