Lake Mungo remains
[1][3] The remains known as Lake Mungo 2 (LM2) were recovered at the same time as LM1, and consist "...of approximately thirty small fragments, mostly of the cranium and vertebrae".
Although this layer corresponds with a time of low rainfall and cooler weather, more rainwater ran off the western side of the Great Dividing Range during that period, keeping the lake full and teeming with fish and waterbirds.
[9] Lake Mungo 3 (LM3) was discovered by ANU geomorphologist Jim Bowler on 26 February 1974 when shifting sand dunes exposed the remains.
The body had been laid out in great ceremony on its back, with knees bent and hands positioned at the groin with the fingers interlocked.
Since the discovery of LM3, further archeological finds at Lake Mungo suggest that human occupation of the area dates as far back as 46,000–50,000 years ago.
[11][12] The skeleton had belonged to an individual who, based on evidence of osteoarthritis in the lumbar vertebrae, eburnation, and severe wear on the teeth with pulp exposure, was about 50 years old when he died.
[14] Parts of the skeleton had deteriorated in situ: substantial portions of the skull were missing and most of the bones in the limbs have suffered surface damage.
Determination of LM3's sex was initially difficult, due to the deterioration of the skull and pelvis bones, which normally carry many features used for this purpose.
[18] The first estimate of LM3's age was made in 1976 when the team of paleoanthropologists from the Australian National University (ANU) who excavated LM3 published their findings.
[13] In 2003, Professor Bowler led a project bringing together a multi-disciplinary team of Australian expert groups (comprising four Australian universities, the NSW National Parks & Wildlife Service and the CSIRO, as well as including descendants of the Mungo people) to collaborate on a final determination of the skeleton's age.
[26] The current mainstream thinking, the recent African origin of modern humans model, suggests that all humans outside of Africa alive today descended from a small group which left Africa at a specific time, currently generally estimated at about 60,000 years ago.
[citation needed] This explains the controversy of Thorne and other's older dates for LM3 - the establishment of (fully modern) human settlements in the different continents, could have happened only after (although perhaps remarkably shortly after) the exodus of the original (perhaps remarkably small) group of humans who left Africa via the middle-East.
In 2001, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from the Lake Mungo 3 (LM3) skeleton was published and compared with several other sequences.
[27] Comparison of the mitochondrial DNA with that of ancient and modern Aboriginal peoples led to the conclusion that Mungo Man fell outside the range of genetic variation seen in Australian Aboriginal people, and was used to support the multiregional origin of modern humans hypothesis.
With the consent of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area Aboriginal Elders Committee, a reanalysis was performed on the sequences derived from the 2001 study.
The authors did recover ancient mtDNA from the Willandra Lakes skeleton WLH4 specimen, "estimated to be late Holocene in age (~3,000–500 y B.P.)"
In 2014, leading up to the 40th anniversary of the discovery of LM3, the traditional owners of the Willandra Lakes, formally requested return and repatriation of the remains.
[31] As an interim step, the skeleton was placed for safekeeping at the National Museum of Australia's human remains storage facility.
[34] There had been no agreement or funding by government for a keeping-place, and on 17 November 2017 the remains were buried directly in the earth in a casket of ancient red gum.
[35] Oral historian Louise Darmody was commissioned by the State Library of New South Wales to record interviews with 12 people involved in the repatriation process.
This loss resulted in the Indigenous custodians' receiving a government grant of $735,000 to survey and improve the conservation of skeletons, hearths and middens that were eroding from the dunes.
