Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - The GunaiKurnai, an Australian Aboriginal nation, are recognized as the traditional custodians of Gippsland and the southern Victorian Alps.
Caves within their territory, documented in 19th-century ethnographic reports and oral traditions, served as sites for magic, healing, and cursing rituals performed by ‘mulla-mullung’ and other spiritual practitioners.
Archaeological evidence shows that Cloggs Cave has been used for these activities for at least 25,000 years.
According to Dr Elle Grono, a postdoctoral researcher at the Australian National University and the corresponding author of a new study, the Old Ancestors selected whole grasses from the wider landscape and carried them into Cloggs Cave to spread out in thin layers and burn. Over time, sediments covered these burnt layers, preserving each layer on top of another over thousands of years.
Phytoliths And A Standing Stone
Grono and colleagues from Australia, France, and New Zealand analyzed phytoliths, which are microscopic silica bodies from plant tissues, recovered from buried deposits in Cloggs Cave. This research was part of archaeological excavations in 2019 and 2020, aimed at understanding historical plant gathering practices within the cave. The GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Corporation requested these excavations, and representatives from the GunaiKurnai community participated in the study design, fieldwork, interpretation, and dissemination of results.
GunaiKurnai Elder Uncle Russell Mullett at the cave entrance of Cloggs Cave. Credit: Jess Shapiro, GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Corporation
“Unlike pollen, which is dispersed by wind or insects, phytoliths mostly accumulate at the spot where a plant decays. No plants grow inside the cave due to a lack of light, so the phytoliths must have been carried in by people or by animals such as possums on their fur or through their scats,” explained Grono. “We focused on half-burnt phytoliths from ashy layers, which can only have been brought in by people, as unburnt ones might have arrived through either means.”
Scientists used microscopy to classify thousands of phytoliths from two pits, 1.5 m and 2.3 m deep. The upper layers of these pits contained 73 thin ashy strata deposited by people between approximately 4,400 and 1,600 years ago, as determined by optically stimulated luminescence and accelerator mass spectrometry carbon dating. Within these layers, they unexpectedly discovered a 28-cm-high standing stone, which was later shown to have been erected in the cave by Old Ancestors for ritual purposes around 2,000 years ago.
Grasses, Herbs, And Woody Plants
The authors identified 29 types of phytoliths from grasses, herbs, and woody plants. Most were well preserved, including delicate silica structures like hair cells. Grasses accounted for up to 97% of the phytoliths, primarily from the Pooideae subfamily, which prefers temperate or cool climates, and Panicoideae, which grows in warm, humid conditions. Chloridoideae, drought-resistant grasses suited to arid environments, were less common. Phytoliths from woody plants and herbs were rare.
A 2,000-year-old standing stone, depicted during excavations. Burnt phytoliths came from the ashy layers surrounding the standing stone. Credit: Bruno David, GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Corporation
The Old Ancestors were selective in choosing which plants to bring into the cave. They avoided species from the nearby riparian forest and open woodland, instead focusing on grasses available close to the cave entrance.
“The phytoliths found at Cloggs Cave were from different parts of grass plants such as stems, leaves, flowers and roots, indicating that whole grasses were brought in, including the inedible parts,” said Grono.
Nearly 18% of the phytoliths were burnt or melted. Their presence throughout the deposits suggests that people brought plants into the cave and burned them over the past 25,000 years.
Microscopic images of burnt grass phytoliths from Cloggs Cave. Most of the images depict phytoliths from the inflorescences and leaves of grasses. The scale bar indicates 20 microns. Credit: Grono, David, Mullett, Stevenson, Petchey, Delannoy, McDowell, Miller, Morley, Fresløv, Jenkin and GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation
Professor Bruno David from Monash University, who co-led the excavations with GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Corporation, concluded that “their burning is consistent with GunaiKurnai traditional practices of using ash to perform magic and rituals, and also to track the footsteps of anyone coming in, including spirit-Beings.
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Other macro-botanical evidence such as fat-smeared trimmed wooden sticks from Casuarina trees were also found in deeper and older deposits, indicating that other kinds of rituals using woody plants were also performed.”
The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology
Written by Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com Staff Writer
