12,000 -YEAR-OLD- 12,000 : FOUNDERS GLOBAL ESSAY

 

ONE DAY IN EVOLUTION - Sam Daily Times. Org of The World Students Society and Ecosystem 2011, would be 12,000 years old. Future students looking up ' the spirit of the times ' would marvel at what you all have captured and preserved.

Esteemed Global Founders Engineers Rabo, Haleema, Salar, Hussain, Sannan [ Germany ], Ghazi, and then Dee, Sahar [ Canada ], Hamza [UK], Ahsen [US], Zaeem, Sherayar, Hazeem, Alyaan [ Australia ], Lakshmi [ India], Ali [ UAE], Bilal [US].

Jordan [US], Emaan [US], Danyial [UK], Maria, Mynah, and Hannyia and then the students of the entire world, - had fared and faired in the service of Mankind.

I hope the future generation of students will leave no stone unturned to research and determine the facts for themselves. It is to the future generations of grandparents, parents,  students, professors and teachers that this essay is dedicated.

12,000 YEAR-OLD ritual still ongoing. And this new research and study shows the ability of oral traditions to keep such practices alive across hundreds of generations.

Archaeologists have discovered evidence that shows how indigenous oral traditions were able to pass down knowledge over 500 generations,  the journal Nature Human Behaviour reported last Monday.

Miniature fireplaces with protruding trimmed wooden artefacts smeared in fat were found in a series of caves in Australia's Victorian Alps that match the description of Gunaikurnai healing rituals written down in the 19th century.

The findings are believed to be 12,000 years old, dating them to the end of the last ice age.

'' Determining the longevity of oral traditions and ' intangible heritage ' has important implications for understanding information exchanges through social networks down the generations, '' the authors said in their report.

WHAT DID THE ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND ?

The significant discoveries revolve around two sites that include a small fireplace, too small for heating and cooking, and a stick of casturania wood that has been trimmed and smeared in animal or human fat, reported DW.

After searching for the meaning of the sites, Gunakurnal elder Russell Mullett came across the writings of ethnographer Alfred Howitt from that late 1880s.

Howitz described Gunaikurnai medicine men and women, called '' mulla - mullung.'' who  were involved in healing rituals.

They would tie something that belonged to the sick person to the end of a stick that was smeared in fat before putting the stick in the ground and lighting a small fire.

'' The mulla-mullung would then chant the name of the sick person, and once the stick fell, the charm was complete,'' a. Monash University statement said.

Howitt also said that casuarina wood was used for the ritual.

ORAL TRADITION SPANNING THOUSANDS OF YEARS

Jean-Jacques Delannoy, a French geomorphologist and study co-author, told AFP that '' there is no other known gesture whose symbolism has been preserved for such a long time ''. 

Australia has kept the memory of its first peoples alive thanks to a powerful oral tradition that enabled it to be passed on,'' Delannoy said.

'' However, in our societies, memory has changed since we switched to the written word, and we have lost this sense. ''

Excavations were carried out at Cloggs Cave in 2020, with the help of Gunaikurnai Land and Water Aboriginal Corporation [ GLaWAC].  

The Gunaikurnai, who have long lived in the region, had been excluded from previous excavations in the area.

The World Students Society thanks DW.