Between Discovery and Deep Time: A Study of the Cultural Representation and Meaning of Mungo Man
After decades of sub-disciplines that have moved away from grand narratives and long-term trends, some of Australia’s leading historians are now embracing frameworks that look beyond traditional history in big ways: through the geological concept of ‘deep time,’ historians can place narratives within deeper histories of the human species, the earth, and even the universe. This interest in deep history has not been limited to academia, with a similar explosion in public interest around Australia’s deep human past and its potential to re-shape national narratives.
At the heart of deep time in Australia is Mungo Man: the 50,000-year-old Pleistocene skeleton found at Lake Mungo in 1974. Yet despite his prominent role in both academic history and public discussion, there has been no examination of Mungo Man’s image and narrative function. This study seeks to unpack the representations of Mungo Man in history and public discourse. How is Mungo Man represented by academics and the general public? How have these representations varied since…show more content… The approach is characterised not only by an attention to cultural rituals, but also by an interrogation of the meaning and mode of cultural representation and experience. As an artefact widely discussed by both academic historians and members of the general public, Mungo Man has undoubtedly become a cultural symbol, particularly in narratives of Australian history and national identity. Therefore, in order for this thesis to unpack cultural representations of Mungo Man, the framework of cultural history and its attention to representation and cultural narratives is
