Australia's Ancie Past Mungo Man

2. There are two types of SOURCES
that can be used to investigate
Australia’s ancient past:
1.Oral accounts
2.Archaeological evidence.

3. Oral accounts of the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples
Oral accounts the collected stories that the
first Australians used to tell their story
and record their customs, rituals and laws.
Their oral histories centre on the
importance of home, place and country.

4. For example, Dreamtime stories explain
the origins of life and are passed on from
generation to generation

5. Archaeological evidence
Because there is no written evidence,
archaeologists also rely on the remaining
archaeological evidence.
Sources of evidence include artefacts such as
burial sites and middens, rock engravings and
rock paintings and tools and fossils.

6. Middens, such as this
one at Boulder Point
in Tasmania, are places
where people have left
the remains of their
meals, such as shells
and bones. The
charcoal remains of
fireplaces and
artefacts such as tools
can also be found
at these sites

7. Rock engravings at a
site on the central
coast, north of
Sydney.
This engraving depicts
fish, an eel and a
shield

8. History Mystery
Lake Mungo

9. History Mystery - Lake Mungo
In 1969 archaeologists unearthed the skeleton of an
ancient person in the sand dunes of the desert like
Lake Mungo in south-western NSW.
The skeleton had been burned, crushed and then
burned again before being buried in a shallow grave
near the fire.
Five years late they uncovered a complete skeleton,
again of an ancient person. It had been laid out very
carefully, and buried very formally. It is believed
that Mungo Man is the world’s oldest ritualistic burial.

11. Mungo Lady and Mungo Man are
perhaps the most important human
remains ever found in Australia.
Their discovery re-wrote the ancient
story of this land and its people and
sent shock-waves around the world

12. What QUESTIONS would a historian ask
&
What CLUES would a historian look for to answer:
1.How old are the Lake Mungo people?
2.Why were Mungo Lady and Mungo Man
buried in these ways?
3.What was their life like?
Thinking like a detective