Ancient Grass Fires at Cloggs Cave Reveal Ritual Magic Spanning Millennia

When Dr Elle Grono and her team first set foot in Cloggs Cave, tucked away in the southern Victorian Alps, they expected the usual stone tools and animal bones that pepper Australia’s deep‑time sites. What they actually found were thin, ash‑streaked layers that told a very different story—one of smoke, ritual and, oddly enough, grass.

Those layers aren’t recent. Using a blend of optically stimulated luminescence and accelerator‑mass‑spectrometry dating, the researchers pegged the ashy deposits to somewhere between 4,400 and 1,600 years ago. In other words, people were tending to ceremonial fires long before the first European ships ever clipped the horizon.

The key to deciphering the mystery lay in the tiniest of clues: phytoliths, the microscopic silica bodies that plants leave behind after they’re burnt or decay. When the lab techs examined the ash under a microscope they counted 29 distinct phytolith types, the overwhelming majority—up to 97 %—coming from grasses. Most belonged to the cool‑temperate Pooideae and warm‑humid Panicoideae subfamilies, with only a sprinkling of the drier‑adapted Chloridoideae.

That high grass signature suggests the fires weren’t just kitchen hearths. The authors argue the grasses were deliberately gathered, transported, and set alight in a series of ritual performances. A 28‑centimetre standing stone, dating to roughly 2,000 years ago, was found right within those burnt layers—perhaps a focal point for the ceremonies.

Gunai‑Kurnai elder Uncle Russell Mullett, who helped shape the excavation’s design and interpretation, gave the findings a cultural anchor. He reminded the team that historic accounts of his people describe specialised practitioners—sometimes called mulla‑mullung—who used fire‑burned grasses in healing spells, protective charms, and even curses. The scientists aren’t claiming to have read the exact ancient recipe, but the pattern of repeated, intentional grass fires dovetails neatly with those oral histories.

It’s worth noting that the cave’s story stretches back far beyond the ash. Archaeologists have evidence of human presence at Cloggs Cave for up to 25,000 years, though the grass‑burning episodes occupy a distinct, later chapter in that long narrative.

While the phytolith work pinpoints the plant families involved, it can’t always name the exact species—most identifications stop at the subfamily level. So the interpretation leans on a combination of scientific data and Indigenous knowledge, a partnership the authors stress throughout the paper.

All told, the discovery adds a vivid, sensory layer to our picture of ancient Australian lifeways. It reminds us that fire was not merely a tool for cooking or warmth, but a conduit for belief, medicine and, perhaps, a bit of magical mischief.