Hi Rhross,

It was probably Austronesian traders who brought the dingo to Australian shores, maybe not deliberately - over many visits, a few escaped, or got stranded once the sea-farers left after a few days. Austronesian sea-farers, fishermen and traders, were travelling all over S-E Asia, from one coastal area to another, from the south China coast across to Melanesia, trading goods with local foragers, farmers, fishermen, etc. and eventually distributing them all over the region.

Obsidian (a very hard, glassy volcanic rock, ideal for cutting tools) was traded from Fiji across to Borneo. It's possible that sugar cane was originally a cross-species between a grass or cane found in PNG and another species found in Sri Lanka, presumably transported perhaps six thousand years ago from one to the other. The seas around SE Asia would have been incredibly fertile for fishermen and traders.

Trade between Macassans and northern Aboriginal groups was probably just getting going a few hundred years ago, very basic trade - goods left on the beach, and other goods left in exchange. There wouldn't have been much reason for visitors to stay for long once they had taken on fresh water and dropped off their goods and picked up the local products, such as sandalwood - which could end up in Egypt and Rome. Gold from the Malay Peninsula was traded, step by step, as far as the Romans, who called the Peninsula 'Chersonese'.

Joe

@Joe,

thanks, yes, fascinating stuff. The ability of humans to walk, ride, sail their way around the world and across huge distances is remarkable. Although no doubt, needs must.

Hi Joe and rhross,

//Trade between Macassans and northern Aboriginal groups was probably just getting going a few hundred years ago, very basic trade - goods left on the beach, and other goods left in exchange.//

Joe, that is not fact, it's conjecture, trade between Macassans and Aboriginals was most likely, but how that trade was organised and conducted is unknown. Unlikely to be goods on beach, other goods left in return, as all trade requires the setting of parameters, uniform rates of exchange, supply and demand, and of course communication. You like to portray Aboriginal people in the Cook mould of a "weak, timid, cowardly and incurious" it adds stimulus to your argument of justifiable righteous exploration by Europeans for the past 230 years.

rhross, //The Indians who migrated here around 4,000 years ago// Can you give us a leg up on that one. Indians?

As for; //This fantasy of an Aboriginal Utopia is a new form of racism.// Who is suggesting this utopia, I have not seen anyone suggest that on this thread.

Hi Paul,

Yes, 'probably' gives it away :) But from records and anecdotal accounts, that's how they did it along the Arnhem Land coast until a bit over a hundred years ago, when Australian government ships drove the Macassans away: sandalwood would be left in piles on the beach, and the Macassans would take them and leave items like steel axes in their place. Maybe a lot of trade in different parts of the world started like that. Since - at least early on - they couldn't speak each others' languages, that might have been how they did it.

I don't know what 'timid, cowardly' etc. has to do with it: more likely the Macassans were afraid of the Aboriginal people it was their country after all. Come to think of it, I've never thought of Aboriginal people anywhere as timid and cowardly, quite the opposite - perhaps that's your own impression ? Nor do I think that European exploration and/or exploitation was any more justified than invasions the world over.

But now that you mention it, what has happened over the past 230 years has happened and can't un-happen: the moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on. Nor all thy piety nor wit can bring it back to cancel half a line. Hey, that's not bad.

Joe

Paul,

I hope this comes out:

https://webmail.internode.on.net/index.php/mail/viewmessage/getattachment/folder/INBOX/uniqueId/3070/filenameOriginal/A_Minimum_Age_For_Early_Depictions_Of_Southeast_As.pdf

It might give some idea of possible trade links between Aboriginal people on the north coast and Macassans/Javanese/Timorese.

Joe

2Paul 1405,

Quote: A new study of DNA has found that Indian people may have come to Australia around 4000 years ago, an event possibly linked to the first appearance of the dingo.
Australia was first populated around 40,000 years ago and it was once thought Aboriginal Australians had limited contact with the outside world until the arrival of Europeans.
However, an international research team examining genotyping data from Aboriginal Australians, New Guineans, island Southeast Asians and Indians found ancient association between Australia, New Guinea, and the Mamanwa group from the Philippines.
“We also detect a signal indicative of substantial gene flow between the Indian populations and Australia well before European contact, contrary to the prevailing view that there was no contact between Australia and the rest of the world. We estimate this gene flow to have occurred during the Holocene, 4,230 years ago,” the researchers said in a paper titled ‘Genome-wide data substantiate Holocene gene flow from India to Australia’ and published in the journal PNAS.

https://theconversation.com/study-links-ancient-indian-visitors-to-australias-first-dingoes-11593