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Interesting. There has to be more evidence of other nations discovering Australia and New Zealand before the ones mentioned in our history books. Nearer to me

Interesting. There has to be more evidence of other nations discovering Australia and New Zealand before the ones mentioned in our history books. Nearer to me, the Tiwi islands just off the coast of North Australia have unearthed jade figurines and artifacts that seem to originate from China or another Asian country, which date back to before the time of Captain Cook. Update: Article on early Chinese explorers reaching Australia a long time before Dutch or English explorers - http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982893.html http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982893.h...

thewhitetulip 10y ago
Edited. Was Australia a part of Indian subcontinent back then?
- cyberferret 10y ago
  We are talking artifacts that are maybe 500 years old, not millions of years, which was when Australia was part of Gondwanaland.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- dguest 10y ago
  Actually continental drift explains a variety of phenomena that have been falsely attributed to human exploration: English is spoken in New York, for example, because the british isles used to be connected to New England. Even the names reflect this: when the landmasses separated Queen Victoria proudly viewed them as a geological projection of the British sphere of influence and christened her new islands "New England" "New York", "New Hampshire" etc.
  - fuck_google 10y ago
    Do you work at Apple?
  - cynicaldevil 10y ago
    Dunno if trolling or actually serious...
- crucialfelix 10y ago
  I assume you are joking, but India was actually smooshed up against Australia back in Pangea 335m years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea#/media/File:Pangaea_continents.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea#/media/File:Pangaea_co...
noobermin 10y ago
I'm from Palau, not quite all the way out to Australia and NZ, but say half way there. My memory is hazy, but I remember learning from social studies in grade school that when Europeans made first contact, they observed terraces that apparently for rice paddies which the Palauans didn't make (I think they could do that sort of thing to an extent but not quite a out of a complete hill side). When the European captain asked the natives whether they made the terraces, the Palauans said, "the gods made them." And I think the captain guessed in his logs that previous settlers (Chinese) had made them long ago and left them. So, even back then, Europeans knew explorers from other groups probably went before them. This is a side tangent: I remember learning as a kid that legends had it that "gods" came out from the sea and taught the first Palauans skills and craft, like how to cook and fish, make canoes, build houses and all those sorts of things. That mixed with the above always lead me to believe those "gods" were just visitors from other islands or lands. Also, realize the island was no more than 60 miles from northern most point to southern most point, but my ancestors believed the universe ended a couple of miles beyond those tips on either end, so they didn't really conceive of other places or people. Our language does share strikingly similarities with some Indonesian words, and I've seen pictures of their ancient architecture which look eerily like some of ours. I'm not sure what makes more sense though, explorers randomly marooning and imparting knowledge and skills while integrating, or that the first settlers who would become my ancestors just bringing their culture and craft with them. The latter makes much more sense I guess from a logical perspective.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  >That mixed with the above always lead me to believe those "gods" were just visitors from other islands or lands. Makes you wonder if the "gods" that other religions worship(ped) were also just visitors from elsewhere with superior technology... Of course, there's no physical evidence for this, but it does make me wonder.
Brakenshire 10y ago
> Article on early Chinese explorers reaching Australia a long time before Dutch or English explorers - http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982893.h.. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982893.h.... The conclusions in that article are exceptionally controversial. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies > Within the academic world, the book (and Menzies' "1421 hypothesis") is dismissed by sinologists and professional historians.[29][30][31] In 2004, historian Robert Finlay severely criticized Menzies in the Journal of World History for his "reckless manner of dealing with evidence" that led him to propose hypotheses "without a shred of proof".[6] Finlay wrote: > "Unfortunately, this reckless manner of dealing with evidence is typical of 1421, vitiating all its extraordinary claims: the voyages it describes never took place, Chinese information never reached Prince Henry and Columbus, and there is no evidence of the Ming fleets in newly discovered lands. The fundamental assumption of the book—that the Yongle Emperor dispatched the Ming fleets because he had a "grand plan", a vision of charting the world and creating a maritime empire spanning the oceans—is simply asserted by Menzies without a shred of proof ... The reasoning of 1421 is inexorably circular, its evidence spurious, its research derisory, its borrowings unacknowledged, its citations slipshod, and its assertions preposterous ... Examination of the book's central claims reveals they are uniformly without substance.[32]" > A group of scholars and navigators—Su Ming Yang of the United States, Jin Guo-Ping and Malhão Pereira of Portugal, Philip Rivers of Malaysia, Geoff Wade of Singapore—questioned Menzies' methods and findings in a joint message:[27] > "His book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, is a work of sheer fiction presented as revisionist history. Not a single document or artifact has been found to support his new claims on the supposed Ming naval expeditions beyond Africa...Menzies' numerous claims and the hundreds of pieces of "evidence" he has assembled have been thoroughly and entirely discredited by historians, maritime experts and oceanographers from China, the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.[27]"
- cyberferret 10y ago
  Well, even if people don't agree with his methodology or analysis, there there appears to be actual evidence of Chinese contact with the aboriginals of Arnhem land [0]. [0] - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-10/old-chinese-coin-found-in-arnhem-land/5660382 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-10/old-chinese-coin-found...

thewhitetulip 10y ago

Edited. Was Australia a part of Indian subcontinent back then?

cyberferret 10y ago
We are talking artifacts that are maybe 500 years old, not millions of years, which was when Australia was part of Gondwanaland.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
dguest 10y ago
Actually continental drift explains a variety of phenomena that have been falsely attributed to human exploration: English is spoken in New York, for example, because the british isles used to be connected to New England. Even the names reflect this: when the landmasses separated Queen Victoria proudly viewed them as a geological projection of the British sphere of influence and christened her new islands "New England" "New York", "New Hampshire" etc.
- fuck_google 10y ago
  Do you work at Apple?
- cynicaldevil 10y ago
  Dunno if trolling or actually serious...
crucialfelix 10y ago
I assume you are joking, but India was actually smooshed up against Australia back in Pangea 335m years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea#/media/File:Pangaea_continents.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea#/media/File:Pangaea_co...

noobermin 10y ago

I'm from Palau, not quite all the way out to Australia and NZ, but say half way there. My memory is hazy, but I remember learning from social studies in grade school that when Europeans made first contact, they observed terraces that apparently for rice paddies which the Palauans didn't make (I think they could do that sort of thing to an extent but not quite a out of a complete hill side). When the European captain asked the natives whether they made the terraces, the Palauans said, "the gods made them." And I think the captain guessed in his logs that previous settlers (Chinese) had made them long ago and left them. So, even back then, Europeans knew explorers from other groups probably went before them. This is a side tangent: I remember learning as a kid that legends had it that "gods" came out from the sea and taught the first Palauans skills and craft, like how to cook and fish, make canoes, build houses and all those sorts of things. That mixed with the above always lead me to believe those "gods" were just visitors from other islands or lands. Also, realize the island was no more than 60 miles from northern most point to southern most point, but my ancestors believed the universe ended a couple of miles beyond those tips on either end, so they didn't really conceive of other places or people. Our language does share strikingly similarities with some Indonesian words, and I've seen pictures of their ancient architecture which look eerily like some of ours. I'm not sure what makes more sense though, explorers randomly marooning and imparting knowledge and skills while integrating, or that the first settlers who would become my ancestors just bringing their culture and craft with them. The latter makes much more sense I guess from a logical perspective.

Arizhel 10y ago
>That mixed with the above always lead me to believe those "gods" were just visitors from other islands or lands. Makes you wonder if the "gods" that other religions worship(ped) were also just visitors from elsewhere with superior technology... Of course, there's no physical evidence for this, but it does make me wonder.

Brakenshire 10y ago

> Article on early Chinese explorers reaching Australia a long time before Dutch or English explorers - http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982893.h.. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982893.h.... The conclusions in that article are exceptionally controversial. From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Menzies > Within the academic world, the book (and Menzies' "1421 hypothesis") is dismissed by sinologists and professional historians.[29][30][31] In 2004, historian Robert Finlay severely criticized Menzies in the Journal of World History for his "reckless manner of dealing with evidence" that led him to propose hypotheses "without a shred of proof".[6] Finlay wrote: > "Unfortunately, this reckless manner of dealing with evidence is typical of 1421, vitiating all its extraordinary claims: the voyages it describes never took place, Chinese information never reached Prince Henry and Columbus, and there is no evidence of the Ming fleets in newly discovered lands. The fundamental assumption of the book—that the Yongle Emperor dispatched the Ming fleets because he had a "grand plan", a vision of charting the world and creating a maritime empire spanning the oceans—is simply asserted by Menzies without a shred of proof ... The reasoning of 1421 is inexorably circular, its evidence spurious, its research derisory, its borrowings unacknowledged, its citations slipshod, and its assertions preposterous ... Examination of the book's central claims reveals they are uniformly without substance.[32]" > A group of scholars and navigators—Su Ming Yang of the United States, Jin Guo-Ping and Malhão Pereira of Portugal, Philip Rivers of Malaysia, Geoff Wade of Singapore—questioned Menzies' methods and findings in a joint message:[27] > "His book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, is a work of sheer fiction presented as revisionist history. Not a single document or artifact has been found to support his new claims on the supposed Ming naval expeditions beyond Africa...Menzies' numerous claims and the hundreds of pieces of "evidence" he has assembled have been thoroughly and entirely discredited by historians, maritime experts and oceanographers from China, the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.[27]"

cyberferret 10y ago
Well, even if people don't agree with his methodology or analysis, there there appears to be actual evidence of Chinese contact with the aboriginals of Arnhem land [0]. [0] - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-10/old-chinese-coin-found-in-arnhem-land/5660382 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-10/old-chinese-coin-found...