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For thousands of years, members of the GunaiKurnai Aboriginal community gathered grasses from the landscape. They brought them back to a cave in what is now southeast Australia, spread them in thin layers on the ground and burned them. Then, these powerful, knowledgeable individuals, known as mulla-mullung, used the resulting ash to perform “magic, healing, cursing and spiritual practices,” according to a new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.
Archaeologists and GurnaiKurnai elders reached this conclusion after discovering layers of burnt plant remains dating back 25,000 years in Cloggs Cave, a cavern in Gunaikurnai Country about 185 miles east of Melbourne. The physical evidence preserved at the site matches GunaiKurnai cultural knowledge, as well as GunaiKurnai practices documented by a 19th-century anthropologist.
“This is a great study, weaving careful scientific analysis … with GunaiKurnai cultural knowledge to show that grasses were specially collected and burnt at Cloggs Cave to support ritual practices over many millennia,” Anna Florin, an archaeologist at the Australian National University who was not involved with the research, tells NewScientist’s James Woodford.
Cloggs Cave was first excavated in the early 1970s without permission from the GunaiKurnai people, the lands’ traditional owners, reports Jacinta Bowler for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. But, in recent years, researchers have been collaborating with the GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation to explore the cave. Together, they’ve made numerous discoveries at the site, including a small grinding stone used to prepare Bogong moths as food and a pair of wooden sticks that had been partially burned and smeared with fat.
Most recently, they turned their attention to “phytoliths,” or microscopic structures that remain after the rest of a plant has disintegrated. “It’s helpful to think of them like skeletons, in a way,” Caroline Spry, an archaeologist at La Trobe University who was not involved with the study, tells the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Archaeologists found thousands of phytolights inside the cave. Analysis showed the vast majority—some 97 percent—had come from grasses, while just a handful had come from woody plants and herbs. Their analysis also revealed that whole grasses—not just the edible parts like flowers and roots—had been brought into the cave; many showed signs of having been melted or burned.
Researchers think mulla-mullung repeatedly burned grasses in the cave, creating distinct layers of ash that accumulated over thousands of years. These GunaiKurnai ancestors used the ash for various rituals, including the jeraeil initiation ceremony. The ashy cave floor also made it easier to “track the footsteps of dangerous beings who may be lurking nearby, such as nargun who are thought to have lived in caves,” study co-authors Russell Mullett, a GunaiKurnai elder; Bruno David, an archaeologist at Monash University; and Elle Grono, an archaeologist at Australian National University, write in the Conversation.
The oldest grass phytolights in the cave were between 24,000 and 25,800 years old, while the youngest were between 1,500 and 3,400 years old. Researchers think they found even older samples, but they’re less confident in those dates.
Between 1,600 and 4,400 years ago, researchers discovered that the ash layers became “more frequent and more widespread across the floor of the cave,” David tells NewScientist. About 2,000 years ago, they found grass had been repeatedly burned around a small standing stone that had been placed in the cave, a practice that continued for several hundred years.
Their analysis also revealed that GunaiKurnai ancestors carefully selected the types of grass they brought into the cave.
“They avoided diverse species from the riparian forest and open woodland found in the vicinity of Cloggs Cave before European settlement, and instead targeted grasses that would have been available a short distance away from the cave entrance,” according to a statement.
This article was originally published on Smithsonian Magazine. Read the full story here: Aboriginal Spiritual Leaders Performed ‘Magic, Healing, Cursing’ Rituals in This Australian Cave for 25,000 Years, New Research Finds © 2026 Smithsonian Institution.
