Files and links (1)
Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
The selective geography of volcanism in oral traditions
Quaternary Research, Vol.122, pp.1-17
2024
Abstract
Oral traditions describing details of ancient volcanic eruptions and their effects survive throughout the inhabited world. Many such eruptions , especially those having catastrophic environmental and societal consequences, proved sufficiently memorable to form the basis of enduring oral traditions. Using global databases, we identified 2306 such eruptions from 477 inhabited locations that occurred before the start of the Common Era (CE) and are therefore likely to have been the subject of oral traditions. Of these, we selected 20 events ('remembered' Holocene eruptions) for which there are extant oral (derived) traditions that demonstrate how such traditions can reveal details of past volcanism that often are undetectable by retrodictive geoscientific enquiry. We also selected 20 events ('forgotten' Holocene eruptions) about which no oral traditions are known and discuss the possible reasons for this. Such oral traditions, while often challenging for conventionally trained geoscientists to interpret, are valuable yet largely overlooked sources of information about the nature and effects of Holocene volcanism that can usefully complement geoscientific enquiry. In particular, we identified locations where memories of such volcanism appear 'forgotten' in the hope that scientists might focus their attention on revealing, identifying, and analyzing local traditions.
Details
- Title
- The selective geography of volcanism in oral traditions
- Authors
- Leigh Franks (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Law and SocietyPatrick Nunn (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Law and SocietyAdrian McCallum (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Publication details
- Quaternary Research, Vol.122, pp.1-17
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Date published
- 2024
- DOI
- 10.1017/qua.2024.29
- ISSN
- 1096-0287; 0033-5894
- Copyright note
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Quaternary Research Center. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
- Organisation Unit
- Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre; Cancer Research Cluster; School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991069298802621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
1 File views/ downloads
37 Record Views
InCites Highlights
These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web Of Science research areas
- Geography, Physical
- Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
Source: InCites