[LINK] "Research findings back up Aboriginal legend on origin of Central Australian palm trees"

[rfmcdonald]

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on the apparent confirmation of an ancient Aborigine myth.

Several years ago Tasmanian ecologist David Bowman did DNA tests on palm seeds from the outback and near Darwin.

The results led him to conclude the seeds were carried to the Central Desert by humans up to 30,000 years ago.

Professor Bowman read an Aboriginal legend recorded in 1894 by pioneering German anthropologist and missionary Carl Strehlow, which was only recently translated, describing the "gods from the north" bringing the seeds to Palm Valley.

Palms flourished in the Arctic during a brief sweltering period about 50 million years ago, according to a study that hints at gaps in our understanding of modern climate change.

"We're talking about a verbal tradition which had been transmitted through generations possibly for over 7,000, possibly 30,000 years," he said.

"Just an amazing coincidence that we'd independently concluded that the seeds had been transported and then subsequently we discover an Aboriginal legend is exactly what we found scientifically.