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New ages for human occupation and climatic change at Lake Mungo, Australia

Bowler, James M., Johnston, Harvey, Olley, Jon M., Prescott, John R., Roberts, Richard G., Shawcross, Wilfred, Spooner, Nigel A.·2003·Nature
DOI 10.1038/nature01383
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Abstract

Australia's oldest human remains, found at Lake Mungo, include the world's oldest ritual ochre burial (Mungo III) and the first recorded cremation (Mungo I). Until now, the importance of these finds has been constrained by limited chronologies and palaeoenvironmental information. Mungo III, the source of the world's oldest human mitochondrial DNA, has been variously estimated at 30 thousand years (kyr) old, 42-45 kyr old and 62 +/- 6 kyr old, while radiocarbon estimates placed the Mungo I cremation near 20-26 kyr ago. Here we report a new series of 25 optical ages showing that both burials occurred at 40 +/- 2 kyr ago and that humans were present at Lake Mungo by 50-46 kyr ago, synchronously with, or soon after, initial occupation of northern and western Australia. Stratigraphic evidence indicates fluctuations between lake-full and drier conditions from 50 to 40 kyr ago, simultaneously with increased dust deposition, human arrival and continent-wide extinction of the megafauna. This was followed by sustained aridity between 40 and 30 kyr ago. This new chronology corrects previous estimates for human burials at this important site and provides a new picture of Homo sapiens adapting to deteriorating climate in the world's driest inhabited continent.

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  • River avulsion after the Last Glacial Maximum led to the irreversible drying of what were permanent waterbodies during the period of early human arrival at Willandra Lakes, which accounts for the lack of pathways revealed by our model in this area.

    “In the case of Willandra Lakes, river avulsion after the Last Glacial Maximum led to the irreversible drying of what were permanent waterbodies during the period of early human arrival, which accounts for the lack of pathways revealed by our model in this area [48][49][50] .”

    From Landscape rules predict optimal superhighways for the first peopling of sahul (2021) · cites this paper as [49]

  • The Willandra Lakes region in southeast Australia may have been occupied within 1,000 y after human arrival.

    “the Willandra Lakes region in the southeast of the continent may have been occupied within 1,000 y after the arrival of humans (1, 9, 10).”

    From Humans, water, and the colonization of Australia (2016) · cites this paper as [9]

  • Lake Mungo, within Mungo National Park, has been a focus area for researchers because Mungo Man and Mungo Lady were discovered in the Mungo lunette.

    “Furthermore, Lake Mungo, within Mungo National Park, has also been a focus area for researchers due to the discovery of Mungo Man and Mungo Lady in the Mungo lunette”

    From Exploratory GIS: modelling past land use and occupancy with functional connectivity, willandra lakes region world heritage area, NSW, australia (2022) · cites this paper as Bowler et al. 2003

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Research works printed but not linked: 29

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Metadata

Authors
Bowler, J. M., Johnston, H., Olley, J. M., Prescott, J. R., Roberts, R. G., Shawcross, W., & Spooner, N. A.
Venue
Nature
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2003-02
Volume
421
Issue
6925
Pages
837-840
ISSN
  • 0028-0836
  • 1476-4687
DOI
10.1038/nature01383
Cited by
561
References
0
Language
en
Licence
www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)

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