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MUNGO NEWS
• Coming Soon
Web Design by:
Hadi Sim
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Information
What
is on the disc?
Two separate lines of scientific inquiry combine to make the Willandra
landscape qualify for World Heritage listing. These involve two major
heritage values:
- Natural heritage, with its story of geological
evolution and dramatic records of past climatic change, provides one
of the best examples of this land's response to Ice Age environments.
- Human cultural records, with an extraordinary array
of archaeological treasures, preserve a tapestry of the earliest Australians,
their lives, the landscape they inhabited, their cultural patterns and
examples of the skeletal remains of people themselves.
The disc then combines a wide range of both geological
and archaeological information. These two scientific aspects are brought
together to provide a realistic understanding of this region's unique
heritage qualities.
In addition, the social and even political implications
of the discoveries at Lake Mungo have now taken on quite new meaning as
indigenous communities to take their place in the management of their
own cultural heritage. Such developments have profound significance where
the path to reconciliation is now assisted by the great time depth at
Mungo of human occupational records. The CD emphasises these developments.
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Area covered by the CD
Within the Willandra Lakes World Heritage area, the CD focuses on Lake
Mungo and its adjacent basin, Outer Arumpo. This selection is based on
two reasons:
- It was the discoveries at Lake Mungo which brought the region to
world attention. It remains a central source of the most important scientific
data available from the entire region.
- Lake Mungo remains the central focus of the New South Wales National
Park, the region dedicated to public visitation. The disc provides detailed
information supporting visitation to the Park.
In addition, important information is provided from several localities
outside the area accessible to visitors. In this way the disc offers a
wide range of scientific data, complementing that provided by the National
Park information services.
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Why produce this disc?
There are essentially two reasons why I have spent years producing this
CD.
Firstly, after some 30 years research in the region, I had accumulated
a large data set, much of which was not available in published form. Additionally,
where information had been published in scientific journals, like so much
academic work, it remains on library shelves unavailable to the people
who most need it, schools, tourists or people who actually live in the
area.
Producing a book was one option, but the data set were so large and complex
making any printed version very difficult to manage. In this age of digital
technology, I concluded that if the data were at least digitised they
may be made available in different formats, on the WEB, in printed form
or, as opted for here, on compact disc.
Secondly, this is a subtle landscape. Many people drive or walk across
it and actually "see" very little. There is a great need to interpret
the landscape in terms available to every Australian. The CD attempts
that task.
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Who produced it?
The CD could not have been completed without three substantial avenues
of assistance.
Firstly, in terms of its design, the layout and presentation of both
the disc and accompanying booklet is the sole creative effort of designer,
Myrawin Nelson of Seagreen Graphics, 72 Queen St, Altona, 3018.
Secondly, the software that provides the structure, linkages and complex
driving mechanism for the disc was developed by Hugh Campbell (Highbrow
Graphics, 371 George St., Fitzroy 3065) using DIRECTOR, the Macromedia
software package.
Thirdly, the project was supported financially by a grant from the Murray-Darling
Basin Commission and Apple University Development fund. Within the University
of Melbourne, the School of Earth Sciences together with the Faculty of
Science have provided substantial personal and technical support throughout
the entire duration of the project.
The concept and content remain the responsibility of myself, Jim Bowler,
assisted from time to time by technical support (Michele Smith, Kirsty
Douglas, Judith Hill).
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What
is the disc is used for? Why should I buy it?
This is one of the great stories of Australia. It is the story of Ice Age
environments and of the people who lived through those ancient times. It
is a story of indigenous cultural history, of the lives and times of those
first Australians. It is a story of Jim Bowler's journey of discovery told
in his own words. A rare combination of autobiography and frontier science,
the disc provides a rich data source integrating aspects of natural, cultural
and current social history in this unique World Heritage region. It provides
a most fertile source for a wide range of school project interests. |
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What
do reviewers say about it?
The Soil Science Society of Australia's Karen Smith sums up:
"From the first minute I was hooked on this CD.
It starts with a simple slide show, and the voice of Jim Bowler saying:
This is a story about Australia.
A story of a landscape with a fascinating history.
A story of a people who lived in and interacted with that landscape for
more than forty thousand years.
What does it mean to be Australian?
How are we influenced by the land we live in, and by these ancient people
who lived in this landscape before Europeans arrived...?
This CD explores landscape change and environment
evolution. It is ambitious and bold in its attempts to do so. Like most
things, it has its strengths and weaknesses, but overall it is fabulous.
It is information dense and has both manual and automatic features. An
introductory guided tour will take 15 minutes. Jim's voice over will guide
you through maps and photos of Lake Mungo, and put it in the broader context
of the Murray Darling Basin. The CD explores Australia in geological time,
the Murray Darling basin, the western plains, environmental processes,
Mungo geology and archaeology, people and management, and people and land
synthesis. Exploring these aspects of Australia and Lake Mungo is enough
to make it extremely worthy from a scientific point of view, but it is
much more than this.
This CD is also the story a personal journey that
started for Jim in 1967, when he began a survey of then un-named lake
basins in western NSW. It is also the story of how Mungo National Park
was formed, and of how within 14 years the lakes would be named the Willandra
Lakes System, and become one of Australia's World Heritage areas. "
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What
do I get for my dollar?
Please refer to Order CD section.
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What
equipment do I need to run the CD?
The CD is compatible with both PC and MAC computers.
For PC and IBM machines
Minimum:
Pentium processor 233mhz, 32mb RAM, 4 x CD-ROM drive.
Preferred:
Pentium II processor 350mhz, 64mb RAM, 24 x CD-ROM drive.
Windows 95 / 98 / NT 4 / 2000 Professional /XP
For Macintosh
Minimum:
PowerPC 200mhz, 48mb RAM, 4 x CD-ROM drive.
Preferred:
G3 233mhz, 64mb RAM, 8 x CD-ROM drive.
MacOS 8.6 or higher
The CD requires the presence of QUICKTIME on
your computer. A copy of the relevant version is available on the disc.
If it is not available on your computer, a warning file will show when
you try to load the disc. This will ask you if you wish to install the
QUICKTIME file available on the disc. Once installed, the program should
run.
If you encounter difficulties, check the Technical
Support options on this site.
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How
do I purchase a copy of the disc?
Please refer to Order
CD section. |
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What issues sensitive
to indigenous communities?
In entering into discussion about burial sites and human remains, the
disc touches on issues of great sensitivity to indigenous community groups.
Disc production has involved detailed discussions with community elders,
involving representatives of the Barkindji, Nyiampaa and Mutthi Mutthi
communities. Where skeletal remains are displayed, they are done so only
after permission has been given by the indigenous community. Community
elders were shown and approved advance copies of the disc before its release.
Despite these approvals, the viewer is asked to respect images of skeletal
remains as if they were a record of one's own individual relatives.
Where individual interviews or photographs have been used, each person
has authorised use of that file
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