The Mungo burial
Ochre on the bones: Australia's oldest funeral rite
On the shore of dried-up Lake Mungo, geologist Jim Bowler found in 1974 the skeleton of a man laid in a grave with folded hands and sprinkled with red ochre. By various estimates the burial is about 40,000 years old, one of the oldest ritual burials of Homo sapiens anywhere. In 2017 the remains were returned to the Aboriginal communities of the area.