Final call delayed on Mungo Man reburial

Environment Minister Sussan Ley found the proposed burial would impact the heritage values of the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area in southwest NSW.

The remains of 105 bodies including Mungo Man are loaded back into the hearse. Picture: Aaron Francis

The proposed burial of Australia’s earliest human remains, including Mungo Man and Mungo Lady, will undergo further assessment after Environment Minister Sussan Ley found it would impact the heritage values of the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area in southwest NSW.

In a decision issued on Friday, Ms Ley said the proposed burial of 108 sets of Aboriginal remains, ­including the Mungo ancestral pair, must be assessed as a “controlled action” under the commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

She said she would visit the area to consult with traditional owners and community members, and would personally make the final decision.

“It’s incredibly significant and I’m aware that it’s not my story to tell. I have to find out what that story is and put right the wrongs in the best way possible,” she said.

When the bodies were first buried, their relatives would have expected them to stay there, but “not only were they dug up, but they were treated like scientific specimens”.

The human remains and other relics, when discovered around Lake Mungo in the 1960s and 70s, formed startling evidence of early human occupation in Australia dating back at least 45,000 years.

After languishing in laboratories for decades, the last of the 108 sets of remains were returned in 2017 and kept at the Mungo National Park Visitor Centre.

Plans by the NSW government to rebury the remains in 26 unmarked grave sites have sparked controversy among some Aboriginal groups and criticism from Jim Bowler, who in 1974 found Mungo Man’s bones protruding from a dry lake bed and, in 1968, the cremation site of Mungo Lady.

A decision for reburial was ­approved in 2018 by an Aboriginal advisory group representing Barkindji/Paakantji, Mutthi Mutthi and Ngiyampaa peoples, and submitted for ­approval in July to Ms Ley’s ­department.

However, opponents of the plan say only a proper memorial would give respect to the ancestors, and offer educational and tourism opportunities.

Ms Ley, whose electorate of Farrer covers the area, said all views would be considered in a 20-working-day consultation ­period before she made a decision. “One of the responses we have now is about whether there should be a keeping place and add to the education and scientific understanding for the future,” she said. “I can see the merit of a keeping place (but) I can also understand that traditional owners have said ‘put back what you took away’.”

Ms Ley, who recently averted a UNESCO bid to place the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef on the danger list, said she had “come to understand the World Heritage convention and the management of sites.

“But this is not about being careful because the eyes of the world are on us, it’s about doing the right thing in a sensitive and important area,” she said.

Professor Bowler, now 91, said Federal oversight could restore dialogue between dissenting groups and arrive at a decision “not in secrecy or confidentiality.”