The paper focuses on a set of toponyms found on the coast of Blue Mud Bay in northern Australia, in an area today occupied by Yolŋu (Murngin) peoples. In the first part of the paper, we present an analysis, based on geomorphological, archaeological, anthropological and linguistic evidence, to suggest that these toponyms have been in place for at least 3000 years, and that they are early Yolŋu toponyms. We then argue that certain social practices and cultural mechanisms, which continue today, work to form a complex, multi‐media and multi‐sensory archive of names‐in‐place, within the frame of a robust system of intergenerational transmission. It is plausible that such a system has considerable time‐depth. Yolŋu oral histories suggest, indeed, that Blue Mud Bay was the origin point from which Yolŋu‐Matha languages and Yolngu forms of kinship and governance then spread inland to the north, west and south.

中文翻译：

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3000年前的地名？对阿纳姆东北部地区约鲁族社会形态的历史和结构的启示

本文着重介绍了在澳大利亚北部蓝泥湾海岸上发现的一组地名，该地名今天被约尔古（Murngin）人民占领。在本文的第一部分中，我们基于地貌，考古，人类学和语言学证据进行了分析，以表明这些地名已有至少3000年的历史，并且它们是早期的ŋ琉地名。然后，我们认为，某些当今的社会习俗和文化机制在一个强有力的世代相传系统的框架内，正在努力形成一个复杂的，具有多种媒介和多种感觉的就地名称档案。这种系统具有相当大的时间深度是合理的。瑜伽的口述历史确实表明，