Book Reviews
limitless possibilities for discussion sessions and class research
exercises on everything from dating methods to ethics. The
book’s structure, at first slightly puzzling with chapters split
into named subsections, provides perfect bite-sized vignettes
for tutorial or lecture components. I could see the volume
being used alongside a more standard text book as the fuel for
tutorial sessions, but do not think it can stand alone as a core
text. For Australian universities with an Australasian/Oceanic
focus, the specific geographical focus on Southwest Asia may
limit the book’s usefulness, however, I recommend it as a must
for university libraries and for anyone with an interest in early
farmers beyond the abstractions of sedentism and domestication.
As ever, the over-inflated Australian list price may also limit
sales, especially to cash-strapped undergraduates. I suspect
interested parties should explore the anti-intuitive savings of
international delivery.
References
Balter, M. 2006 The Goddess and the Bull: Çatalhöyük: An Archaeological Journey to
the Dawn of Civilization. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Edmonds, M. 1999 Ancestral Geographies of the Neolithic: Landscapes, Monuments
and Memory. London: Routledge.
Fairbairn, A., E. Asouti, N. Russell and J. Swogger 2006. Seasonality. In I. Hodder
(ed.), Çatalhöyük Perspectives: Themes from the 1995-1999 Seasons, pp.93-108.
Cambridge/Ankara: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/British
Institute of Archaeology in Ankara.
Hodder, I. (ed.) 2006a Çatalhöyük Perspectives: Themes from the 1995-1999 Seasons.
Cambridge/Ankara: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/British
Institute of Archaeology in Ankara.
Hodder, I. 2006b The Leopard’s Tale: Revealing the Mysteries of Çatalhöyük. London:
Thames and Hudson.
MUNGO OVER MILLENNIA: THE
WILLANDRA LANDSCAPE AND ITS
PEOPLE
Helen Lawrence (ed.)
Maygog Publishing, Rosny Park, TAS, 2006, 64pp, ISBN 97581991-7
Reviewed by Josephine Flood
Centre for Archaeological Research, Australian National
University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
This booklet on the Willandra landscape and its people deserves
to be far more widely known. The target audience is the general
public and high school students and it was produced for the Mungo
Festival in September 2007, with financial support from the New
South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Division, Department
of Environment and Conservation. To quote Jim Bowler’s back
cover blurb on this world heritage region: ‘The discovery of 40,000
year old human burials in ice age landscapes of semi-arid western
NSW opened a new chapter in our understanding of this land and
its ancient occupants. Formerly the province of scientists and the
local indigenous community, these discoveries are explored here
engaging a new audience of popular understanding. This booklet
delivers a message to all Australians’.
The publication includes contributions by the three local
traditional owner groups, the Mutthi Mutthi, Ngiyampaa and
Paakantyi, and short chapters by six scientists. Some chapters
were written specifically for the booklet, while others were
prepared by the compiler, Helen Lawrence. Key references
are cited at the end of each chapter and there is also a brief
bibliography at the end of the booklet.
The first chapter, ‘Golden Decade of Australian Prehistoric
Research’ is based on John Mulvaney’s account of Australian
archaeology in the 1960s, culminating in the discovery by Jim
Bowler of Mungo Lady, the world’s oldest known cremation. The
following two chapters provide a useful, up-to-date synthesis of
Bowler’s work, describing the Ice Age landscape and discovery
of the Mungo people. Then attention swings to the cultural
material excavated by John Mulvaney, Wilfred Shawcross and
others, again a valuable summary of a vast amount of research.
The next chapter is on ‘Human Origins and the Mungo
Connection’ and was contributed by Michael Westaway, who
negotiates with skill and sensitivity controversial topics such as
the ‘Out of Africa versus Multiregional Model’ and the robust/
gracile debate. He gives Alan Thorne’s views a fair hearing
but concludes that ‘few researchers these days would suggest
that they [the Willandra fossil humans] represent two distinct
populations’ (p.28). Instead, ‘Out of Africa supporters argue that
the variation within the human fossil sequence in the Willandra
region represents the extremes of a homogeneous population
across Australia. They contend that the variation between the
two populations was a result of micro-evolutionary change
and differences that we usually see between males and females
– males being more heavily built (or robust) and females being
more lightly built (or gracile)’ (p.28). However, the picture is
complex and there is at least one robust female in the Willandra
series – WLH 45 – whose pelvis shape shows that the individual
is a female.
The discussion of biological anthropology is continued later
but next comes a short section on ‘Footprints on the Sands of
Time’. These ancient footprints were first discovered by Mary
Pappin Junior of the Mutthi Mutthi people. They provide a
striking cover to the booklet and a two-page centrefold. There
are at least 450 footprints following 23 discernible trackways
of men, women and children. They have been dated to 20,000
years old (by dating a quartz fraction by OSL) and recorded by
members of the three traditional owner groups and by Steve
Webb, Matthew Cupper and Richard Robins.
There follows Jeannette Hope’s chapter on ‘Megafauna and
other Fossils’ with a useful list of Willandra faunal remains.
This is an informative account of megafauna in western New
South Wales, which poses several intriguing unanswered
questions – why is there so little megafauna at the Willandra? Is
it a question of preservation? Why is Diprotodon, so common
in inland Australia, absent but Zygomaturus, a wetter habitat
species, present?
The chapter by Steve Webb on ‘The Pathology and Ecology
of Ice Age Willandra People’ continues the story. I found this
to be one of the most valuable sections of this booklet, since it
summarises for the general public a great deal of material Webb
(1989, 1995) has previously published only in scientific journal
articles and academic treatises. The Willandra Lakes human
collection now consists of 160 individuals and Webb’s study has
revealed both tremendous skeletal variation of the Ice Age people
and their general good health and active lifestyle.
Number 68, June 2009
65
Book Reviews
Mungo Man (WLH 3) features largely in both Westaway’s
and Webb’s chapters, together with photographs of his grave,
skull and mandible, and both he and Mungo Lady (WLH 1) are
now dated to about 40,000 years. However, the gracile form of
WLH 3 has led some archaeologists to doubt his masculinity. It
is worthwhile therefore to quote Webb when I questioned him
recently on this – ‘Take it from me, WLH 3 is male, and I have
examined it many times. The pelvis shows that the angle of the
sciatic notch (a definitive feature of the sex of any skeleton) is
male.’ Other evidence is his large femur head and his estimated
height of 170cm (5ft 7 inches) in contrast to Mungo Lady’s
estimated 148cm (4ft 10 inches). Furthermore, ‘he suffered from
severe osteoarthritis of the right elbow. This is likely to have been
the result of a lifetime’s use of the spear thrower or woomera’
(p.42; cf. Rhodes and Churchill 2009).
Not only does ‘woomera or atlatl elbow’ make it clear that
WLH 3 was male, but it also is remarkable evidence that 40,000
years ago Aboriginal Australians were using spear throwers.
Webb has been convinced of this for a decade, but his findings
have been tucked away in scientific works and not publicised. Just
to make absolutely sure, I asked Webb if the same osteoarthritis
could be produced by spear throwing without use of a woomera,
as was the case in Tasmania. His answer was an unequivocal ‘no’. It
seems that simple spear throwing does not cause this distinctive
elbow destruction because most of the forces are concentrated
in the shoulder joint. Webb has compared the elbows of those
who did not use spear throwers with those who did, and has
found that only the latter have the particular wear and extensive
destruction of the head of the radius. So, it seems clear that
Australia has the oldest known spear throwers in the world!
The final short chapters are devoted to ‘Caring for the
Willandra’, ‘Development of a Keeping Place’, ‘Working Together’
by Mary Pappin Senior, poems and art works by other Willandra
Indigenous people, ‘Joint Management in Mungo National Park’
and formation of the Three Traditional Tribal Groups (3TTG)
Elders Council. Michael Westaway was then Executive Officer for
the Willandra Lakes region and worked very closely with the Elders
Council. Westaway made a huge contribution to the final stages of
production of Mungo over Millennia, but the initial inspiration
came from a 2004 visit to Mungo by Helen Lawrence, when she
was shown round by local elders. This is Lawrence’s seventh book.
After a career in physiotherapy, she completed as a mature age
student an external degree in archaeology and palaeoanthropology
at the University of New England in 2000. Since then she has
written several books for the general public, notably Making
Friends with Fossils – How to Find your Way Through the Maze of
Human Origins (2003); Call of the Black Cockatoo (a novel based
on Tasmanian Aboriginal archaeology) (2004); Eve’s Family Tree
– Further Scrutiny of Human Origins (2005); and finally, Mungo
over Millennia (2006). All were published by Maygog Publishing,
Hobart, where she now works as editor. At the ripe age of 81, Helen
Lawrence is an inspiration to all of us to keep on keeping on!
This booklet is a perfect introduction for anyone planning a
visit to Mungo National Park. It is not a guidebook, but tours by
Indigenous rangers are available and a ‘keeping place’ education
and research centre is being developed that will essentially act
as a regional museum operated by the Elders Council. Here it
is possible to view the excellent CD Lake Mungo – Window to
Australia’s Past produced by Jim Bowler.
66
References
Rhodes, J.A. and S.E. Churchill 2009 Throwing in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic:
Inferences from an analysis of human retroversion. Journal of Human
Evolution 56:1-10.
Webb, S. 1989 The Willandra Lakes Hominids. Canberra: Department of Prehistory,
Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.
Webb, S. 1995 Palaeopathology of Aboriginal Australians: Health and Disease Across
a Hunter-Gatherer Continent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The Discovery of the Hobbit: The
Scientific Breakthrough that
Changed the Face of Human History
Mike Morwood & Penny van Oosterzee
Random House, Sydney, 2007, 326pp, ISBN 978 1 74166 702 8
Reviewed by Michael Green
Museum Victoria, PO Box 666, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia
If the discoveries announced to the world in 2004 of a 1.3m,
small-brained human species living on the island of Flores
between 95,000 and 12,000 years ago still quite haven’t made it
onto your radar, and you’d like to learn more, then this is the
book for you. However, even if you have heard all about it, you
almost certainly won’t have the degree of insight that the authors
present here regarding some of the political machinations and
(pardon the pun) downright skulduggery that apparently went
on behind the scenes.
I need to get one thing clear from the outset – I firmly believe
that the Hobbit (and now that I’ve got your attention, that is the
last time I’ll use the word), properly known as Homo floresiensis,
is the real deal. Not a Laron Syndrome- or MOPD II-induced
microcephalic modern human dwarf suffering from pathological
shoulders, wrists, feet and brain, or even fillings, but a new
species that is a fully fledged member of our human lineage.
I felt that had to be said as the debate has polarised opinion
around the world, and I didn’t want you trying to second-guess
my position and have that get in the way of this review. That
said, I don’t want to get into the debate here and now, as exciting
and controversial as that is. Arguments have raged over the last
four years regarding the nature and taxonomic relationships of
the little people of Liang Bua, and it seems that for a while we
needed insightful review articles every three or four months just
to keep up. We’re probably due for another one pretty soon, but
this is not it.
Instead, I want to applaud Mike Morwood and Penny van
Oosterzee’s book on the background to the Flores discoveries
and the impacts they had on the lives of the central players.
Among many standout features of the book, I was struck
by the humanity of the story, of Morwood’s rollercoaster
of anxiety, delight and frustration, of Peter Brown’s
amazement and stubbornness, and of the complex and
intricate network of political obligation and social hierarchy
that seems to characterise Indonesia’s archaeological and
palaeoanthropological fraternity.
With van Oosterzee’s extremely able assistance, Morwood
traverses the rich historical, intellectual and physical landscapes
that characterise H. floresiensis’ discovery and the public reaction
to it. As one would expect there are plenty of references to the
Number 68, June 2009