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Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

sciencemag.org

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Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#61

Post by ptah »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #55
Gatsky wrote: post #50

There is a sad history in Australia of treating the indigenous population as nothing more than a bunch of savages. This had its origins as a kind of reality distortion to justify taking their land and in some cases, exterminating them entirely as happened in Tasmania. There is still this perverse incentive today, since acknowledging that there was a full blown civilisation with a very long history present before Engl…

Trying to phrase this delicately: is there such a thing as a non-full-blown civilization in your view? Or is an uncontacted tribe in the jungle equally "civilized" as the ancient Romans or Chinese?

from the perspective of sustainability the uncontacted tribe is more civilized than the ancient Romans or chinese

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#62

Post by jwmhjwmh »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #24

Aren't these the people who have a hunting dance, with one section detailing the hunting of a giant bird on two legs with giant claws? Bringing to mind the Dromornis stirtoni, or "demon duck of doom" which has been extinct for 37,000 years.

Could the bird be a cassowary? Those still live in Australia today.

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#63

Post by crippledshyness »

shermozle wrote: post #38
jbattle wrote: post #9

I ask this question out of more curiosity than skepticism, but how do the scientists in this article distinguish between stories that explain the 'appearance' of the volcano vs. the 'formation' of the volcano? As a point of comparison, there are a lot of stories about how Paul Bunyan created various lakes, mountains, and valleys. These are clearly invented backstories for part of the existing landscape. I can't find…

For context there's a pseudo debate going on in Australia about whether the indigenous people had large-scale agri- and aquaculture. A book, highly recommended, called Dark Emu quotes primary sources from early settlers and white explorers clearly describing an agrarian economy that was rapidly wiped out by invading settlers and their livestock. If true, and it's a convincing theory, the indigenous first Australians…

Pseudo?

Read https://quadrant.org.au/?s=pascoe

Note, Quadrant is a conservative site, so wear a prophylactic.

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#64

Post by stubish »

blompa wrote: post #51
Gatsky wrote: post #50

There is a sad history in Australia of treating the indigenous population as nothing more than a bunch of savages. This had its origins as a kind of reality distortion to justify taking their land and in some cases, exterminating them entirely as happened in Tasmania. There is still this perverse incentive today, since acknowledging that there was a full blown civilisation with a very long history present before Engl…

Although the rest of what you say is true, it's actually a myth[0] that all Tasmanian Aboriginals were killed off (something that Tasmanian Aboriginals find frustrating in itself). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tasmanians

It wasn't always a myth. The legal definitions have changed over time and place, and scientific and social definitions varied.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Depart...

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#65

Post by harperlee »

ptah wrote: post #61
9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to phrase this delicately: is there such a thing as a non-full-blown civilization in your view? Or is an uncontacted tribe in the jungle equally "civilized" as the ancient Romans or Chinese?

from the perspective of sustainability the uncontacted tribe is more civilized than the ancient Romans or chinese

Insightful, but that is unidimensional and clearly not sufficient to define civilization. What other perspectives we should consider? Do you think we need to leave out some that might come quick to mind, such as "complexity", "specialization", etc.?

I heard in highschool that scale is the big issue with civilization. Anarchy, for example, can work up until people start not knowing themselves (I heard 200 then; I'd argue that this corresponds or is near of Dunbar's number 150 [1]. I don't think this was known by my teacher then, as this was first proposed in 1990 according to wikipedia).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#66

Post by bwilli123 »

Gatsky wrote: post #50

There is a sad history in Australia of treating the indigenous population as nothing more than a bunch of savages. This had its origins as a kind of reality distortion to justify taking their land and in some cases, exterminating them entirely as happened in Tasmania. There is still this perverse incentive today, since acknowledging that there was a full blown civilisation with a very long history present before Engl…

Daisy Bates (early 1900's) lived alongside Aborigines all her life. Learned their languages and customs. No modern gloss is placed on what she saw. http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400661h.html

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#67

Post by Jedd »

fit2rule wrote: post #59
sigstoat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uh. not sure what claim you're trying to imply here? you've provided what I see as an even more profound example of selection bias. the folks who needed an oral tradition to stay alive, and were failed by said oral tradition _died_ and weren't here for you to meet.

All literature is subject to the bias you seem to think invalidates these peoples' right to determination. "All lost knowledge is invalid, or else it would have persisted" is, essentially, an imperialist perspective. Knowledge lost because of invasion isn't made less valuable to those who perpetuated it before they were wiped out by colonialists.

> All literature is subject to the bias you seem to think invalidates these peoples' right to determination.

You're clearly very passionate on this subject, though you appear to be arguing against claims that aren't being made.

First, your claim that oral tradition seems inefficient compared to writing is extremely hard to defend. The accuracy, scope, density, longevity, and reproducibility of written information has clear advantages over speech-based transmission.

Second, I don't see that sigstoat was claiming Australian aborigines have no right to determination. I read the observation at face value -- if you have two groups of people, both relying on oral tradition to pass on information necessary for survival, and only one group is around today -- this does not indicate that all oral tradition was effective, only that some subset / subgroup was. (Naturally this ignores OCP's.)

> "All lost knowledge is invalid, or else it would have persisted" is, essentially, an imperialist perspective.

Quoting something that wasn't actually said by the person you're responding is misleading.

In any case, no one is claiming this.

There's a regrettable abundance of 'knowledge' (literature, oral traditions, customs, etc) that have persisted across every society or culture, that by all rights should not have.

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#68

Post by blompa »

stubish wrote: post #64
blompa wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although the rest of what you say is true, it's actually a myth[0] that all Tasmanian Aboriginals were killed off (something that Tasmanian Aboriginals find frustrating in itself). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tasmanians

It wasn't always a myth. The legal definitions have changed over time and place, and scientific and social definitions varied. https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Depart...

Interesting, thank you for the link.

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#69

Post by fit2rule »

Jedd wrote: post #67
fit2rule wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All literature is subject to the bias you seem to think invalidates these peoples' right to determination. "All lost knowledge is invalid, or else it would have persisted" is, essentially, an imperialist perspective. Knowledge lost because of invasion isn't made less valuable to those who perpetuated it before they were wiped out by colonialists.

> All literature is subject to the bias you seem to think invalidates these peoples' right to determination. You're clearly very passionate on this subject, though you appear to be arguing against claims that aren't being made. First, your claim that oral tradition seems inefficient compared to writing is extremely hard to defend. The accuracy, scope, density, longevity, and reproducibility of written information has…

> The accuracy, scope, density, longevity, and reproducibility of written information has clear advantages over speech-based transmission.

37,000 years of oral tradition versus .. 5,000 years (?) of written? The jury is still out.

Re: Is an Aboriginal tale of an ancient volcano the oldest story ever told?

#70

Post by flukus »

crispinb wrote: post #37
aaron695 wrote: post #34

What's the word for this? Where you tell or get a generic story then fit it to specific objects or events? They use it in Astrology all the time. So do Mind readers. Jordan Peterson does this a well. I think what he does in general is based in science, but his interpreting old stories is scientific nonsense, but entertaining. It is funny how people rail up against the colonial past, but then still treat the natives l…

There's a phenomenon where people who know the least about a topic seem to make the most confident pronouncements. It betokens a sad lack of curiosity. Do even 10 minutes of reading and you'll find out that there are many cases of scientists & ethnographers in Australia corroborating traditional story details over thousands of years. Another 5 minutes and you'll find, again, cases where indigenous elders have travers…

With 10 minutes of reading (and I suspect anything less than many years of study) I can't find out what the hit rate is. How many stories do they have? How many describe verifiable events?

A single story that happens to correlate to a verifiable event is just cherry picking and doesn't prove anything. And from what I've read from other similar articles they just cherry pick a single story, correlate and call it proof.

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