Thanks. I don't have time to watch the video, but the article still leaves me skeptical. Matching myths to past events seems to me fraught with all the same potential pitfalls as matching them to future events and thence labeling them as prophecies, especially when the event in question is as common as a volcano erupting. But I will admit it's not entirely implausible either.

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nkoren 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

I also don't have time to watch the video, but am somewhat familiar with the topic. One of the primary themes of the dreamtime stories is about the origins of various landforms: how this hill got here, how this valley got there, etc. They're often quite detailed, because explaining the unique quirks of the landscape is part of the appeal. So, not just a generic "why the valley is here" stories, but specific "why the valley has seven sharp zig-zag kinks in it" kind of stories.

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.

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_bernd 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have no proof on hand but I have seen for instance a documentary on the French German station ARTE tv where they featured a kind of crazy dude who have gone through more or less every oral story of a tribe, the western world actually have written down. Then he started to compare and traced bits and pieces and this is really crazy who many parallels you will find. He then together with anthropologist estimated how old these stories might could be, based on travels and migrations like those of the caretakers...

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MomsAVoxell 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You’re making a very glib conclusion. Please, if you have an interest, make an effort to learn more about this subject. It’s not just matching myths .. its recording a history of geologically recorded events, along song lines actually walked where those geological events occurred.

“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.

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FloorEgg 4 days ago | parent [-]

The whole point of hacker news is to converse curiously. It's stated clearly in the guidelines. Here is a person encouraging curiosity and getting down voted.

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.

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done_lurking 2 days ago | parent [-]

ggp isn't being dismissive or incurious. They say they are skeptical of the reasoning used in the science.org article, but are still open to the accepting the conclusion. Does being curious mean you aren't allowed to question anything? gp is probably being downvoted for dismissing ggp's concerns with a trite "please educate yourself" and not actually referencing anything to read. Telling someone else they are wrong and to go find evidence to support your own opposing view may technically be "encouraging curiosity" but it's certainly not curious itself.

	▲	FloorEgg 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I re-read the comment you refer to as ggp and I agree with you completely. I must have gotten my wires crossed about which comment was being referred to.

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octopoc 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Here's another example (this from Europe) of a story that probably originates 100,000 years ago: https://www.iflscience.com/an-ancient-human-story-about-the-...

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.