Aboriginal legend backs up research findings on origins of Central AU palm trees
abc.net.au
abc.net.au
The quoted professor concludes from this that Aboriginal oral history has survived for 30,000 years.
The heck? Consider two explanations off the top of my head:
1. The Aborigines forgot the actual origin of the Palm seeds. Recently (<2Kyr), a tale was invented of the seed origin which happens to involve the seeds being carried from the same cardinal direction.
2. The Aborigines forgot the actual origin of the Palm seeds. Recently (<2Kyr), a visitor from the North recognized the Trees, and guessed they were carried from the North. This story was passed down as fact.
A tale that lasts 30,000 seems like Magic to me. Neither of my top-of-the-head explanations requires Magic. Do they teach Occam's Razor in Tasmanian Ecology school?
As I understand it, the Aborigines have a strict oral tradition, so the passing down of these stories isn't a casual chat over a meal, but a formal education, where accuracy is paramount. Under these circumstances, the reliability of each individual ancestral line goes up, so when they are all operating in parallel, I'd expect the error rate to be quite low, errors in each generation being corrected by a majority vote.