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DEEP in a limestone cave in the foothills of the Victorian Alps of Australia, the walls sparkle – and if you look carefully, you can distinguish the movements of the ancestors of the Aboriginal people Gunikurnai. The grooves of the fingers on the walls of the cave, known to the ancients of Gunaikurnai like Waribruk, allow us to retrace their travels in the dark.
Until recently, it was difficult to study such coat cane, which were found in the caves in Australia, Europe and New Guinea. These brands tend to be shallow and not pigmented, so they can be difficult to maintain and record. But recent innovations in photogrammetry – using software to reconstruct the images in three -dimensional models – allowed scientists to see these grooves in unprecedented details.
The figures of the fingers found in the Waribruk cave were made possible by the dough walls of the cave. While the water infiltrated limestone over millions of years, it forged tunnels and left the walls soft and flexible. Bacteria living on certain damp surfaces create microcrystals, giving them their sparkling appearance.
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Overall, 950 sets of grooves of the fingers were found on or near the walls covered with glitter in the depths of the cave, as indicated by a team of international researchers led by the Gunikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation. They estimated the age of these impressions – between 8,400 and 1,800 years – thank you for tiny pieces of charcoal and ash, recently reported in the review Australian archeology. Wooden coal and ashes can be left left by fires used to guide people through the cave.
The positioning of a few brands on a low ceiling in the cave suggests that people have arrived from a rim in all kinds of postures – refreshing, sitting and standing. In another place, a set of markings seems to have been formed by a child, although the wall of the cave would have been out of their reach. An adult could have kept them to touch the luminescent surface, according to the researchers.
But why are these impressions confined to the sparkling walls? The answer lies in the knowledge of Gunaikurnai: the caves are known to the community under the name of “spiritual places” and were visited only by groundMedicine and women who incorporated minerals and powdered crystals in their work. THE ground Must drag the fingers along these sparkling walls, the authors speculate, to connect with the power of the crystals, which is associated with the vital force of the ancestors.
“Through these finger trails, we see not only a physical act, but a cultural practice based on knowledge, memory and spirituality”, write the authors of the article for The conversation. “A momentary movement, preserved in stone, connecting us to lives lived a long time ago.”
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Image of lead: Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation
