He went looking for the ice age story and instead found evidence of the oldest continuous culture on Earth. At 94, Jim Bowler revisits a place of global – and spiritual – importance

Five decades after significantly enhancing understanding of the tens of thousands of years modern humans have inhabited Australia with his discovery of ancient “Mungo man”, Jim Bowler has returned to the dry lake that staged the momentous encounter.

That day – 26 February 1974 – would change scientific understanding of human antiquity and prove what Australian Indigenous people have always known: they have been here for as good as forever or, in the case of Mungo Man and Mungo Lady – also found by Bowler in 1968 – 42,000 years and counting.

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