Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/aboriginal-tale-ancient-volcano-oldest-story-ever-told

by Hooke • 6 years ago

87 69 6 years ago

davidw• 6 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Mazama#Human_history

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_Lake#Sacred_significanc...

the indigenous peoples near Crater Lake in Oregon have passed down stories relating to its eruption nearly 8000 years ago.

laxd• 6 years ago

Another one that would be fun to believe https://aeon.co/ideas/investigating-homo-floresiensis-and-th...

goto11• 6 years ago

I would love for this to be true, but I'm suspicious because the figure of a women "troll" which trows her breast over her shoulders also exist in Scandinavian folklore ("slattenpat").

ars• 6 years ago

Maybe there were the more recent flows from this volcano?

I could not find info on when it went extinct.

princekolt• 6 years ago

There have been no other large volcanic eruptions in the area in the intervening years that could have provided inspiration for the stories

It's literally in the article

dwd2• 6 years ago

Not completely correct.

The Mount Gambier eruption (VEI 4) was about 5,000 years ago and it's only 100km away, so it's possible they had contact with people fleeing that area, along with ash fall and a 10km high plume. VEI 5 and you have a Mount St Helens scale event.

A similar eruption (and one of the more likely to occur in Australia) would be catastrophic with the town literally built around the crater.

dwd2• 6 years ago

You may need to search for Mount Eccles.

I grew up in Warrnambool but mobed away years ago and had never heard it referred by the traditional name until the recent fires went through there: The painting was instantly recognisable though.

Probably of more interest...

https://www.newsweek.com/australia-bushfires-unearth-6600-ye...

fit2rule11• 6 years ago

Anyone paying attention to the FNP saga, have known for a long time that there is more to the tale of their civilisation than we have been willing to admit.

The FNP had the worlds largest trading network for tens of thousands of years. They had a form of crypto key exchange which guaranteed peace between the tribes. They farmed and tamed the landmass of the Australian continent with fire, turning it into a self-replenishing paradise for many millennia. They still operate human-kinds oldest, productive ore mine - Wilgie Mia, 30,000 years old. Theirs was the first school in the world - Gabarnmung, 35,000 years old - recently re-opened for the traditional owners after a few decades of neglect during colonisation. As the article states, they have the longest record of history passed down through oral tradition of any human group - 37,000 years is a long time to be telling the same stories. We (Europeans) can hardly do it for 200 years ..

There is so much to learn from these people - alas, it requires a very bright, scientific mind to do so, because the prejudice against them has been so rigidly enforced in modern Australian culture that it is an uphill battle. However, I would really encourage anyone with an interest in the longest history of humankind, to learn a few of the FNP's songs and stories. They are truly an amazing civilisation.

MisterOctober• 6 years ago

My guess based on context is that "FNP" refers to the indigenous people of Australia [maybe 'First Nations People?' -- however that term is more generally used in North America, to my knowledge], but that acronym isn't present in the article. Would you clarify for our benefit please?

fit2rule11• 6 years ago

It does indeed refer to the indigenous people of Australia, and is a general term used by many indigenous people who were displaced by colonisation in Australia, the USA and Canada. Australian Aboriginal People use this term freely - I believe it is politically leveraged in a contemporary context to indicate alignment with other displaced peoples around the world. Euro-Australians are generally not as content with the use of this phrase, since it indicates a path to sovereignty and serves as a reminder of Australia's rough past.

However, from the FNP-side, it is considered better than the phrases "Aborigine" or "Indigenous", since these phrases can be used to refer to the condition of various flora and fauna, and thus de-humanizes the subject. The FN people in my family prefer that I refer to them thus as FNP.

There is a better guideline for how this should be addressed, because as you no doubt can understand, its a sensitive issue:

https://www.actcoss.org.au/sites/default/files/public/public...

"Similarly to above ('First Australians'), 'First Nations' recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the sovereign people of this land. It goes further than 'First Australians' as it recognises various language groups as separate and unique sovereign nations. It is widely used to describe the First Peoples in Canada and other countries across the globe. Over recent years, the use of this term has grown in popularity. It is a better choice than many outdated and offensive terms described above."

DennisP2• 6 years ago

They had a form of crypto key exchange which guaranteed peace between the tribes.

Could you expand on this?

fit2rule11• 6 years ago

Its related to the kinship system:

https://sydney.edu.au/about-us/vision-and-values/our-aborigi...

There is a recent paper which dives into this in more detail and reveals the surprising alignment with modern crypto principles based on a more rigorous analysis, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. It is frustratingly difficult topic to search for...

Essentially, clans and tribes would teach their representatives (usually children) specific stories (key) and kinship of their own tribes, then send them to be integrated into other clans - whenever members of the clans would meet, they would exchange stories - and they would recognise unfamiliar clan members by the stories and kinship they would announce, as per knowledge of the original representatives. This was used to keep the peace between tribes, and recognise newcomers to the resources of the area.

If I find the recent paper, I will follow up with a link .. its an immensely fascinating discovery.

ogre_codes• 6 years ago

We (Europeans) can hardly do it for 200 years ..

It's hard to compare because fundamentally writing changed everything. Not just in Europe, but everywhere writing became common, oral histories more or less ceased. Photography and later the internet is changing this again.

fit2rule11• 6 years ago

And by way of corollary, if you have a strong and resolute oral tradition that can stand the test of 10's of thousands of years, writing systems seem entirely inefficient.

jbattle• 6 years ago

I ask this question out of more curiosity than skepticism, but how do the scientists in this article distinguish between stories that explain the 'appearance' of the volcano vs. the 'formation' of the volcano?

As a point of comparison, there are a lot of stories about how Paul Bunyan created various lakes, mountains, and valleys. These are clearly invented backstories for part of the existing landscape.

I can't find a retelling of the Budj Bim story - are there elements of the story that are qualitatively different from stories about Paul Bunyan?

Or is it more that the local population has been in place for 40k years so these stories could be that old?

rolleiflex• 6 years ago

The article mentions that human artefacts have been found in the sediment under the solidified lava from the eruption of the said volcanos.

It also appears to claim that Australia seems to be a general exception to the rule that human populations move around - in this case they appears to have stayed put. As a result, it’s a reasonable deduction that there were humans before the said volcanoes, and (less credibly) that they are generally linked to the aforementioned indigenous population. Ultimately I think what’s interesting is the first part, a piece of human culture survived for so long through whatever means.

stubish2• 6 years ago

"Appears to have stayed put" is very interesting. For as long as I remember, the theory was Aboriginal settlement was in waves over a long period of time, from different regions depending on what routes were available at the time (land bridges etc.). Waves of settlement pushed existing populations further south, with the oldest group down in Tasmania (well documented as wiped out by Europeans). Now I'm reading "a single, rapid migration along the east and west coasts", and extrapolating from that the significant racial diversity would be divergence over the last 50,000 years.

(https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21416 linked from the article)

(A tenancy to stay put might also help explain the amazing density of languages)

Nition• 6 years ago

This was my first thought as well. Since this is a fictional story of how the volcano came to be, it seems like all we can know from it is that they were there at one of the multiple times when it erupted. The most recent was apparently around 8,000 years ago.

hug• 6 years ago

A semi-translated version of the story of Budj Bim: https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/aboriginal-culture/nyernila/dh...

basicplus22• 6 years ago

The story talks of the lava coming out of the volcano.. so it is clearly active at least

crispinb6• 6 years ago

They're only suggesting it as a possibility to be explored. I think it arises from the teeth/lava story detail, given there seem to have been no significant subsequent eruptions.

Certainly there's been good prior evidence of indigenous Australian myths having remarkable longevity, and their cultural means of maintaining & transmitting myths seem to have been optimised for accuracy. But 37,000 years would be quite something.

shermozle• 6 years ago

For context there's a pseudo debate going on in Australia about whether the indigenous people had large-scale agri- and aquaculture. A book, highly recommended, called Dark Emu quotes primary sources from early settlers and white explorers clearly describing an agrarian economy that was rapidly wiped out by invading settlers and their livestock. If true, and it's a convincing theory, the indigenous first Australians had a completely different culture to that we've all been taught. Settled agriculture actively managing the land as opposed to hunter gatherers. And the history goes back 50-60k years.

This idea has touched a nerve with the Murdocracy who opened a new front in their culture wars attacking the idea without really attempting to refute it from historical sources.

So I think reading this piece in that context is helpful.

crispinb6• 6 years ago

I'll second the Pascoe recommendation. Also Bill Gammage's The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia is eye opening

markdown• 6 years ago

crippledshyness• 6 years ago

Pseudo?

Read https://quadrant.org.au/?s=pascoe

Note, Quadrant is a conservative site, so wear a prophylactic.

simonblack• 6 years ago

Or is it more that the local population has been in place for 40k years so these stories could be that old?

That is very likely. The Aboriginal Culture has strong affiliation the land and to a tribes' Sacred Sites. They never move far from those Sacred Sites. Even if they move away seasonally, (say from a mountain area to a seaside area while following food) they will return to 'their' mountain area the next season, again following food.

The Aboriginal hunter-gatherer lifestyle places great importance on conservation, both on flora and fauna. Breeding/growing seasons are usually off-limits so that the food supply can be allowed to be restored properly.

Some tribes had a workable fish-farming system for hundreds (thousands?) of years. The remains of those ponds are still existent today (Byaduk and Condah area). https://theconversation.com/the-detective-work-behind-the-bu...

osaatcioglu• 6 years ago

I remembered the article[1] talking about data as its own being, even maybe a separate consciousness. And, then I thought a story dated back that many years should be, arguably, the oldest preserved data that the intelligent life on earth ever had so far. I am excluding the language itself, of course.

So, this makes it the most ancient branch of Dataome. It is quite cool to observe the baby steps of the next evolutionary path.

[1]https://nautil.us/issue/65/in-plain-sight/the-selfish-dataom...

JoeAltmaier2• 6 years ago

Aren't these the people who have a hunting dance, with one section detailing the hunting of a giant bird on two legs with giant claws? Bringing to mind the Dromornis stirtoni, or "demon duck of doom" which has been extinct for 37,000 years.

jwmhjwmh• 6 years ago

Could the bird be a cassowary? Those still live in Australia today.

c3534l• 6 years ago

So there's a story about a volcano and there happens to be an old volcanic formation nearby, therefor the story depicts an actual event an implausibly long time ago. I find this as believable as Noah's Ark because there was a big flood once. Show us more than just a single coincidence on an entire continent of peoples.

JoeAltmaier2• 6 years ago

Read the article? There was more than that.

ccsnags• 6 years ago

The article itself provides more than one coincidence, but they are making some assumptions that seem to be stretching what the evidence is able to provide.

I dug a little deeper and found a host of interesting things but like the article, there seems to be a bit of embellishment in what they can know with the evidence provided.

The important take away is that we shouldn’t assume less technologically advanced civilizations don’t have complex systems of communication. I think much of the stories of our past are important, even when they seem to be fantastic.

If Aboriginal storytelling has the ability to stay consistent over time, the structure of such a thing would be valuable to the modern world.

aaron695• 6 years ago

What's the word for this? Where you tell or get a generic story then fit it to specific objects or events?

They use it in Astrology all the time. So do Mind readers.

Jordan Peterson does this a well. I think what he does in general is based in science, but his interpreting old stories is scientific nonsense, but entertaining.

It is funny how people rail up against the colonial past, but then still treat the natives like a different species exactly like the colonials. A mythical tribe who could keep stories alive longer than 3 generations.

Even in societies with writing, stories corrupt after a hundred years. Look at Grimm Fairy tales and the before and after versions we can find written. They also had oral as well as writing but still couldn't hold it together.

crispinb6• 6 years ago

There's a phenomenon where people who know the least about a topic seem to make the most confident pronouncements. It betokens a sad lack of curiosity.

Do even 10 minutes of reading and you'll find out that there are many cases of scientists & ethnographers in Australia corroborating traditional story details over thousands of years. Another 5 minutes and you'll find, again, cases where indigenous elders have traversed country they've never been in before, and gone straight to the only water sources existing in hundreds of surrounding square kilometers. All based on traditional stories. Probe a little further and you'll find out that much (though not all) is known about the cultural technologies that have been used to keep the stories alive and accurate over multiple generations.

Indigenous Australians aren't a 'different species'. But they do represent a distinct civilisation, which has thrived all the way across a continent for 40-60,000 years. Part of how they have done this is by maintaining stories about the land. This has little in common with industrial era unsubstantiated superstitions about indigenous peoples' 'oral stories'.

flukus• 6 years ago

With 10 minutes of reading (and I suspect anything less than many years of study) I can't find out what the hit rate is. How many stories do they have? How many describe verifiable events?

A single story that happens to correlate to a verifiable event is just cherry picking and doesn't prove anything. And from what I've read from other similar articles they just cherry pick a single story, correlate and call it proof.

friendlybus• 6 years ago

Watch Jordan's discussions with Sam Harris in Vancouver to see how he plays with the reductionist fact based perspective on all those old stories.

Describing the stories as generic is half the point, they are going to apply a lot of places and appear obvious. It is not a bunch of arbitrary connections.

Gatsky• 6 years ago

There is a sad history in Australia of treating the indigenous population as nothing more than a bunch of savages. This had its origins as a kind of reality distortion to justify taking their land and in some cases, exterminating them entirely as happened in Tasmania. There is still this perverse incentive today, since acknowledging that there was a full blown civilisation with a very long history present before English colonisation means we are a morally bankrupt nation, and also invites discussion of reparations.

blompa2• 6 years ago

Although the rest of what you say is true, it's actually a myth[0] that all Tasmanian Aboriginals were killed off (something that Tasmanian Aboriginals find frustrating in itself).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tasmanians

stubish2• 6 years ago

It wasn't always a myth. The legal definitions have changed over time and place, and scientific and social definitions varied.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Depart...

geeostation• 6 years ago

Rural Australian whites were shooting Aboriginals like Animals few decades ago :(

back on topic, we are still discovering new things about the aboriginal civilisation https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-19/fire-reveals-further-...

retsibsi2• 6 years ago

shooting Aboriginals like Animals few decades ago

Is this really true? I know there's a terrible history of massacres and unpunished murders, but was that sort of thing really going on so recently?

fit2rule11• 6 years ago

The Australian government was still forcefully sterilising FNP girls into the 70's. See also, Stolen Generation.

9nGQluzmnq3M• 6 years ago

Trying to phrase this delicately: is there such a thing as a non-full-blown civilization in your view? Or is an uncontacted tribe in the jungle equally "civilized" as the ancient Romans or Chinese?

ptah• 6 years ago

from the perspective of sustainability the uncontacted tribe is more civilized than the ancient Romans or chinese

bwilli123• 6 years ago

Daisy Bates (early 1900's) lived alongside Aborigines all her life. Learned their languages and customs. No modern gloss is placed on what she saw. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400661h.html

Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

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