The Edge of Memory: Ancient Stories, Oral Tradition and the Post-Glacial World

by Patrick Nunn

Overview

How much of the folk tales of our ancestors is rooted in fact, and what can they tell us about the future?

In today's society it is the written word that holds the authority. We are more likely to trust the words found in a history textbook over the version of history retold by a friend – after all, human memory is unreliable, and how can you be sure your friend hasn't embellished the facts? But before humans were writing down their knowledge, they were passing it on in the form of stories.

The Edge of Memory celebrates the predecessor of written information – the spoken word, tales from our ancestors that have been passed down, transmitting knowledge from one generation to the next. Among the most extensive and best-analysed of these stories are from native Australian cultures. These stories conveyed both practical information and recorded history, describing a lost landscape, often featuring tales of flooding and submergence. Folk traditions such as these are increasingly supported by hard science. Geologists are starting to corroborate the tales through study of climatic data, sediments and land forms; the evidence was there in the stories, but until recently, nobody was listening.

In this book, Patrick Nunn unravels the importance of these tales, exploring the science behind folk history from around the world – including northwest Europe and India – and what it can tell us about environmental phenomena, from coastal drowning to volcanic eruptions. These stories of real events were handed down the generations over thousands of years, and they have broad implications for our understanding of how human societies have developed through the millennia, and ultimately how we respond collectively to changes in climate, our surroundings and the environment we live in.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472943279
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	08/23/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Patrick Nunn received his PhD from the University of London before spending 25 years teaching and researching at the international University of the South Pacific in Fiji, where he was appointed Professor of Oceanic Geoscience in 1996. He moved to Australia in 2010 to work at the University of New England before being appointed to a research professorship at the University of the Sunshine Coast in 2014.

Patrick has more than 230 peer-reviewed publications to his credit and he has written several books, including Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents of the Pacific, which was named among the 'Best of the Best from the University Presses' in 2009 by the American Library Association.
Patrick Nunn received a PhD from the University of London before spending 25 years teaching and researching at the University of the South Pacific, where he became Professor of Oceanic Geoscience in 1996. He moved to Australia in 2010 to work at the University of New England before being appointed to a research professorship at the University of the Sunshine Coast in 2014.

The author of more than 320 peer-reviewed publications, Patrick has also written several books, including two for Bloomsbury Sigma, The Edge of Memory and Worlds in Shadow.

Patrick has received the Gold Medal of both the Pacific Science Association (2003) and the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland (2018) and was one of those scientists to share the award of the (2007) Nobel Peace Prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

patricknunn.org

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Recalling the Past
Chapter 2: Words that Matter in a Harsh Land
Chapter 3: Australian Aboriginal Memories of Coastal Drowning
Chapter 4: The Changing Ocean Surface
Chapter 5: Other Oral Archives of Ancient Coastal Drowning
Chapter 6: What Else Might We Not Realise We Remember?
Chapter 7: Have We Underestimated Ourselves?
Notes
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Index

Editorial Reviews

. . . a surprising, well-supported perspective on Earth's distant past.” —Kirkus

"An important look at how traditional and indigenous folk stories and knowledge are full of valuable science about floods, shifting coastlines and other changing environments—in other words, information that can help us learn to adapt to future threats." - EcoWatch

“In this sweeping, masterful volume, Nunn stitches together evidence from geology, anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, history and geography to bring to our collective attention the many durable myths and legends of Indigenous oral traditions. If you care about the future of the planet, and our survival on it, The Edge of Memory is a must-read book.” —Chris Gibson, Editor-in-Chief, Australian Geographer, and Professor of Geography, University of Wollongong, Australia

“Nunn's book is the newest jewel in the recent chain of research showing, through geological verification, that human oral traditions often record real events back 10,000 years and more. He shows that such ancient fact-bearing stories, usually dismissed as “just myths”, occur the world around. The book is an engagingly written must-read: I couldn't put it down.” —Elizabeth Wayland Barber, co-author of When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth

“A very important book that shows how non-literate people preserved their observations of memorable events for as much as ten millennia, and their recollections can also help us to face the challenges of environmental changes today.” —Rita Compatangelo-Soussignan, Professor of Ancient History at Le Mans University, France

From the Publisher

2018-10-02

Ancient folktales recount verifiable environmental events.

Examining stories handed down from nonliterate cultures, Nunn (Geography/Univ. of the Sunshine Coast; Vanished Islands and Hidden Continents of the Pacific, 2017, etc.) mounts compelling evidence to argue that these tales offer valuable insight into dramatic climate changes. He criticizes scientists who quickly dismiss such tales rather than attend to their significance for our understanding of the Earth's geological history. The author homes in on "a time from the coldest part of the last great ice age about 20,000 years ago, to 1,000 years or so ago," during which knowledge and observations were communicated orally. He asserts that "the edge of our memories today lies 10 millennia or so in the past," regretting that much of what modern humans experienced before that time—for almost 200,000 years—has been lost. Nunn focuses most extensively on stories about "coastal drowning along the Australian fringe," northwest Europe, and the edge of the Indian subcontinent to glean insight into massive flooding that occurred as the Earth warmed after the last great ice age. Melting glaciers caused the sea level to rise: The coast of northern Australia, he reports, may have been "submerged every day during the more rapid periods of postglacial sea-level rise," fueling stories about inundation as well as the disappearance of some plants and animals. Sometimes these tales took the form of descriptions of transformed environments, sometimes of myths that attribute environmental changes to the actions of nonhuman or superhuman beings. Besides flood narratives, Nunn looks at folktales recording earthquakes, crashes of meteorites, the disappearance of islands, and volcanic eruptions. For example, for 7,000 years, the Klamath Indians handed down a story about the creation of Crater Lake, in Oregon, that began as an eyewitness account of the eruption of the volcano Mt. Mazama. Other tales have led archaeologists and geologists to locate submerged towns or land bridges that explain human and animal migration.

A surprising, well-supported perspective on Earth's distant past.

Kirkus Reviews