Australian Cave Discovery Shows Grass Was Burned for Magic, Cures and Curses for 25,000 Years

Consistent With “Magic and Rituals”: Ancient Cave-Dwelling Australians Burned Grass for Spiritual Purposes Dating Back 25,000 Years

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Ancient humans burned grasses for healing and magic for 25,000 years

Ancient cave ash reveals that humans burned whole grasses in Australia for 25,000 years as part of long-lasting ritual practices.

Grass 'skeletons' hint at 25,000-year-old Indigenous fire ritual in cave

Evidence of ancient burnt grasses unearthed in a Victorian cave on GunaiKurnai country suggest old ancestors used the cave for fire rituals during the Ice Age.

Burnt Grass in Australian Cave Hints at Prehistoric 'Magic' Rituals

For the past 25,000 years or so, this cave bore witness to the lives of the GunaiKurnai, an Australian Aboriginal nation.

Australian cave discovery shows grass was burned for magic, cures and curses for 25,000 years

The GunaiKurnai, an Australian Aboriginal nation, are the acknowledged traditional custodians of Gippsland and the southern Victorian Alps. Within their territory are caves known from 19th-century ethnographic reports and oral traditions to have been settings for magic, healing and cursing rituals by powerful learned women and men called "mulla-mullung," as well as by other spiritual practitioners. Archaeologists have shown that people have been visiting one of these caves, Cloggs Cave, for such activities over the past 25,000 years.

Ancient Ash in an Australian Cave May Have Helped Track the Footsteps of Spirit-Beings

Learn how microscopic plant remains in Cloggs Cave connect 25,000 years of grass burning with GunaiKurnai magic and ritual traditions.