Lake Mungo remains in the context of "Cremation"

The prehistory of Australia is the period between the first human habitation of the Australian continent and the colonisation of Australia in 1788, which marks the start of consistent written documentation of Australia. This period has been variously estimated, with most evidence suggesting that it goes back between 50,000 and 65,000 years. This era is referred to as prehistory rather than history because knowledge of this time period does not derive from written documentation. However, some argue that Indigenous oral tradition should be accorded an equal status.

Human habitation of the Australian continent began with the migration of the ancestors of today's Aboriginal Australians by land bridges and short sea crossings from what is now Southeast Asia. It is uncertain how many waves of immigration may have contributed to these ancestors of modern Aboriginal Australians. The Madjedbebe rock shelter in Arnhem Land is perhaps the oldest site showing the presence of humans in Australia. The oldest human remains found are at Lake Mungo in New South Wales, which have been dated to around 41,000 years ago.

Lake Mungo is a dry lake located in New South Wales, Australia. It is about 760 km (470 mi) due west of Sydney and 90 km (56 mi) north-east of Mildura. The lake is the central feature of Mungo National Park, and is one of seventeen lakes in the World Heritage listed Willandra Lakes Region. Many important archaeological findings have been made at the lake, most significantly the discovery of the remains of Mungo Man (the oldest human remains found in Australia), Mungo Woman (the oldest human remains in the world to be ritually cremated), and the location of the Lake Mungo geomagnetic excursion, the first convincing evidence that geomagnetic excursions are a geomagnetic phenomenon rather than sedimentological.