Geomythology

Meteorite Falls and Cosmic Impacts in Australian Aboriginal Mythology

by Duane Hamacher

Hamacher, D.W. (2009). Meteoritics & Planetary Science, Volume 44, Issue 7, p. A85.

The witness and cultural impact of meteorite falls and cosmic impacts has been studied extensively in some world... more The witness and cultural impact of meteorite falls and cosmic impacts has been studied extensively in some world cultures, including cultures of Europe, China, and the Middle East. However, ethnographic records and oral traditions of meteorite falls in Aboriginal culture remain relatively unknown to the scientific community. Various Aboriginal stories from across Australia describe meteorite falls with seemingly accurate detail, frequently citing a specific location, including Wilcannia, NSW; Meteor Island, WA; Hermannsburg, NT; McGrath Flat, SA; and Bodena, NSW among others. Most of these falls and impact sites are unknown to Western science. In addition, some confirmed impact structures are described in Aboriginal lore as having cosmic origins, including the Gosse's Bluff and Wolfe Creek craters. This paper attempts to analyse and synthesize the plethora of fragmented historic, archaeological, and ethnographic data that describe meteorite falls and cosmic impacts in the mythologies and oral traditions spanning the 300+ distinct Aboriginal groups of Australia. Where applicable, coordinates of the reputed falls and impacts are cited in order for future inspections of these sights for evidence of meteoritic masterial or impact cratering.

Australian Aboriginal Geomythology: Eyewitness Accounts of Cosmic Impacts?

by Duane Hamacher

Hamacher, D.W. and Norris, R.P. (2009). Archaeoastronomy: the Journal of Astronomy and Culture, Volume 22, pp. 60-93.

Descriptions of cosmic impacts and meteorite falls are found throughout Australian Aboriginal oral traditions. In some... more Descriptions of cosmic impacts and meteorite falls are found throughout Australian Aboriginal oral traditions. In some cases, these texts describe the impact event in detail, sometimes citing the location, suggesting that the events were witnessed. We explore whether cosmic impacts and meteorite falls may have been witnessed by Aboriginal Australians and incorporated into their oral traditions. We discuss the complications and bias in recording and analysing oral texts but suggest that these texts may be used both to locate new impact structures or meteorites and model observed impact events. We find that, while detailed Aboriginal descriptions of cosmic impacts are abundant in the literature, there is currently no physical evidence connecting these accounts to impact events currently known to Western science.

Meteoritics and cosmology among the Aboriginal cultures of Central Australia

by Duane Hamacher

Hamacher, D.W. (2011). Journal of Cosmology, Volume 13, pp. 3743-3753 (2011)

The night sky played an important role in the social structure, oral traditions, and cosmology of the Arrernte and... more The night sky played an important role in the social structure, oral traditions, and cosmology of the Arrernte and Luritja Aboriginal cultures of Central Australia. A component of this cosmology relates to meteors, meteorites, and impact craters. This paper discusses the role of meteoritic phenomena in Arrernte and Luritja cosmology, showing not only that these groups incorporated this phenomenon in their cultural traditions, but that their oral traditions regarding the relationship between meteors, meteorites and impact structures suggests the Arrernte and Luritja understood that they are directly related.

Notice: This paper in no way supports or endorses Panspermia or any of the fringe or pseudoscientific material published by this journal or its editors.

Making the underground: Bronze Age deposition as flow of substances and cosmological placemaking

by Erik van Rossenberg

unpublished paper presented at "GODS IN RUINS: The archaeology of religious activity in Protohistoric, Archaic, and Republican central Italy", March 20-22, 2011 at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

The underground is not an entity that is self-evidently of cosmological significance. Underground realms are... more The underground is not an entity that is self-evidently of cosmological significance. Underground realms are (re)created in acts of deposition directed at the subsurface. A range of Bronze Age depositional practices in Central Italy made a connection with natural places, such as caves, lakes, springs, river sources, gas vents, etc. These constituted dynamic entities in equally dynamic karstic and volcanic environments, frequently places where subsurface flows of natural substances (re)surfaced. Bronze Age depositional practices engaged with the underground at a selection of such places, most obviously but not exclusively at caves.

Deposition can be regarded as a flow of substances in itself, directed at the subsurface. More precisely, flows of ‘cultural’ and ‘natural’ substances were exchanged at particular places, thereby (re)creating the underground as a cosmological entity in the act of deposition. Taken together, depositional practices at a range of natural places, often classified as distinctive by archaeologists, betray the existence of Bronze Age cosmological knowledge about interconnections between flows of substances above and underground in physical landscapes, hence cultural landscapes.

A conceptualisation of Bronze Age deposition in terms of flows of substances and cosmological placemaking could reverberate in the study of religious practices in later phases of historical trajectories in Central Italy. In particular, the ‘prehistoric’ time depth of many a cult place in the region raises the question to what extent place continuity equals religious or cosmological continuity over centuries if not millennia (which is often presumed despite obvious gaps in site trajectories). In this paper I argue that Bronze Age notions of the underground as a cosmological entity were different from later cosmologies, but nonetheless followed similar cosmological principles, thus explaining later reuse of prior sites of religious practice.

Atlantide réelle et imaginaire dans le Detroit de Gibraltar

by Jacques Collina-Girard

COLLINA-GIRARD, J (2004). Atlantide réelle et imaginaire dans le Detroit de Gibraltar. Chapitre III : l'Atlantide face à la Science, pages 110-121 in Atlantides imaginaires, réécriture d'un mythe, Centre International de Cerisy la Salle,  Editions Michel Houdiart, Paris.

Résumé : Une île faisant face au Detroit de Gibraltar et une géographie proche de celle évoquée par Platon dans le “... more Résumé : Une île faisant face au Detroit de Gibraltar et une géographie proche de celle évoquée par Platon dans le “ Timée ” ont disparu, engloutis 9000 ans avant notre ère par une accélération de la transgression finiglaciaire (Collina-Girard, 2001). En l’espace de quelques générations, l’humanité a dû subir un des cataclysmes majeurs de son histoire : réduction des territoires, réchauffement climatique et redistribution des espèces animales. L’ethnographie, la préhistoire et les textes antiques témoignent que la tradition orale peut transmettre sur des millénaires le souvenir d’évènements majeurs. Le mythe de l’Atlantide, construit, si l'on en croit Platon, sur une tradition égyptienne pourrait être un cas particulier et régional de ces mythes de déluges universels. Le scénario reconstitué par la géologie, coïncidant en lieu et en date avec celui du Timée, en est-il à l'origine ?

L’atlantide sous le le regard d’un géologue

by Jacques Collina-Girard

COLLINA-GIRARD ; J (2010).L’atlantide sous le le regard d’un géologue, Lukhnos. Connaissance Héllénique, Revue de Culture grecque, n° 122, Janvier 2010, Centre de formation continue  et d’éducation permanente de l’université de Provence, ISNN 0148 8477 pages 16-22

Du vestige géologique au vestige litteraire, Gibraltar et l'Atlantide

by Jacques Collina-Girard

COLLINA-GIRARD,J (2004).-Du vestige géologique au vestige litteraire, Gibraltar et l'Atlantide , LUKHNOS, Connaissance hellénique, n°100, Juillet 2004, Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, pp 9-21

L'Atlantide Devant Le Détroit De Gibraltar? Mythe Et Géologie: Atlantis Off the Gibraltar Strait? Myth and Geology

by Jacques Collina-Girard

COLLINA-GIRARD, J  (2001).-L'Atlantide devant le Detroit de Gibraltar ? mythe et géologie. Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences de Paris, Sciences de la Terre et des Planètes. 333 (2001) 233-240

The bathymetric maps from the western part of Gibraltar strait indicate the occurence of a shoal between - 56 m and... more The bathymetric maps from the western part of Gibraltar strait indicate the occurence of a shoal between - 56 m and -200 m depth. During the Late Glacial Maximum (21-19 ky. BP) this shoal was the main  island of an archipelago lying between Europe  and Africa. The island (14 km x 5 km) was  set in the middle of a narrow pass in the western part of the present strait,  opening westward  into an inner sea. This island was submerged  around  11 ky BP.  This location,  the paleolandscapes for the late glacial period, and the time of submergence exactly fit the Atlantis description given by Plato in the “ Timaeus ”. The “mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia ” could be the irrupting culture of northern Europe pushed to the south by the rough climates of the Late Glacial Maximum.

La transgression finiglaciaire, l’archéologie et les textes (exemples de la grotte Cosquer et du mythe de l’Atlantide)

by Jacques Collina-Girard

COLLINA-GIRARD, J (2004).-La transgression finiglaciaire, l’archéologie et les textes (exemples de la grotte Cosquer et du mythe de l’Atlantide) in :  Human records of recent geological evolution in the Mediterranean Basin-historical and archaeological evidence. CIESM Workshop Monographs, n° 24, 152 pages, Monaco, www.ciesm.org/publications/Santorini04.pdf,  page 63-70

Late finiglacial sea level rise is actually well documented by hard geological  and archaeological data :... more
Late finiglacial sea level rise is actually well documented by hard geological  and archaeological data : one of the best example of the linkage of archaeology and sea-level rise is a prehistoric painted cave in the south of France (Cosquer cave) where the rising sea level had completely closed the lower part of the cave at -37 m depth.
Oral tradition and first texts could also keep the memory of such main natural events as suggested by the correlation of geological history of Gibraltar Strait and the geographical core of the history of Atlantis as it is described in the text of “ Timaeus ” (Plato, 400 BC). The aim of this papers is to present two kind of testimonies : geological hard datas and more speculative interpretation from myth and their linkage to geological events.

Cosquer Cave (27 000 B.P. and 18 500 B.P.) is located  in the Urgonian limestones of  Cap Morgiou ("Massif des Calanques", Marseilles). The entrance has been drowned by postglacial sea-rising at - 37 m depth. The planimetry of the cave  is determined by Urgonian limestones bed dip (30° SE) and the two mains fracturing orientations (NE/SW and NW/SE). Stratigraphics and tectonics plans  were widely used by prehistoric men for painting and engraving. They used red clay, sampled from tectonic joints and charcoal as colouring materials. This rock art correspond to gravettian for the former period (negative hand prints) and solutrean for the early one (mainly horses and ibex with marine animals, as penguins and seals)  A speleothem breakage period (gravity adjustment perhaps linked  to a regional  main seismic phase documented by geologist in Provence area). Archaeology allows to date this geological event which  took place  between phase 1 (27 000 B.P.) and phase 2 (18 500 B.P.). . Cave entrance has been submerged between 6000BP and 8000 BP at 37 m depth (datation of coastal algal rims).  Scuba diving is the only way to access to this main upper european palaeolithic site.

Furthermore sea level rise could be also documented by oral tradition and textual sources : In the extreme western margin of Mediterranean sea, an archipelago , facing  Gibraltar  Strait was submerged 9000 years BC. This history fits exactly with the egyptian tradition, based on the history of Atlantis in the text of Plato : “ Timaeus ” (Collina-Girard, 2001). During late glacial period prehistoric hunter-gatherers were constraint to  adapt rapidly to a main reduction of their territories due to an important global warming and to compose with the redistribution of hunted animal species. Ethnography, Prehistory, and classical texts confirm that verbal traditions could keep in memory such exceptional events during a long period of time. Plato myth of “ Atlantis ” seems to be  builded from a local tradition of flood transmitted during 5000 years to the first egyptian scribes around 3000-4000 BC

La crise finiglaciaire à Gibraltar et l'Atlantide : tradition orale et géologie

by Jacques Collina-Girard

COLLINA-GIRARD, J., (2001-2002).-La crise finiglaciaire à Gibraltar et l'Atlantide : tradition orale et géologie. PREHISTOIRE ANTHROPOLOGIE MEDITERRANEENNES, Tome 10-11, p 53-60

La géologie du Détroit de Gibraltar et le mythe de l’Atlantide

by Jacques Collina-Girard

COLLINA-GIRARD J., 2003. La géologie du Détroit de Gibraltar et le mythe de l’Atlantide. Bulletin de la Société Vaudoise de Sciences Naturelles,  88.3: 323-341

An archipelago , facing  Gibraltar  Strait was submerged 9000 years BC. This history fits exactly with the... more An archipelago , facing  Gibraltar  Strait was submerged 9000 years BC. This history fits exactly with the egyptian tradition, basis of the history of Atlantis in the text of Plato : “ Timaeus ” (Collina-Girard, 2001a). During late glacial period prehistoric hunter-gatherers were constraint to  adapt rapidly to a main reduction of their territories, to an important global warming and to compose with the redistribution of hunted animal species. Ethnography, Prehistory, and classical texts prooves that verbal traditions could keep in memory such exceptional events during a long period of time. Plato myth of “ Atlantis ” seems builded on a local prehistoric tradition of flooding transmitted during 5000 years to the first egyptian scribes around 3000-4000 BC