A tarradiddle separate for generations by the Gunditjmara people of southerly Australia is thought to describe a volcanic bam . Now , date of lava bring forth by a vent thought to sport in the taradiddle record the account is 37,000 years old , quite likely making it the oldest tale on Earth .
The lava flows of southwest Victoria cross off it as a former volcanic responsibility , but the timing of the last eructation has been changeable .
The traditional possessor of theBudj Bim inheritance country , the Gunditjmara , have an origins story about four giants who give life and constabulary to the nation . In the Dreaming , an ancestral being – Budj Bim – come forth from the solid ground to become a domed mound with lava spilling out of its read/write head , while the story also includes credit to the “ country and trees dance ” . It ’s not hard to see how this could be a description of a major irruption , lead anthropologists to question if the Gunditjmara were living there at the time of the last eruption . The possibility advance a boost with the discovery in the forties of an ax beneath the most recent stratum of ash .
Dr Erin Matchanof the University of Melbourne used40Ar/39Ar to date the most recent eruptions from the Budj Bim and Tower Hill volcano . The technique trust on the fact potassium radioactively dilapidate to argon-39 , so as time go on potassium - rich rock the amount of argon-39 build up up relative to the more common argon-40 . advancement in aggregate spectrographic analysis have recently made this proficiency much more widely uncommitted for date volcanic rocks . In the journalGeology , she reports they publish lava and ash respectively around 37,000 old age ago , with an dubiousness of 3,100 years .
If the Gunditjmara story really does name one of these eruptions , it is almost for sure the oldest surviving story whose origins we can discover .
It might seem impossible that eye - witness accounts could last over such a Brobdingnagian sweep of prison term , even modify into myth . However , around much of coastal Australia Aboriginal storiesrefer to landsthat were drown by rise seas , matching event that happened 7,000 eld ago . An accountof a volcanic eruption in northern Australia looks like from the same time .
Matchan thinks the four giants story is five times older , but if 7,000 is possible , why not 30,000 more ? The hardest period for the story ’s survival would have been the last two centuries , during which Indigenous Australians were banned from speaking their own language , and frequently had their children stolen by white potency .
Matchan pointed out to IFLScience it is well ground that Indigenous Australians have been in south - easterly Australia for at least 40,000 years , so habitation of the Gunditjmara lands almost certainly stretches back that far . However , away from the ax and one deeply mysterious 120,000 - year - old possiblefireplace and middenall the grounds of human occupation comes from the last 13,000 years .
Matchan and her co - authors admit the evidence for the descent of the four giants story is far from conclusive . It might not report a volcanic eruption at all . Or perhaps it was inherit from people fly the eruption of Mount Gambier , 130 kilometers ( 80 nautical mile ) northwest , which could be as little as 5,000 eld old .
Nevertheless , there ismitogenomic evidencethat Indigenous peoples may have remained in distinct geographical areas for tens of thousands of years espouse initial migration from Northern Australia . A people force into a major migration by a local catastrophe would be look to have interbred much more with their neighbors . The area ’s remarkableeel traps , the world ’s old aquaculture remnants are part of the Gunditjmara culture , indicating their mien in the field for at least 6,600 years .
Proving the four giant story really does describe the bang may never be potential , but reclaim additional relics from before the eruptions might say us a raft about the hoi polloi who inhabit the area . The reason nothing fresh has been feel for 70 year , Matchan says , “ Is in all probability because no one has really looked . The ax was a chance find by a sodbuster compass mail service hole , rather than part of a deliberate search . "
