Evolution And History

The Spread of Upper Paleolithic Peoples 223

Globalscape

AFRICA

AUSTRALIA

ANTARCTICA

ASIA

SOUTH

AMERICA

NORTH

AMERICA

Atlantic

Ocean

Pacific

Ocean

Pacific

Ocean

Indian

Ocean

Arctic

Ocean

EUROPE

Paris, France

UNSECO

Headquarters

World Heritage sites

World Heritage danger spots

Whose Lakes Are These?

Paleoanthropologists regularly travel
to early fossil sites and to museums
where original fossil specimens are
housed. Increasingly, these same
destinations are becoming popular
with tourists. Making sites acces-
sible for everyone while protecting
the sites requires considerable skill
and knowledge. But most importantly,
long before the advent of paleoanthro-
pology or paleotourism, these sites
were and are the homelands of living
people.
Aboriginal people have lived along
the shores of the Willandra Lakes re-
gion of Australia for at least 50,000
years. They have passed down their
stories and cultural traditions even as
the lakes dried up and a spectacular
crescent-shaped, wind-formed dune
(called a lunette) remained. The Mungo
lunette has particular cultural signifi-
cance to three Aboriginal tribal groups.
Several major fossil finds from the
region include cremated remains as
well as an ochred burial, both dated to
at least 40,000 years ago. Nearly 460
fossilized footprints dated to between
19,000 and 23,000 years ago were
made by people of all ages who lived
in the region when the Willandra Lakes
were still full of water. How can a place

of local and global significance be ap-

propriately preserved and honored?

Since 1972, UNESCO’s World Heri-

tage List has been an important part of

maintaining places like Willandra Lakes,

which was itself inscribed as a World

Heritage Site in 1981. Individual states

apply to UNESCO for site designation,

and if approved they receive financial

and political support for maintaining the

site. When designated sites are threat-

ened by natural disaster, war, pollution,

or poorly managed tourism, they are

placed on a danger list, indicated with

a red dot on the map above, forcing the

local governments to institute measures

to protect the sites in order to continue

receiving UNESCO support.

Each year approximately thirty new

World Heritage sites are designated. In

2009 the list includes 890 properties:

176 natural preserves, 689 cultural

sites, and 25 mixed sites. Fossil and

archaeological sites are well repre-

sented on the World Heritage List. The

Willandra Lakes site is recognized for

both natural and cultural values.

While important to the world com-

munity, Willandra Lakes has particular

meaning to the Aborigines. Aunty

Beryl Carmichael, an elder of the

Ngiyaampaa people, explains that this

land is integrated with her culture:

Because when the old people

would tell the stories, they’d

just refer to them as “marrathal

warkan,” which means long,

long time ago, when time first

began for our people, as people

on this land after creation. We

have various sites around in our

country, we call them the birth-

ing places of all our stories.

And of course, the stories are

embedded with the lore that

governs this whole land. The

air, the land, the environment,

the universe, the stars.a

Not only are Aunty Beryl’s stories

and the land around Willandra Lakes

critical for the Ngiyaampaa and other

Aboriginal groups, but their survival

ultimately contributes to all of us.

On the next page are listed the sites

considered endangered at the June

2009 meeting of the World Heritage

Committee. Committee members

included representatives from countries

throughout the globe including:

Australia, Bahrain, Barbados,

Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Egypt,

Israel, Jordan, Kenya, South Korea,

Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco,

Nigeria, Peru, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia,

and the United States.

© Aunty Beryl Carmichael