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José Vieira's avatar

I'm currently ~60% on diffusion of bullroarers. This confidence is already being pulled down by the possibility that modern experts have relevant insights I still lack, but pulled up (a bit less) by the cultural biases that mean if modern experts were going to be wrong about something this is a good candidate. If tomorrow I learn this question is becoming topical in academia again this confidence level could shoot up fast.

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meika loofs samorzewski's avatar

Research: "The archaeology of orality: Dating Tasmanian Aboriginal oral traditions to the Late Pleistocene" Published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Vol. 159, 105819 (2023)

ABSTRACT: Aboriginal people have lived in Australia, continuously, for tens of thousands of years. Over that time, they developed complex knowledge systems that were committed to memory and passed to successive generations through oral tradition. The length of time oral traditions can be passed down while maintaining vitality is a topic of ongoing debate in the social sciences. In recent years, scientists have weighed into the debate by studying traditions that describe natural events, such as volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts, which can be dated using scientific techniques.

We apply this approach to Tasmanian Aboriginal oral traditions that were recorded in the early nineteenth century, describing simultaneous events that occurred over 12,000 years ago that support arguments that the longevity of orality can exceed ten millennia.

Authored by Duane Hamacher, Patrick Nunn, Michelle Gantevoort, Rebe Taylor, Greg Lehman, Ka Hei Andrew Law, Mel Miles

but via https://www.facebook.com/thra1951/posts/pfbid0xpfvuygGUQjvJjsS3fa3v12skyiWyd7J4heBhro8ir3zx5hMEEerFsQevnsrMHjxl

with nice map of Bass Strait

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