Aboriginal Australians performed the same ritual for 25,000 years
Evidence from a limestone cave in Victoria reveals a cultural practice that survived from the last ice age until the nineteenth century.
Deep inside Cloggs Cave in rural Victoria, researchers have uncovered evidence of a ritual tradition that remained virtually unchanged for 500 generations. By analyzing microscopic silica bodies called phytoliths, which are left behind when plants decay or burn, archaeologists found that the GunaiKurnai people brought whole grasses into the cave to be burned in small, isolated fires. These rituals began approximately 25,000 years ago, just as the last ice age reached its coldest phase.
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