 Evidence for the oldest continuously practised religious ceremony has been unearthed in a cave of the Aboriginal GunaiKurnai. They haven’t used it for shelter, but for secluded retreats by magic practitioners known as mulla-mullung. Archaeologists found two miniature fireplaces dated 11,000 & 12,000 years old, ringed by limestone rocks and each containing a single stick of Casuarina wood stripped of side branches and smeared with fatty tissue.
Normally when archaeologists find strange things, they are labelled ‘cultic’ or ‘ritual’ without hope of corroborating evidence. So it is difficult to date the beginning of religious behaviour. But in this case a living community can identify the ritual. Ethnographers have documented this practice since the 1800s. When someone is ‘bewitched’, objects lopped from or touched by them are attached to the piece of wood and burnt briefly with some human or animal fat. Article at https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-07-02/gunaikurnai-ritual-fireplaces-sticks-cloggs-cave-archaeology/104034756 Image from: https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-cave-ritual-from-10000-years-ago-may-be-worlds-oldest-tradition Paper at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-01912-w
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 Cave art 51,000 years old has been identified on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Previously it was dated as 44,000 years old, but a newly developed dating method has been employed. The new date is significant because this makes it the oldest representational art, and also because the images include human figures. Art older than 20,000 years tends not to include human figures, which might indicate they are not yet self-conscious enough to depict themselves. This is akin to theorising that we may realise an AI is conscious when it chooses to include itself in art or literature it produces. Sceptics may point out: that the presence of ‘human’ figures is far from certain; that the dating technique is novel; that widely varying dates, (18.7 to 51.2 thousand years), were determined at spots close to each other; and that stick-men are far from self-portraits. There’s going to be a lot of scrutiny of this study.
Article: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/indonesia-39-s-51-200-years-old-narrative-cave-art-brin/BgXRnYO53jNZSg?hl=en Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07541-7 |
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