New research suggests Palawa Aboriginal stories from Tasmania recall geological and astronomical events that occurred 12,000 years ago, placing them among the oldest recorded stories in the world.

Professor Patrick Nunn from the University of the Sunshine Coast formed part of a trans-disciplinary research team led by the University of Melbourne, investigating Palawa oral traditions recorded in journals in the 1830s.

“Indigenous Australians developed complex knowledge systems that were committed to memory and passed down through generations via oral traditions. The Palawa traditions referred to how their ancestors were ‘emigrants from a far country’ who reached Tasmania on land and ‘the sea was subsequently formed’,” Professor Nunn said.

Palawa cultural historian and Pro Vice-Chancellor Aboriginal Leadership from the University of Tasmania, Professor Greg Lehman, emphasised that scientific validation of oral traditions reinforces, rather than supersedes, the cultural authority of Indigenous knowledge.

Historian and co-author, Associate Professor Rebe Taylor from the University of Tasmania, stresses the significance of Palawa oral traditions.