> The simple answer is that some storied reference events that happened that long ago.

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?"

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MomsAVoxell 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Your mistake is leaning on the mythology, having, it seems, not actually listened to the songs and stories yourself, directly.

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.

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thaumasiotes 5 days ago | parent [-]

> 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.

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MomsAVoxell 4 days ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

	▲	marcusverus 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Occam's razor suggests that a coincidence is just a teensy bit more likely than a story surviving unchanged for a thousand generations.

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lukan 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

And then you'd still have to ask yourself, whether anything is real or a simulation, or a dream of god, etc.

Otherwise history is indeed much guesswork, as we don't have a timemachine and rely on lot's of indirect evidence for everything.

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MomsAVoxell 5 days ago | parent [-]

This is like looking at a seismograph or an electrocardiogram and concluding that it doesn’t represent anything worth knowing “because nothing is real”, “they were just dreaming because they were primitive”, or “we don’t have a <mythological and impossible device> to prove these stories”.

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.

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lukan 4 days ago | parent [-]

I was mainly mocking the absolutistic comment above, I find it very possible that the aborigines culture remembers very old events and that there can be proof in the conventional sense for it. But it would be indirect proof.

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MomsAVoxell 4 days ago | parent [-]

It is direct proof in the geological record, what part of that are you just failing to understand?

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lukan 4 days ago | parent [-]

Do you have the qualification to evaluate, whether some parts in the soil is a direct proof of some oral telling?

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"?

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MomsAVoxell 4 days ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

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lukan 4 days ago | parent [-]

I did research and just gave you a quote that says maybe. I have zero reason to assume your position there is definitely proof for the claim 40000 years memory to be correct.

"Do your own research for my claim" doesn't work around here.

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MomsAVoxell 4 days ago | parent [-]

If you weren’t so arrogant you could have gone on a journey of your own discovery. That is important on matters of great cultural significance such as this - do your own investigation and gain your own understanding, honestly - don’t just accept what you’ve been conditioned to think about it. The requirement to be honest goes both ways.

Because the original caretakers stories have been so degraded by imperialist idealogues over the centuries, the onus is on us in the modern era, to make the effort of discovery ourselves.

What you must understand, from your perspective as the ‘protector of truth in this community’, is that colonial disruption severely damaged the transmission and integrity of Aboriginal oral traditions, so modern people (scientists, researchers, and society) must actively recover and validate what remains rather than relying solely on what was passed down intact. Your desire to achieve the perception of “scientific rigor” in this discussion is manifesting the very imperialist attitude which degraded these peoples’ wonderful, amazing culture, in the first place.

So, get off your horse and learn some things. Make an effort to educate yourself and don’t just play the imperialist-knows-best card.

This should get you started at least:

Nunn, P.D. & Reid, N.J. (2016). “Aboriginal Memories of Inundation of the Australian Coast Dating from More than 7000 Years Ago.” Australian Geographer, 47(1), 11–47. DOI: 10.1080/00049182.2015.1077539

Nunn, P.D. (2016). “Australian Aboriginal traditions about coastal change reconciled with postglacial sea-level history: a first synthesis.” Environment and History, 22(3), 393–420. DOI: 10.3197/096734016X14661540219311

Related earlier/conference work includes Reid, Nunn & Sharpe (2014) on Indigenous Australian stories and sea-level change (proceedings of the Foundation for Endangered Languages conference).

“The Legend of Budj Bim - The Story: The Gunditjmara [Dreaming] narrative tells of a creator being named Budj Bim ("high head") whose teeth and blood became the molten lava and scoria flowing to the sea during a violent eruption.The Science: Radiometric dating confirms the [Budj Bim] volcano last erupted approximately 37,000 years ago, meaning the oral tradition passed down through generations via songlines matches actual geological events from the Pleistocene epoch.”

Benjamin, J. et al. (2023). “Stone artefacts on the seabed at a submerged freshwater spring confirm a drowned cultural landscape in Murujuga, Western Australia.” Quaternary Science Reviews.

Scientific American coverage (2024) of related work by Mick O’Leary and others describes elders recognising digital models of now-submerged watering holes as part of a songline known for generations, consistent with a landscape from >7,000 years ago when sea levels were much lower.

Broader context appears in papers on Murujuga/Dampier Archipelago submerged archaeology (e.g., Benjamin et al. 2020 on the first confirmed Australian underwater Indigenous sites) and predictive modelling for the Rottnest Shelf (e.g., a 2025 Journal of Maritime Archaeology paper evaluating archaeological potential, which references Noongar stories of walking to Rottnest Island.”

Note: there is much, much more for you to discover - I’m only relaying the experience for which I have great affinity, having grown up visiting Rottnest Island myself, many times.

Stop being a dickhead about it, and go on the journey, mate.

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lukan 4 days ago | parent [-]

"If you weren’t so arrogant you could have gone on a journey of your own discovery."

Thanks, but I did travel the world (and libaries) quite a bit and also was in the outback at places where few other souls go.

Still, I do see a difference with having a sound hypothesis - and having solid proof. And I do not see actual researchers making claims as you do. They present their theory and data.

Arrogance is rather associated with being very sure of oneself without having the data to back it up.

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MomsAVoxell 4 days ago | parent [-]

I too have been all over the outback, and I find your skepticism unwarranted. If you’d had any time with the culture, you’d understand how important it is for us to value their stories, rather than push imperialism at them.

That you are unsatisfied is of no relevance to the fact that the studies are solid. The evidence is in the stories and the geological record. I hope there is much, much more research done on this subject in the near future, for some to criticize and others to truly value an incredibly important culture, on the brink of extinction, precisely because of the types of Euro-centric, imperialist views you proffer being applied to their existence.

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lukan 3 days ago | parent [-]

"rather than push imperialism at them."

Dude, all I am saying is that I have not read any claims by any researchers that there is absolute proof of any sort. You have such a claim, then just show it.

And imperialism has nothing to do with whether the oral history of the aborigines goes back 40 000 or 10 000 or just 1000 years. British imperialism succeded, because they had superior weapons.

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MomsAVoxell 2 days ago | parent [-]

The geological record isn't proof enough for you?

	▲	lukan 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Are you a LLM?