Indigenous stories accurately tell of sea level rises, land mass reductions over 10,000 years

Indigenous stories offer highly accurate accounts of events that occurred over 10,000 years ago, including known changes in sea levels and the disappearance of land mass, research shows.

Monero Aboriginal dancers watch joggers in the Botanical Gardens in Sydney 
[Credit: AFP/Torsten Blackwood]

Associate Professor Nick Reid from the University of New England has been comparing Indigenous stories from across Australia with the scientific chronology of sea level rises over the past 20,000 years.

He said Indigenous oral traditions had accurately documented known changes in sea levels and the disappearance of land mass.

"People point to Cairns rainforests, and local Aboriginal people say 'Oh, well, actually a long time ago this wasn't rainforest, it was open woodland'," he said.

"There are people who have done pollen analysis in recent years and it turns out that rainforest is only 7,500 years old and prior to that it was indeed open woodland.

"There are also stories about mega fauna and about comets."

Professor Reid said it demonstrated the continuity of culture of Indigenous Australians and could have an impact on Native Title claims.

The stories have survived through oral transmission for over 10,000 years.

"If people were telling them 10,000 years ago and they're continuing to tell them today, then that's real evidence of continuity of culture," Professor Reid said.

"One of the requirements under Native Title is to establish continuity of culture and when you have transmission of the same story, we might be talking about across 500 generations, that's a remarkable thing."

"You can only do that if a culture is intact."

Professor Reid said he would now look to expand the research to examine other events that scientists know occurred thousands of years ago.

Author: Johannah McOwan | Source: ABC News Website [November 26, 2014]