Cloggs Cave is known to be an important site for the GunaiKurnai, used by Mulla-Mullung – powerful medicine men and women - who practised magic and ritual activity here. Excavations in 1971-1972 uncovered a number of features associated with the ritual practices that had taken place here. Including stone arrangements, numerous small crystal quartz artefacts (believed to hold ritual power), a grindstone used to crush calcite crystal and a buried standing stone. Analysis of the data collected by this work suggested that the cave had been in use for over 23,000 years – evidenced by the regrowth of broken stalactites - and that ritual activity began at least 1,535 – 2,084 cal BP, based on the date of the crushed calcite associated with the grindstone.
At the invitation of GunaiKurnai Aboriginal Elders, the site was re-visited in 2019 and new excavations took place. This work uncovered two miniature fireplaces, each consisting of a number of limestone rocks enclosing an ashy deposit. Each was also associated with wooden sticks (20cm and 40cm long) which had been trimmed smooth and had a worked tip. The tips were charred but the sticks were otherwise unburnt, both also had residue of animal, or human, fatty tissue on them. The nature of the sticks suggested they were not solely used to stoke the fire, ethnographic records possibly hinting at their true use. Alfred Howitt (a government ethnographer) published descriptions of some of the rituals conducted by the GunaiKurnai in 1887. In a particular Kurnai practice, an item belonging to the victim would be attached to a ritual throwing stick, along with eaglehawk feathers, and kangaroo or human fat. The stick would then be placed in the ground in front of a fire, whilst the Mulla-Mullung sung the person’s name. When the stick fell, the charm – designed to harm the victim - was fulfilled. The wooden instruments were known as Murrawan.
These features provide further evidence of ritual activity at the cave, but what is most remarkable about them is their age. Dating of charcoal and the sticks putting the fireplaces at 10,720 – 12,950 cal BP, making the sticks the oldest known wooden artefacts in Australia. This also pushes the date of ritual use of the cave back towards the end of the last ice age and means that over 500 generations of culturally transmitted, ethnographically documented, ritual activity has taken place at this cave.
The full article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01912-w David, B., Mullett, R., Wright, N. et al. Archaeological evidence of an ethnographically documented Australian Aboriginal ritual dated to the last ice age. Nat Hum Behav (2024).
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