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LiveScience
LiveScience
Kristina Killgrove

12,000-year-old Aboriginal sticks may be evidence of the oldest known culturally transmitted ritual in the world

Two men stand in a cave.

The 12,000-year-old remains of two mini-fires and two curious sticks deep within a secluded cave in southern Australia may be evidence of the oldest known culturally transmitted ritual in the world, a new study finds.

The artifacts, which were analyzed in a new study that used both scientific analyses and Aboriginal oral history, may have been used in a ritual spell carried out to bring harm to another person.

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