Lake Mungo remains Lake Mungo remains The Lake Mungo remains are three prominent sets of Aboriginal Australian human remains: Lake Mungo 1 (also called Mungo Woman, LM1, and ANU-618), Lake Mungo 3 (also called Mungo Man, Lake Mungo III, and LM3), and Lake Mungo 2 (LM2). Lake Mungo is in New South Wales, Australia, specifically the World Heritage listed Willandra Lakes Region. Mungo woman (LM1) was discovered in 1969 and is one of the world's oldest known cremations. The remains designated Mungo man (LM3) were discovered in 1974, and are dated to around 42,000 years old, the Pleistocene epoch, and are the oldest
Lake Mungo inhabited. If it was inhabited 60 thousand years or over, it puts in question the theory that all civilizations derived from Africa. If, however, Mungo Man and Mungo Lady truly are evidence that Australia has only been inhabited for about 50,000 years, the theory of Africa is stronger than ever. This would put Mungo Man and Mungo Lady's civilization in the same time frame as other cultures that were just beginning to settle outside of Africa. The discovery of these remains is important to Archaeology because we discover the beginnings of cremation as a burial ritual and in addition we