women's past, present, future

𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬

When people first arrived in what is now Queensland, they would have found the land inhabited by massive animals including goannas 6 metres (20 feet) long and kangaroos twice as tall as a human.

We have studied fossil bones of these animals for the past decade. Our findings, published today in Nature Communications, shed new light on the mystery of what drove these ancient megafauna to extinction.

The first bones were found by the Barada Barna people during cultural heritage surveys on their traditional lands about 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Mackay, at South Walker Creek Mine.

Our study shares the first reliable glimpse of the giants that roamed the Australian tropics between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago.

Tanya Charles remembers visiting Mungo as a child with her grandmother. Now, she's a ranger at the National Park.

For Tanya Charles, Mungo is one of the greatest places on earth.

“To me it’s an ancient museum that talks about true history, the way our people survived through hunting and gathering, but it also talks about good years and bad years," she told NITV's The Point.

“The people out here, they’ve been through ice ages and our people have survived so much. It’s just unbelievable how deadly our people are.”

The Mutthi Mutthi woman has been walking the Country since she was a little girl, first under the guidance of her grandmother.

Now, she’s a ranger.