World Heritage Willandra Lakes Region

In 1981, the Willandra Lakes region was added to the World Heritage List because of the significance of the archaeological and geomorphological features found in the area. These include:

• human skeletal material, tools, shell middens, and animal bonesthat provide some of the oldest evidence of modern humans in the world;
• landforms and sediments recording events of the Pleistocene Epoch are relatively undistrubed; and
• baked sediment from uneroded fireplaces records the direction of the earth's magnetic field at the time the fire was used. About 31,000 years ago, the north-south axis moved 120^o from its present position and returned again over several thousand years. This is called the "Mungo excursion."

Mungo National Park lies within the Willandra Lakes World Heritage site and covers most of an ancient dry lakebed on the plains of western New South Wales. During the iceage, Mungo was a large freshwater lake. For the past 50,000 years, the climate has changed, changing Mungo in the process. Aboriginal people lived here 40,000 years ago in a rich fertile area with fresh water lakes. The water dried up aproximately 15,000 years ago, and today Mungo is a dry lake bed with numerous sand dunes. Artifacts and remains of animals now extinct are well preserved in the dunes and become uncovered then recovered as the winds blow the sand around.

Also see our Road Trip Outback Down Under Travel log