Alexis Wright’s Tracker and Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu are two recent publications to challenge the colonialist nature of Western history and science. Both have rightfully become bestselling and award-winning titles. Patrick Nunn is a professor of geography with a particular interest in climate and sea-level change. Western science generally privileges the written word over oral testimony, however sea-level cycles are calculated on a geological timescale, well before the written word.

Traditionally, Western scientists have relied on physical evidence such as sediment drill-cores to piece together a narrative about sea-level change that has caused massive social upheaval and will continue to do so at an accelerating rate. But what if there was a wealth of memory that still existed from a time when the first humans were eyewitness to events that led to such geological change? Nunn writes, ‘Western science has been slow to consider the possibility that such folk memories may have been based on observations of a geological phenomenon’. He lays out evidence of oral histories that have lasted upwards of ten-thousand years and compares them to the Western physical science.

While this book is mainly focussed on Indigenous Australian cultures, Nunn also includes examples from Europe, India and the USA, among other regions. Nunn argues that it is the unique nature of Australia’s climate and geographical isolation that led to the strength and endurance of oral history in Aboriginal cultures. Alexis Wright, in her exceptional memoir of Aboriginal leader Tracker Tilmouth, explains the importance of the spoken story, ‘the written word would never be totally sufficient, would never do in a world where people speak to each other to be understood. The story, told verbally and with verve, is still as important for the future of Aboriginal peoples as it was in traditional times.’ As in Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu, Patrick Nunn’s research looks more closely at the culture and practices of Aboriginal people offering a depth of knowledge that could have implications for the future of us all.

Kara Nicholson is part of the online Readings team.