Lake Mungo is one of the seventeen lakes within the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area located in Mungo National Park in Australia. This national park is located 987 km west of Sydney and 128 km north of Balranald, Australia. Lake Mungo is an important archaeological and geomorphologic site.
The Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area
was declared, in 1981, a national park. Before the declaration in 1981 the land
belonged to a Mungo sheep station. On the site of the sheep station there is
still the woolshed and many other buildings including the former homestead.
These buildings have become part of the national park.
The archaeological site at Lake Mungo covered 135 square kilometers and was about 10 meters deep. It existed from 25,000 – 45,000 years ago. The lakes that belonged to the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area dried up about 14,000 years ago. Many extinct animals such as the Tasmanian tigers, giant kangaroos, a hairy-nosed wombat and a strange animal called the zygomaturus have been found at the site.
The use of carbon dating has proven that Aborigines
lived in the area of Lake Mungo about 40,000 years ago, which makes this site
the oldest site occupied by humans. Archaeologists have found that the
Aborigines gathered mussels, cod and perch from the lake. Also, around the area
of the lake the Aborigines hunted wallabies and kangaroos, and gathered emu
eggs. Human fossils and artifacts are often uncovered, but are usually covered
again because of the winds and the blowing sand. The Aborigines were among the
first people to grind flour. Flake tools and sandstone grinders have been found
by archaeologists indicating the grinding of wild grass seeds.
Tall, steep escarpments are found around the western perimeters of the lakes with crescent-shaped dunes called lunettes to the east, formed by quartz sands and palletized clay blown from the lake by westerly winds. One of the most famous lunettes in the Mungo National Park is the ‘Walls of China.’ This lunette rises thirty meters above the plain and runs thirty kilometers around the lake’s eastern shore.
Today, there is a small return of vegetation, which is allowing the return of nature. There are signs of many birds such as the Major Mitchell cockatoos, mulga parrots, honeyeaters, crested bellbirds and many more. There are also more mammals, such as kangaroos, emus and lizards returning to live in the Mungo Lake area.
Image Credit http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~pbrown3/Mungo1.html
Sydney Morning Herald, Daily News Sydney Morning Herald,Walkabout wysiwyg://50/http://www.walkabout.fairfax.come.au/smh/locations/nswlakemungo.shtml
Jean Marie Chase