Jim Maurice Bowler (born 1930) is an Australian geologist known for discovering the Lake Mungo remains, which are considered the oldest human remains in Australia.McGregor, Lisa (14 Feb 2018). “Mungo Man: What to do next with Australia's oldest human remains?“ ABC News. Retrieved 12 April 2020. He is a professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne, School of Earth Sciences.
Early life Bowler’s father was a fisherman who came from Ireland to farm in Leongatha, southern Victoria.Daley, P. (13 Nov 2017). "Finding Mungo Man: the moment Australia's story suddenly changed". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 April 2020. He spent his adolescence and young adulthood working as a farmer and rancher, growing potatoes and herding cattle. For a time, he studied to become a Jesuit priest,Perrottet, T. (2019, September). “The Homecoming”. Smithsonian, 50(5). but gave up and went back to farming.
He left farming in his mid-twenties and enrolled at the University of Melbourne where he studied geology and received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1958, and later, a Masters in 1961. Bowler moved to Canberra in 1965 and became a research fellow at the Australian National University.
He received his PhD in 1970, for his thesis "Late quaternary environments: a study of lakes and associated sediments in south-eastern Australia."Bowler, James. Late quaternary environments: a study of lakes and associated sediments in south-eastern Australia. Thesis (Ph.D.)--Australian National University, 1970.
Lake Mungo remains Bowler made his discovery in western New South Wales in March 1969.Bowler, J. (2003). ‘Tribal loyalties': reconnecting with the land. A tribute to Mrs Alice Kelly, 1919–2003. Aboriginal History, 27, 247–248. At the time, Bowler was in the department of biogeography and geomorphology at the Australian National University. The human remains he found, and their subsequent radiocarbon dating, contributed to the historical rewriting of the timeline for Aboriginal settlement.Foster, S. G., & Varghese, M. M. (2009). The Making of The Australian National University: 1946-1996. ANU Press. pp. 241-242. They have been dated to approximately 40,000 years ago.Roberts, R., Russell, L. & Bird, M. (July 5, 2018). "Fifty years ago, at Lake Mungo, the true scale of Aboriginal Australians' epic story was revealed". The Conversation. Retrieved September 1, 2020.
Awards and recognition Bowler was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1988. He was awarded the Mawson Medal by the Australian Academy of Science in 1989.
He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 1999 Australia Day Honours for "service to earth sciences, particularly through the study of landscape and environmental history, and to Australian prehistory". Also in 1999, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Victoria.
References
External links University of Melbourne