Reading archaeological evidence of everyday life at prehistoric Lake Mungo

Lake Mungo: evidence, inference and uncertainty

Name: ____________________ Class: ____________________ Date: ____________________

Aim: support a claim about everyday life with identifiable evidence and explain its limits. An observation describes a reported find; an inference proposes what it may mean. Archaeological context includes a find's position, sediment layer and association with other remains.

Evidence summaries

A — Activities and food. The Australian Government's Willandra Lakes account identifies hearths, stone tools and shell middens as regional archaeological evidence. It describes lakeshore camping and foods including freshwater mussels and fish when the lakes held water. These summaries do not date an individual hearth or identify who prepared a particular meal.

B — Movement. The same account reports fossil human footprints in the Willandra Lakes region, dated approximately 19,000–23,000 years ago. It attributes prints to children, adolescents and adults. They formed in wet clay and were protected by overlying sediment. This regional date must not be assigned to every Lake Mungo find.

C — Environment. Willandra's now-dry lakes preserve sediment layers associated with different stages of their history. The government account describes changing water levels and eventual drying. Environmental evidence helps frame questions about available resources; it does not by itself reveal an individual's daily routine.

Source for A–C: Australian Government, Willandra Lakes Region, sections 'Description of Place' and 'Outstanding Universal Value'. These are teaching paraphrases, not quotations. Read the source

1. Identify the evidence

Choose one reported find from A and one from B. For each, identify the evidence, suggest a possible everyday activity, and state something the summary cannot establish. Use 'suggests' or 'may' where appropriate.

2. Test a claim

A fictional student writes: 'These footprints prove that one family went fishing together every morning.' Identify two details that summary B does not establish. Rewrite the claim so that its certainty matches the evidence.

3. Check place, time and context

Copy the date range attached to the footprints. Explain why this range cannot automatically date a hearth mentioned in A. Name one piece of information you would seek in an excavation report to decide whether two finds belong to the same period.

4. Build an evidence-based account

Write four to six sentences about what these summaries suggest about everyday activities around Lake Mungo and the wider Willandra Lakes. Refer to at least two summary letters, distinguish regional evidence from a specific site, and include one uncertainty. Explain how changing water availability could affect an activity, clearly marking this as your inference.

Self-check: Have I identified my evidence, qualified the place and date, separated inference from observation, and avoided inventing people's identities or routines?