Songlines

In contemporary music, lyrics often convey personal narratives of love, loss, or other emotional experiences. However, songlines serve a markedly different purpose. Unlike song lyrics, which remain confined to their respective songs, songlines weave together to form intricate oral maps of geographical areas.

Before the advent of written language, First Nations peoples employed songlines as spiritual and memory aids to navigate Australia’s challenging landscapes. As described by Australia’s National Maritime Museum:

> "For thousands upon thousands of years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have navigated their way across the lands and seas of Australia using paths called songlines or dreaming tracks. A songline is based around the creator beings and their formation of the lands and waters during the Dreaming (creation of earth). It explains the landmarks, rock formations, watering holes, rivers, trees, sky, and seas."

Songlines transmit knowledge through dramatic narrative songs, which not only served navigational purposes but were also vital for conveying historical and cultural information, including values, laws, and taboos.

One of the most renowned songlines is The Seven Sisters, depicted by the seven stars of the Pleiades constellation in the Australian night sky. The story encapsulates themes of pursuit, escape, enchantment, desire, and familial bonds. I encourage you to explore a retelling by First Nation Elder Timmy Douglas, whom I will discuss further.

Previous Research

Between 2015 and 2019, marine geologist Mick O’Leary from The University of Western Australia collaborated with a diverse team of specialists—including archaeologists, geomorphologists, and scientific divers—to uncover the first two submerged ancient Aboriginal archaeological sites off the coast of Western Australia.

At the initial site, known as Cape Bruguieres, the team discovered numerous stone artifacts, including mullers and grinding stones. The second site, a narrow channel called Flying Foam Passage, also contained evidence of human activity linked to a submerged freshwater spring discovered approximately 14 meters underwater.

Radiocarbon dating reveals these sites date back at least 7,000 years, coinciding with the rising sea levels that submerged them. The findings were published in July 2020 in the journal PLOS ONE.

New Research

The Cape Bruguieres site proved more accessible than the challenging Flying Foam Passage, prompting O’Leary and his team to return for further exploration. Their follow-up study was published in August 2023 in Quaternary Science Reviews.

The tidal currents in the Flying Foam Passage posed significant diving challenges, limiting divers to only an hour a day for artifact searches within a week-long funding period— the first grant for underwater artifact exploration since the 1980s. O’Leary expressed to Scientific American:

> "We knew if we failed, there probably wouldn’t be any more money going into this type of research."

To enhance their chances of success, the researchers spent two years utilizing advanced technologies such as sonar and LiDAR to map the seafloor prior to diving.

Watering holes are prime locations for uncovering signs of human activity, as they served as gathering spots for early humans who often left artifacts behind. When the team identified two depressions in the data from the Flying Foam Passage, they were eager to investigate.

Their efforts yielded even more stone tools, dating back to at least 9,000 B.C.E. before being submerged. Yet, the most thrilling aspect of this research remains ahead.

Linking it Together

Following their discoveries, the researchers decided to share digital models of the watering holes with a group of Australian First Nations Elders. O’Leary noted that elder Timmy Douglas expressed great enthusiasm upon seeing the models, engaging in animated conversation in his native language.

Remarkably, Douglas, now in his 90s, recognized the watering holes as part of a songline he had known throughout his life. He shared with O’Leary that he had only ever seen half of the terrain described in the songline but had never encountered the section featuring the watering holes.

Through the combination of the songline, artifacts, and altered landscape, the researchers theorize that the songline may have originated over 7,000 years ago—before the watering holes were submerged and instead located over 100 kilometers inland.

Collaborating with First Nation Elders proved to be a brilliant move, demonstrating how modern scientists can work alongside Aboriginal and Indigenous communities to broaden understanding and uncover deeper connections.

In the Future

Although O’Leary and his colleagues did not initially use the songline as a guide for their underwater findings, the connection they established opens the door for future collaborations. He elaborated:

> "We really see now you need to weave together the Western science and Indigenous knowledge, braid it together, so it’s not done as two separate things. When these things are overlaid together, you get a more holistic picture of Sea Country."

“Sea Country” is a term used by the Mutujuga Elders to describe the underwater areas where ancient humans once lived. Archaeologist Jonathan Benjamin from Flinders University estimates that countless more underwater First Nations sites likely exist along Australia’s coastlines.

In addition to enriching our understanding of Aboriginal history, Benjamin highlights another advantage of these discoveries. They are prompting public officials and industry leaders to reassess plans for seafloor mining and consider measures to protect these significant sites.

Perspective Shift

Stories resonate deeply because they serve as vessels for passing down wisdom, warnings, navigation, and other knowledge across generations. Music, in particular, enhances these narratives and may help preserve them from alteration over time.

Consider the telephone game: a group of people sits in a circle, and one whispers a message to the next person, who passes it along, and so on. The final person reveals what they heard, which often differs significantly from the original message.

This exercise illustrates how repetition can subtly change information until it becomes something entirely new—similar to how our memories can transform over time.

While my teachers used this game to highlight how rumors spread, it also illustrates how stories can evolve from their original forms.

However, songs differ in that they come with melody. It’s much easier to distort a narrative than to modify the lyrics of a song. Perhaps the transition from storytelling to song helped preserve knowledge more effectively while minimizing distortion—though this remains a fascinating idea to ponder.

This article was originally published in the author’s free newsletter, Curious Adventure. It was edited and republished on Medium with her consent.

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