I heard someone talking about this the other day. I had never heard this so I googled around a bit and found some information. Most arguments ‘for’ were:
However, I’m not really good at determining which sites are legit and which ones are sensational.
Anyone know if the early Chinese explorers made it to Australia?
We have clear evidence that Indonesian Makassan traders were trading with Aboriginal tribes in Arnhem land in the 1600’s, perhaps as early as 1640.
And then there is the coins that have been found on Minchabar island that date from the 10th-14th century (but possibly from a wrecked boat in the 16th century).
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/did-the-african-coins-found-in-australia-come-from-a-wrecked-arab-dhow#page1
If theres any actual evidence for earlier contact than that with Chinese or Arab traders I’d like to see it.
Note that the rock art and pictures of “kangaroos” can be explained.
*) The rock art is actually of Makassan boats, which look very similar to chinese junks
•) various wallabies (which resemble small kangaroos) are found in Papua New Guinea which had pre-european contact with Indonesian arabic traders, so images or an actual live wallaby could have been traded to the chinese by Arabic traders.
Australia isn’t really very remote from Asia. I don’t know if it needed to be discovered, it was just another lump of land sitting there amongst the bits they regularly visited.
Um no. There was established trade routes by Arab traders down to Indonesia and through to China itself in the 11th century. Australia wasn’t on those trade routes, and is a fair way off them.
Gavin Menzies claims that people from a 1421 Chinese expedition spent several months in Australia and constructed settlements at Eden in NSW and Gympie in Queensland. Except there is no archeological evidence that’s been found of those settlements.
The Chinese certainly had the technological capability to build ships capable of sailing to Australia in 1421, but as far as I know there is no physical evidence to prove that they actually did.
One of the more impressive things about Luís Vaz de Torres’ transit of what is now the Torres Straight in 1606 is that he managed not to see Australia, despite it only being 150km away.
I would certainly expect traders from the East Indian Archipelago to have made landfall in Australia well before the Europeans showed up because it simply wasn’t that far away.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all if a couple of Chinese ships, heading to the Malay Peninsula or elsewhere in the East Indies ended up in Cape York or elsewhere in what is now the Top End of the Northern Territory, either by accident or design.
However, the lack of evidence for regular or repeated visits - assuming they visited at all in the first place, of couirse - suggests either the Chinese didn’t find anything worthwhile (or anyone to trade with), or didn’t complete the return journey back to anywhere they could tell anyone about this other land they just discovered.
Though there are many beautiful areas in Central Australia I have begun to doubt the theory (I was the only believer) that Central Australia is the site of the Garden of Eden.
Well yes, and also, Australia was never actually isolated. There is strong evidence that there was continuous cultural transfer and trade between Papua New Guinea and Cape York via the Torres Straight islander communities.
How could they miss it? A great big place like that just a few hundred miles off to the south. Weird.
Europeans didn’t sail very far south along the coast of Africa until the 1400s. Back then, most people didn’t explore just for the sake of exploring. If there wasn’t a prospect of trade in that direction, there was no reason to go there.
Sarcastically speaking, I think the Aborigines were the first to discover Australia … now who the first non-aborigines were was probably the Polynesians, followed by the Chinese and Arab traders.
Maybe a rephrasing as the first ‘civilized’ for a certain value of civilization. I really hate the whole Euro/Sino centric world view. The Aborigines weren’t lost, they knew where they were and were perfectly happy without anybody else :rolleyes:
It seems very likely that the Chinese or Arab traders were the first non-aboriginies to discover Australia, but proof so far is lacking.
See, I think we need to define ‘discover’ as just not bumping into and forgetting or being shipwrecked, but getting the discovery back to the homeland and having it recorded or a response, etc. This allows us to leave out native settlers from pre-history, etc, also.
“discover” has several meanings:
From Merriam-Webster.
The aborigines were the first to discover Australia in the first sense. However, since they never spread the word to anyone else, they didn’t discover it in the second sense.
Indonesians, assuming they returned home to tell about it, were the first to discover Australia in the second sense.
Europeans were the first to discover Australia on a global scale - to make its existence known throughout the world.
NM
In reality I suspect that the “discoverer” had to plant a flag claiming it for his country (or his financial backers) and go back to register the claim.
Australia has always been a part of China. 
A few hundred miles is not close. Viewing distance from the top of a 100’ mastis just 11.4 nautical miles.
But there are clouds and currents that would presumably indicate a land mass, and I would’ve thought people of South East Asia visiting with stories about it.
As mentioned above, there was continuous contact from Papua New Guinea with the Torres Strait Islands and the Torres Strait Islanders knew of the existence of Australia. But the tribal groups of Papua New Guinea were isolated from the other Indonesian trading cultures and didn’t have much contact with them.
The sea-faring trading cultures of South East Asia proper were much further west in the Molucca’s and Sulawesi. It’s over 2000 km from there to the nearest Australian coastline.
Do you have a flag? No flag, no country.