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Mungo Manic Profile picture
Mungo Manic
@MungoManic
Exploring the history of ancient Australians. Profile image is Bullip Bullip "King Billy" of the Wadawurrung
Mar 18 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
This week, one of the most important fossils ever found in Australia (and perhaps the world) was taken to an undisclosed location, put in a hole and covered with dirt

WLH-50, the Garnpung Giant Image I've spent hundreds of hours reading about this incredible cranium and scouring the corners of the internet for data and images. But I never got to see it in person, and now I never will Image
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Mar 16 • 11 tweets • 6 min read
Sadly, our petition was unsuccessful

The thousands of fossils from Willandra Lakes are being buried. The last ones will be underground by the end of next week

Soon there'll be no Pleistocene human fossils left in Australia Doubly frustrating: we might have learned more about Denisovans. The fossil individuals were all considered Homo sapiens, but many had surprising archaic traits and dated near the time of the Denisovan admixture. The loss of their DNA is truly tragic
Jan 5 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
Gang rape was a traditional practice in parts of Australia (and possibly still is). One example is the initiation rite of introcision, where pubescent girls had their vaginas cut and were then forced to have sex with multiple men. 1/

(Image by Nicolas-Martin Petit, c. 1800) Image 2/ Introcision was the female equivalent of circumcision and subincision. The girl initiates and male participants were strictly forbidden to talk about it to non-initiated people, but recent reports suggest the rite is still practiced in some form
Dec 19, 2024 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
In Australia, while parents cherished their surviving children, 15-30% of newborns were killed (Yengoyan, 1972). Reasons for infanticide varied:

1. The children were twins - "two heads" being thought unnatural (Bates, 1944)

2. The birth caused the mother significant pain or trouble (Roth, 1907)

3. The mother was unmarried (Leichhardt, 1842-1844)

4. The child was believed to not be the husband's child (Morgan & Buckley, 1852)

5. The mother had children too close together - within 12 months of previous birth (Morgan & Buckley, 1852)

6. The child was considered a burden (Lumholtz, 1889)

7. The father was European (Lumholtz, 1889 & Leichhardt, 1842-1844)

8. The mother died in childbirth - the child was blamed (Roth, 1907)

9. The child was eaten for nutrition during famine (Angas, 1847 & Bates, 1844)

10. The family had grown too large (Blackhouse, 1843)

The father (and tribal elders) often had a say whether the child lived or died. Sometimes the child was killed by the mother, the father or even the midwifeImage As in many cultures, newborns weren’t seen as having any intrinsic rights. If a child was unwanted, it was usually dispatched immediately, before any emotional attachments had formed
Dec 6, 2024 • 9 tweets • 5 min read
THREAD OF BANNED IMAGES

Anyone have a copy of "South Australia Illustrated" by George Angas, 1847?

The SA State Library has it online but they censored 14 pages (like the one below). I tracked down the missing illustrations but can't find the descriptions for Plates 5, 15, 22 24, 27, 46

Plate 5 is below. All I can find is that one of the figures is "A man of the Wallaby tribe, adorned for the Kuri dance"Image
Image I take it personally when institutions ban and censor scientific books for religious reasons. In fact, it only increases my desire to preserve and share what little we know about pre-colonial Australia

Plate 15 shows the Kuri Dance (above) and Palti Dance below Image
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Nov 25, 2024 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Australian secret societies were widespread but most complex in the desert. Elders kept strict control through a monopoly on sacred knowledge, ceremonies, and brutal initiation rites. Taboos around sacred objects and secrecy were enforced through fear and execution Image Great point. People often remark how hunter-gatherers didn't hoard resources. But that's not true. They hoarded knowledge
Nov 21, 2024 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
In Australian tribes, fighting over women was the main cause of conflict. Of 110 battles with a known cause, 64% were about women From the Aboriginal Collective Conflicts Database @CDarmangeat Romance and jealousy were sometimes the cause. But "theft" was more common. A man might take a woman from another tribe (with or without her consent). Her father/brothers or current/promised husband would then rouse up their group to fight his
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Oct 31, 2024 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
The problem is that Aboriginal doesn't always mean aboriginal. Most Aboriginal Australians are descended from at least one aboriginal Australian, but some are not. I'm also friends with Australians who are descended from aboriginal Australians, but are not Aboriginal Australians Image Bruce Pascoe is a successful Aboriginal author whose ancestors apparently all came from Europe. He self-identifies as Aboriginal and is accepted as Aboriginal by at least some Aboriginal groups and by the general public
Sep 2, 2024 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Wow. I've read David Reich's papers on Neanderthal and Denisovan admixture but never heard him talk. Here are my favorite quotes from his podcast with @dwarkesh_sp:

1. "I don't know"

2. "The models that are considered to be standard dogma are now low probability" Image 3. "If you actually count your ancestors, if you're of non-African descent, how many of them were Neanderthals say, 70,000 years ago, it's not going to be 2%. It's going to be 10-20%, which is a lot" Image
Aug 9, 2024 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
Many Australian tribes thought babies resulted from reincarnation rather than sex. One tribe described how a tiny spirit would meet a woman, throw a small club at a her big toe and enter her body through the wound. (Mathews, 1900) Image Yes, a small number of founders can have an over-sized effect on their descendants, especially when the populations are isolated as in Australia
May 27, 2024 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Toda tribesman from southern India (L) and a man from coastal Victoria, Australia (R) Image
Image Vedda man from Sri Lanka (L) and two men from northern Australia (R)

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