Evidence has emerged in an Australian cave showing that curse-making is one of the oldest practices on Earth. Cloggs Cave, in Victoria’s Gippsland region, is the site of action where two sticks have been found with signs on them that match the curse-making practice as described in the 19th century. The sticks are 11,000 to 12,000 years old, an estimation that shows it is a cultural practice that has been in use for the longest time. 

Professor Bruno David of the Monash University found a Casuarina stick 40 centimetres in length from a fireplace with limestones around it. Carbon dating puts the wooden artefact’s age at 12,000 years old. The stick was lightly burned with twigs and leaves removed, which raised suspicion over how it was used. Additionally, lipids from human or animal fat were found on the stick, seemingly confirming that the stick was used for a ritual. 

Later, another Casuarina stick was found which seemed to have been treated in a similar way, only it was a thousand years younger. It had an angled end, like a spear thrower. 

Notably, a major part of the cave became a sinkhole 6000 years ago. So David and his team explored an area which hadn’t been affected by it. 

The cave is in the lands of the GunaiKurnai people. Nineteenth-century ethnographer Alfred Howitt had made a record of the culture and practices of the Indigenous People of southeastern Australia. According to them, and a book written by Howitt, cursing was a common practice. A person known as the mulla-mullung tied an item belonging to the person he was to curse to a Casuarina stick. According to Howitt, eaglehawk feathers were used to fasten the item to the stick which was smeared with human or animal fat. A fire was then lit and the stick was put into the ground with the mulla-mullung singing while taking the victim’s name. 

However, mulla-mullungs didn’t only carry out curse-making practices. They also used to heal people and their ways might have been similar to one described in the records. 

“The connection of these archaeological finds with recent GunaiKurnai practices demonstrates 12,000 years of knowledge-transfer,” David said in a statement. “Nowhere else on Earth has archaeological evidence of a very specific cultural practice previously been tracked so far back in time.”