Aboriginal Stories Tell of Rising Sea Levels

New research into early Aboriginal stories set along Australia's coast has detected evidence of dramatically rising shoreline waters over several thousand years. It seems that sea level about 20,000 years ago was 120 meters below its current level, rising 13,000 years ago to about 70 meters below current sea level. 

It seems today's sea level was finally reached only about 6,000 years ago. Linguists have also uncovered ancient Aboriginal tales about living where the Great Barrier Reef now stands.

How do we know that these stories are authentic? We suggest that because they all say essentially the same thing, it is more likely that they are based on observation," according to the article in The Conversation.com. "All tell of the ocean rising over areas that had previously been dry. None tell stories running the other way ~ of seas falling to expose land."

"We might expect to find comparable collections of sea-level rise stories from all parts of the globe, but we do not," it continues. "Perhaps they exist, but have been dismissed on account of an improbable antiquity by scholars adhering to the more orthodox view that oral traditions rarely can't survive more than a millennium."

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