> The original caretakers of the Australian continent have been telling the same stories orally for 40,000 years.
I know that this is commonly believed, but how could you possibly know?
I know that this is commonly believed, but how could you possibly know?
The simple answer is that some storied reference events that happened that long ago.[1]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n6VJ5jq7zY
[1] https://www.science.org/content/article/aboriginal-tale-anci...
There are a number of such stories which tell about landforms which have been under the ocean for 11,000 years, since the great meltwater pulses raised the ocean at the end of the ice age. Long after the stories were documented by anthropologists -- who thought it was unusual that so much mythology would be concerned with the topography of the seafloor -- sonar was invented, which confirmed that the landforms existed more or less exactly as the stories said.
So personally I think that's pretty hard proof of at least 11,000 years of accurate oral tradition.
“Prophecies” is a very euro-centric way to dismiss the subject. Indeed, there is encoding for you to be discovered, which has been rigorously demonstrated.
Dig deeper.
Why is the dismissive non-curious comment not getting down voted?
Am I in denial about whether the curios community still exists here?
To recognize the topic on hand... When a native community shares an oral tradition that accurately describes something that's been under water for 12+ thousand years despite not having the technology to map the sea floor that's pretty strong evidence in the accuracy of their ability to persist accuracy through oral tradition.
Parent is entirely valid in encouraging curiosity in this subject to anyone who is dismissive of it.
TLDR: the story is about a constellation that is seven sisters, but one is hiding; and that constellation does indeed have seven stars, but one hasn't been visible for 100k years.
This is another thing that you can't know.
If there is a match between an inferred geological event and a mythological event, you'd still have to ask "what is the rate of this happening by coincidence?"
There is no coincidence - the song lines record real geological events, such as the lowering of the oceans, the formations of islands, the drying up of lakes - on an ancient timeline - all of which are verified in the geological record.
Please, do not lean so hard on the petard of treating this subject as one of methods and coincidence.
These are real cultural artifacts, which encode real events.
The total amount of evidence for the second half of your claim is zero, and you should realize that.
It's something people want to believe, but it's not something there is any reason to believe.
Otherwise history is indeed much guesswork, as we don't have a timemachine and rely on lot's of indirect evidence for everything.
We do have methods of proving these stories - we can dig trenches and see the history as it was described, in the land itself.
Please, do not dismiss this on the basis of some authoritarian postulates about not having developed your own cultures time machines. Song lines literally are a verifiable time record.
Do you know their language? Can you rule out missunderstanding, misstranslation or plain fraud?
I cannot, so I fail to understand the absolute direct proof here. Do you have a researcher btw. who says there is absolute proof for this?
I doubt it, I rather think their language is along the lines of: "those findings indicate that ..".
"The original caretakers of the Australian continent have been telling the same stories orally for 40,000 years."
And especially for this claim of yours, citing from the one given link:
"Eruption 37,000 years ago may have sparked a legend about four giants"
Notice the "may"?
If that can happen, it's not so surprising a story can last 20-30000 years either - especially not if there's not much else making a similar impression to tell stories about.
The one I know of by way of personal experience (heard the songs, been there many times) is the tale of the creation of Wadjemup (Rottnest Island) ...
I don’t have references handy at the moment - I leave it up to you as an exercise to go on a course of interesting discovery - because there are some very fascinating papers for you to read, if you maintain the interest in the subject. The treatise on the potential crypto mechanisms (kinship system in a multi-lingual environment) is extremely fascinating, if I get a chance to find the references in a few days or so I’ll try to follow up … but anyway, do go do your own search, it is worth the journey.