Australian oral traditions record >10,000 ya flood events

This is very cool. An unbroken oral culture that spans the entirety of the Holocene. It boggles the mind to think about.



http://ift.tt/14sNj6N

Quote:

Several decades ago, linguists working with Aboriginal groups along the Queensland coastal margin recorded stories about a time when the ancestors of these people lived at the coast “where the Great Barrier Reef now stands”. One version of the story collected from the Yidindji people of the Cairns area recalls a time when Fitzroy Island was part of the mainland and offshore Green Island was four times larger. The story describes several named landmarks with remembered historical-cultural associations that are now underwater. We can be almost certain that the people of this area did occupy the coast “where the Great Barrier Reef now stands” during the last ice age for it would have comprised broad floodplains and undulating hills with a range of subsistence possibilities, bordered in most parts by steep cliffs plunging down to the narrow shore. The question is whether the details in these stories recall this time for, if they do, then the story might date from as much as 13,000 years ago. A more conservative interpretation, based on a sea level just 30 metres lower than today, would place the age of this story at around 10,000 years ago.

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/17C25uj