stay awake @movethepacific - Tumblr Blog

by emilie.hofferber

𝔩𝔦𝔳𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔞𝔭𝔞𝔯𝔱

Something that I get chills about is the fact that the oldest story told made by the oldest civilization opens with "In those days, in those distant days, in those ancient nights."

This confirms that there is a civilization older than the Sumerians that we have yet to find

Some people get existential dread from this

Me? I think it's fucking awesome it shows just how much of this world we have yet to discover and that is just fascinating

sleepymccoy

@makaeru peer review cos this made me check when the Sumerians happened and I forget how recent history is for every other continent. 7000 - 8000 years ago just isn't that long when you're in Australia, and the amount of detailed history we have access to here is wonderful and should be recognised more internationally

Source (non Aboriginal)

And a quote I picked out from a longer interview with an Aboriginal local elder about the area where he touched on the history

Source (the rest of the interview is really interesting and all transcribed, have a look if you're curious)

chaotic-archaeologist

This is part of my Ancient Civilizations class that I teach, which does a whole week about Australia and the Torres Strait Islands because I was sick of never seeing them represented in USAmerican history contexts. With the help of @micewithknives and @acearchaeologist I've learned so many incredible things about Australia's past and it's been incredibly rewarding to share them with students.

aggressivelybicaptainamerica

My favorite fact about Aboriginal oral history is the fact that we pretty recently discovered that the Aboriginal myth of the 7 Sisters, an origin story for the Pleiades star cluster, accurately reflects a point TEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO when two stars in the constellation got close enough together to no longer be distinguishable by the naked eye.

The story? 6 sisters running from something that took their 7th sister.

jinkohhh

as a gilgar gunditj woman, i was not expecting to see my culture on my dash.

thank you for spreading our words and treating our culture with respect.

the-haiku-bot

thank you for spreading

our words and treating our

culture with respect.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

carolxdanvers

Hey sorry this is actually incorrect

The pleiades story is one of the most widespread myths, many of them following a similar theme, from all over the world, and they often have a reason that the seventh sister is no longer visible.

The incorrect part is that it doesn't go back ten thousand years. It goes back over 100,000 years.

It goes back to 100,000 BCE. Cultures all over the world share similar variations on this same story about the same cluster of stars because that story originated before early humans left Africa.