Archaeological evidence of an ethnographically documented Australian Aboriginal ritual dated to the last ice age

Bruno David (), Russell Mullett, Nathan Wright, Birgitta Stephenson, Jeremy Ash, Joanna Fresløv, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Matthew C. McDowell, Jerome Mialanes, Fiona Petchey, Lee J. Arnold, Ashleigh J. Rogers, Joe Crouch, Helen Green, Chris Urwin and Carney D. Matheson
Additional contact information
Bruno David: Monash University
Russell Mullett: Monash University
Nathan Wright: University of New England
Birgitta Stephenson: In the Groove Analysis Pty Ltd
Jeremy Ash: Monash University
Joanna Fresløv: GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation
Jean-Jacques Delannoy: Monash University
Matthew C. McDowell: Monash University
Jerome Mialanes: Monash University
Fiona Petchey: University of Waikato
Lee J. Arnold: Monash University
Ashleigh J. Rogers: Monash University
Joe Crouch: Monash University
Helen Green: Monash University
Chris Urwin: Monash University
Carney D. Matheson: Griffith University

Nature Human Behaviour, 2024, vol. 8, issue 8, 1481-1492

Abstract: Abstract In societies without writing, ethnographically known rituals have rarely been tracked back archaeologically more than a few hundred years. At the invitation of GunaiKurnai Aboriginal Elders, we undertook archaeological excavations at Cloggs Cave in the foothills of the Australian Alps. In GunaiKurnai Country, caves were not used as residential places during the early colonial period (mid-nineteenth century CE), but as secluded retreats for the performance of rituals by Aboriginal medicine men and women known as ‘mulla-mullung’, as documented by ethnographers. Here we report the discovery of buried 11,000- and 12,000-year-old miniature fireplaces with protruding trimmed wooden artefacts made of Casuarina wood smeared with animal or human fat, matching the configuration and contents of GunaiKurnai ritual installations described in nineteenth-century ethnography. These findings represent 500 generations of cultural transmission of an ethnographically documented ritual practice that dates back to the end of the last ice age and that contains Australia’s oldest known wooden artefacts.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01912-w

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