Mungo Lady

So cremation as a thing has been dated back to at least 42,000 years ago.

The Mungo lady is somebody that was found in, I think it was Australia somewhere.

I don't remember exactly where, but her bones were, well, she was cremated.

And then her bones were crushed and then burned again in a second cremation.

Obviously, I grew up in the Australian story and through my father and through my father's work, we connected with ancient Aboriginal ancestral beings.

He discovered Mungo Lady in 1969 and Mungo Man in 1974, which totally transformed our understanding of how long Aboriginal people have been on this continent, taking it back from what people thought might be a few thousand years.

You know, it's interesting, Mitchell, in the 60s, 50s and 60s, anthropologists, archaeologists would argue, you know, have Aboriginal people been in Australia like before Christ or after Christ? That was the discussion.

And these fully modern ceremonially buried ritual burials that my dad came across serendipitously.

And it's a deeply mystical story, Mitchell, because my dad formed relationships with some of the elders, women and men out in the...

in that area.

And they would say to him, Jim, you didn't find Mungo lady, didn't find Mungo man, they found you.

And so this is a story we grew up in.