Aboriginal stories of sea level rise preserved for thousands of years
▻http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/sci-tech/aboriginal-stories-of-sea-level-rise-preserved-for-thousands-of-ye
Details of life before and after this significant sea rise, which flooded areas around the Australian coast that were previously dry land, were recorded in the oral histories of the continent’s Indigenous people.
Nunn and his linguist colleague Dr Nick Reid have collected more than a dozen stories from different clans around the country that refer to the inundation of the coast.
The story of Botany Bay refers to a clan that split in two. The elders headed inland, while the younger members remained on the then swampy land near the coast.
When the elders later returned they found Botany Bay had become an ocean inlet and Georges River and Cooks River were two separate rivers, according to botanist Frances Bodkin, a Dharawal elder who was told the story by her mother.
Given there have been no major changes in sea level since this time, Nunn and Reid suggest this story and others are at least 7000 years old and may have been preserved for several hundred generations.
