Mungo Lodge - Mungo National Park

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	History ... This amazing area became World Heritage Listed in 1981 for its outstanding universal natural and cultural value. Naturally, it is an example that represents the major stages in the earth’s evolutionary history as well as significant ongoing geological processes. Culturally, it bears an exceptional testimony to past civilisation. Natural History ... Mungo National Parks is part of the Willandra Lakes Region; a system of lakes formed over the last two million years. On the eastern shore is the most amazing landscape of dune and lunettes formed by centuries of sand storms. The lakebeds now dry and vegetated by low bushes and grasses, dried up in series from south to north over a period of several thousand years. The ancient shorelines are stratified into layers of sediments, each being deposited at different times over its long history. The earliest deposits are more than 50,000 years old and are made up of clays, clean quartz sand and soil. The top layer are lunettes, formed by windblown clay at the time when the lakes were finally drying up.			Cultural History ... Aborigines lived on the shores of the Willandra Lakes from 40,000 and possibly up to 60,000 years ago. When the lakes were free flowing they supplied yabbies, murray cod, mussels, emus and other marsupials along with a vast array of plant species. Home to the Paakantyi, Mutthi Mutthi and Ngiyampaa people they are now actively involved in the management of the area. Mungo Woman was uncovered in 1969, on the Western shores of Lake Mungo. Over 150 bone fragments were reassembled and suggest her age to be over 40,000 years old. Five years later shifting sand revealed “ Mungo Man”. Said to be the oldest cremation site in the world it can now be dated back some 68,000 years. The human history of the region is not restricted just to an ancient episode. Evidence so far points to an extraordinary continuity of occupation over long periodsof time. There are also remains of many animals, in total 55 species have been identified, 40 of which are no longer found in the area and 11 of which are extinct.