Back in the 1970s, in the days before the Out of Africa theory, a multi-regional evolution of humans was widely embraced. The analysis of fossil skulls from Australia suggested they had evolved from Homo erectus. Later, in the 1980s, woke winds blew across Australia. New policies were enacted by the Australian government, who handed over to the Aboriginal people the remains that had been discovered in the preceeding decades. They were buried. Data, photographs, and sites were restricted. Archaeology in Australia ground to a halt.
Let's look into some unique human specimens, those found in Australia.
In 1972, Thorne and Macumber published an article titled Discoveries of Late Pleistocene Man at Kow Swamp, Australia in the prestigious journal Nature (vol. 238, pp. 316–319), stating that "The late Pleistocene human remains from Kow Swamp display archaic cranial features which suggest the survival of Homo erectus in Australia until as recently as 10,000 years ago." And, nobody was upset or surprised by that proposal.
Kow Swamp skulls were heavily built ("robust"). Thorne had unearthed the remains of 22 people in Kow Swamp between 1968 and 1972. The site was chosen because, in 1925, a partial skull had been found there, known as Cohuna cranium (pictured further down). The site was dated to around 13,000 years ago. Below is an image of the Kow Swamp 5 specimen.
The following image from Durband, 2009, is captioned ""Robust" Pleistocene Australian crania. From top to bottom: Cohuna, Kow Swamp 5 and WLH 50. All crania are casts. Note the flatter foreheads, larger brow ridges, and more heavily built features on these specimens." The first two are from Kow Swamp, WLH 50 is from another site (more on it further down)
The thick brow ridges and flat foreheads give these skulls a primitive appearance. But, some scholars did not agree with Thorne, arguing that the shape was due to artificial deformation.
However, Kow Swamp skull 1, pictured below does not present signals of being artificially deformed, yet it has a robust appearance and heavy brow ridges.
We can't re-examine them now because the local Aboriginals reburied them for good in 1990, effectively removing them from the spotlight of science.
WLH 50 (Willandra Lakes Human) are the remains found in 1980 on the surface of an arid region close to the Willandra Lakes. The skull is large (1540 cm3), as large as a modern human, and with a strong resemblance to the skull of the Ngandong Homo erectus. It is approximately 26,000 years old, and prompted Hawks et al., 2000 to link it to the erectus specimen: "...the Ngandong hominids of Indonesia... are classified as Homo erectus... [our studies] indicate that the Ngandong hominids or a population like them may have contributed significantly to the ancestry of WLH-50.."
The erectus Ngandong specimens were alive until quite recently (see my 2019 post), roughly 100 kya, in Indonesia.
Wolpoff, a champion of multiregionalism, published an article in Science, 2001 which included the following image: (original caption reads: "Figure 1 Ngandong 1 (left) compared with WLH-50 (center, cast) and Qafzeh 9 (right, cast), shown in lateral view to the same scale. In its simplest form, the issue we address is which two are alike and which one is different. WLH-50 is the youngest of the three."
The article aimed at disputing the Out Of Africa theory finds that "there is no evidence suggesting that WLH-50 can be grouped with either Late Pleistocene Africans or Levantines to the exclusion of the Ngandong sample" it mentions that Ngandong are considered "archaic humans or late surviving Homo erectus."
I am under the impression that the Aboriginal people of Australia somehow resent the notion of pre-sapiens peopling of the continent-island (see this post). They may have valid reasons for this, such as the past desecration of their sacred sites, the exploitation and neglect that they suffered after Europeans discovered (for the West) and settled Australia. They also oppose to notions that go against their ancient oral traditions which enshrine their Creation myths during the Dreamtime. Conflict with these ancient stories could undermine their position as "original" or "first" people in the continent. So, it is reasonable to imagine that they want to exercise more control over their cultural heritage, past, and present. What is not reasonable is to rebury specimens of our common human past, and attempt to erase them from the body of human knowledge.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall ©
