There weren't many travellers in western NSW 30,000 years ago. If there had been, they would have seen a landscape characterised by a series of large, deep, interlocking lakes teeming with big fish.

Archaeologist Josephine Flood imagines the long-ago view this way: "The now-dry bed of Lake Mungo would have been 20 kilometres long and 10 wide, with a depth of some 15 metres. On its eastern side, sand dunes provided sheltered campsites by the lake shore."

Archaeologists have alsorecognised that skeletons found in the sands of the lunette are the oldest known skeletons of modern humans to be found anywhere outside Africa. It is also here that the skeleton of Mungo Woman (or Mungo I, as she is officially known), which has been dated to about 26,000 years old, was uncovered. It is the oldest example of ritual cremation found anywhere.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald