Researchers are using Aboriginal dreaming stories and Google Maps to find new meteorite impact craters.
Credit: Google Maps
SYDNEY: An Australian Aboriginal 'Dreaming' story has helped experts uncover a meteorite impact crater in the outback of the Northern Territory.
Duane Hamacher, an astrophysicist studying Aboriginal astronomy at Sydney's Macquarie University, used Google Maps to search for the signs of impact craters in areas related to Aboriginal stories of stars or stones falling from the sky.
One story, from the folklore of the Arrernte people, is about a star falling to Earth at a site called Puka. This led to a search on Google Maps of Palm Valley, about 130 km southwest of Alice Springs. Here Hamacher discovered what looked like a crater, which he confirmed with surveys in the field in September 2009.
Cosmic impact
The crater is 280 m in diameter and about 30 m deep. Magnetic and gravitational data collected from the site show the crater is bowl-shaped below the surface and was likely caused by a meteorite a few metres in diameter.
"There is no other way to explain this than as a cosmic impact," said Hamacher. "It couldn't have been erosion and there is no volcanic activity in the area."
Macquarie University co-worker, Craig O'Neill, added that a tiny amount of 'shocked quartz' had also been found at the site. "These were very rare, but only form if a rock has experienced a shock blast like that from a nuclear bomb or meteorite impact," he said.
The research is described in papers Hamacher is preparing for submission to the journals Archaeoastronomy and Meteoritics and Planetary Science.
Crater spotting
Despite the link to the Dreaming story, weathering and the absence of meteorite fragments suggest that the crater is millions of years old and humans could not possibly have witnessed the event, Hamacher said.
Another crater at Gosse's Bluff, 170 km west of Alice Springs, is 140 million years old, and is also the subject of an Arrernte Dreaming story about a "cosmic baby" which fell to Earth.
Instead, Hamacher thinks Arrernte Aborigines may have learned to recognise craters from more recent impacts and then deduced the origin of the Palm Valley and Gosse's Bluff craters. One more recent example of craters created by an impact are the Henbury craters, 70 km from Palm Valley and just 4,000 years old.
arrentie crater
How long a time can an aboriginal society pass down accurately the events of the past like this one?
Cheers
jbf
fulton_john@hotmail.com
Oral transmition
Hello arrentie
I am from India where Oral transmission was the norm for thousands of years.
Most of Hindu scriptures (like Vedas and Puranas) were transmitted only orally from teacher to student for thousands of years.
And it is commonly believed that Hindu scriptures have been able to survive multiple Islamic / Christian conquests and subsequent destructions of pagan literature which was common then, is because of its oral transmission.
Oral Transmission.
Great topic.
In the begining of the Muslim tradition, the Koran was memorised and then passed on by repitition and constant recital. It was only when it was written down on paper, then translated that it has been corrupted. (Not that I am muslim)
Sometimes word of mouth is better than the pen, just look at how many different versions the Christian bible has now...
Qur'an corrupted....Really?
"...the Koran was memorised and then passed on by repitition and constant recital. It was only when it was written down on paper, then translated that it has been corrupted..."
The Qur'an was revealed in the Arabic language and it was written down in the Arabic language. So, where does translation come in? As far as I can tell, every Muslim in the world prays in Arabic, although non-Arabic speaking Muslims use translations to understand the content.
The Qur'an remains unchanged (letters, numbers, words, paragraphs) for over 1400 years. Every legitimate copy of the Qur'an is the same in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, America, Russia, China, England, Somalia or anywhere else in the world.
I agree with you that sometimes word of mouth is better than writing; the seemingly endless versions of the Bible make you question its credibility. I heard there were 73 different versions. Which one is the right one?
I am a non-Arabic speaking Muslim and all my prayers are in the Arabic language. I use the Yusuf Ali translation (very popular) to "understand" the words. But, as the footnotes to the translation themselves say, many Arabic words have multiple meanings that require dozens of English words/synonyms to explain, and even at that, the explanation can be incomplete. My father, who understood the Qur'an in its Arabic language, intimated that this book contains themes, meanings and knowledge that is gradually being understood by Muslims. As any contemplative Muslim will tell you, the Qur'an contains meanings far more complex and thought-provoking than any language can casually explain. I read various versions of the Bible, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and some Buddhist writings, but can honestly say that an open-minded, deep session with the Qur'an is a life-enhancer and life-changer. Forget the politics, rituals, biases, prejudices, and the spin du jour, this is one document that is the single true link to our life force. And Allah Knows Best.
That's a great analogy.
Smart comments! You subversive you ;)
Ahh ... no ... in fact it's
Ahh ... no ... in fact it's a very poor analogy. The Christian bible has many different "translations" but not many different "versions".
Over 100 years ago this might have been the case but modern scholars can now in almost all cases accurately deduce original Greek New Testament manuscripts. This is because we have over 2000 manuscripts (mostly hand transcribed copies) dating over 1000 years or more (some date back to 70 AD). Scribes appears to have taken great care not to introduce errors in transcription but when they did we can use this to identify the lineage of the transcriptions. Because we have so many copies we can create a lineage tree and from this eliminate most of the transcription errors. Consequently we don't have many "versions" but rather can accurately deduce the original Greek version on which most modern "translations" are based.
Another hypothesis
Here's another hypothesis, albeit harder still to corroborate.
1) The Arrente, like all humans, have access to a more globally available subconscious, accessed through dreaming. Information to this subconscious is added by all(or most) creatures, and accessible to all creatures. (cf. Deep Ecology, Jung).
If so, then any creatures around at the time of the meteor (140+M years ago) would have recorded such a shocking event into the 'dreamtime', which humans accessed later on.
Yeah, I know, freakin' hippie or whatever. Difficult/impossible to test scientifically. Etc. Etc. YMMV. :)
And yet another one...
Perhaps the crater isn't really millions of years old.
cater
I believe you have the answer!
Yes... the 'theory' of
Yes... the 'theory' of evolution is not fact... it has just been told us over and over and over again that we now cannot believe anything else with any seriousness... we are taught evolution and big bang from the very moment our kids enter school, and they accept it as truth because they trust their teachers to tell them honestly... and how can the teachers be blamed when they themselves have been fed this for years and years...?
Whether you believe something or do not believe it, does NOT change what is truth and what is not... people decide how the world is for themselves, but this does not make it so...
When you have had the honour of working and living with the Arrente people, as well as Luritja, and many others, (in fact, I'm sure, any of the Australian Aboriginal people in this awesome land), it does not take very long at all to realise that these amazing people have a lot to offer, and also teach us, if we will only cast off the 'western' box that has shaped our way of thinking for so long and actually listen, and learn from them!
Is there any wonder their understanding of events and the way our land has been shaped, is slightly different from ours, but in fact it matches up with what God tells us, and has been telling us all along???