Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told? | Hacker News Reader

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

sciencemag.org

87 pointsHooke69 comments

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.

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

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...

Interesting, thank you for the link.

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-...

> 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?

Yes. The government paid a bounty in the Northern Territory for myall (wild aboriginal people) scalps until well into the 20th century.

I interpreted 'few decades ago' to mean, roughly, within 30-40 years or so. Second half of the 20th century at the very least. (I'm not being pedantic for the fun of it, let alone because I want to downplay the atrocities that have been committed. I want to know if I'm ignorant of some important recent history; if not, I guess I want to point out that our recent history isn't quite as bad as the parent comment seemed to indicate.)

Sorry, what's your source for this?

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

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?

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

Insightful, but that is unidimensional and clearly not sufficient to define civilization. What other perspectives we should consider? Do you think we need to leave out some that might come quick to mind, such as "complexity", "specialization", etc.?

I heard in highschool that scale is the big issue with civilization. Anarchy, for example, can work up until people start not knowing themselves (I heard 200 then; I'd argue that this corresponds or is near of Dunbar's number 150 [1]. I don't think this was known by my teacher then, as this was first proposed in 1990 according to wikipedia).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

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

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?

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.

"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)

Don't have sources at hand, but my impression from news articles over the last decade has been that recent archeological evidence has tended to indicate that aboriginal populations have been in australia for for quite a bit longer than the 50/60K years that was previously believed.

One example: I think there were some campfire remains and associated artifacts in Tasmania that were recently dated and turned out to be a lot older than than expected, like at least 80K years old.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Pseudo?

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

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

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...

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.

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?

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."

I haven't once heard 'First Nations People' used on the ground other than by visiting speakers (usually from overseas). Indigenous & Koorie are the most common terms used here (I live in the Northern Rivers - Bundjalung country).

The "first nations" phrase is used frequently on aboriginal radio in perth (Noongar fm 100.9) At least half the people they talk to are from the eastern states, so I don't think that the phrase is unusual (at least among the sort of people who get interviewed on radio stations).

Sure, I'm just saying I don't hear it 'on the street' where I live. I honestly find the whole officially-approved nomenclature issue a bit overblown anyway. I'm completely happy to use whatever people prefer, but have known enough rednecks who can inflect racism into entitrely innocuous language, to feel that 'correct' word choice is a pretty small determinant of what's communicated. At least beyond the twitterverse.

Well, I learned it from my FNP relatives, who much prefer it over "Aborigine" or "Indigenous" - as these terms have become very loaded, and there is the desire to indicate that the people who were displaced by European colonisation were indeed the first sovereign nation on the continent. YMMV.

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

Could you expand on this?

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.

As a software developer and crypto enthusiast with a degree in cultural anthropology, I would love to read that paper.

It's pure aggrandisation to compare such rudimental human behaviour with crypto key exchange.

Do you know anything about Australian civilisation, or is your comment derived purely from industrial era superstitions?

Well, that's certainly a considered opinion, however there has been serious scientific and academic attention given to the subject, and the conclusion is that things were a lot more advanced than we modern Euro-Australians are willing to admit. It certainly would invalidate the contemporary narrative of them being 'a primitive peoples' ..

> 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.

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.

Seems to me that even with strong oral history tradition, writing for documenting (and in case of dispute, providing evidence for) the content of nonpublished private agreements and certain other use cases has compelling advantages.

Indeed, and of course its all about the media. One could see how Gabarnmung is a very, very old library .. with distinct advantages.

seems like selection bias. we’ve no idea how much has been lost. or whether or not the oral historians of X thousand years ago would be satisfied with how their tales have made it down the ages.

Their stories were essential for survival in finding food and their way across 1000's of miles of open land to different reaources. If they were wrong they would die.

I met and sat and talked with indiginous people in fitzroy crossing who walked in from Adelaide across the centre of Australian deserts by the use of their stories.

uh. not sure what claim you're trying to imply here? you've provided what I see as an even more profound example of selection bias.

the folks who needed an oral tradition to stay alive, and were failed by said oral tradition _died_ and weren't here for you to meet.

All literature is subject to the bias you seem to think invalidates these peoples' right to determination. "All lost knowledge is invalid, or else it would have persisted" is, essentially, an imperialist perspective. Knowledge lost because of invasion isn't made less valuable to those who perpetuated it before they were wiped out by colonialists.

> All literature is subject to the bias you seem to think invalidates these peoples' right to determination.

You're clearly very passionate on this subject, though you appear to be arguing against claims that aren't being made.

First, your claim that oral tradition seems inefficient compared to writing is extremely hard to defend. The accuracy, scope, density, longevity, and reproducibility of written information has clear advantages over speech-based transmission.

Second, I don't see that sigstoat was claiming Australian aborigines have no right to determination. I read the observation at face value -- if you have two groups of people, both relying on oral tradition to pass on information necessary for survival, and only one group is around today -- this does not indicate that all oral tradition was effective, only that some subset / subgroup was. (Naturally this ignores OCP's.)

> "All lost knowledge is invalid, or else it would have persisted" is, essentially, an imperialist perspective.

Quoting something that wasn't actually said by the person you're responding is misleading.

In any case, no one is claiming this.

There's a regrettable abundance of 'knowledge' (literature, oral traditions, customs, etc) that have persisted across every society or culture, that by all rights should not have.

> The accuracy, scope, density, longevity, and reproducibility of written information has clear advantages over speech-based transmission.

37,000 years of oral tradition versus .. 5,000 years (?) of written? The jury is still out.

> 37,000 years of oral tradition versus .. 5,000 years (?) of written? The jury is still out.

Recency of invention is not synonymous with inefficiency.

Consider that you're trying to assert oral tradition is more efficient than writing systems ... in a written format on a construct accessed by hundreds of thousands of people around the world over many years rather than demonstrating the validity of your claim to a half dozen people around a fire.

I don't disagree with your position on the strengths of written media - I'm after all a major user of the media - but I do think that there is great value in recognising that 37,000 years ago, someone told a story - and here we are, still discussing it. That's not something that we in the West can predict will happen, or not, too soon - especially given the immense amount of material that has been lost, even in our lifetimes, because it was written and forgotten.

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.

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.

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

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

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").

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...

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.

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'.

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.

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.

Maybe there were the more recent flows from this volcano?

I could not find info on when it went extinct.

> 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

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.

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...

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.

Read the article? There was more than that.

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.

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