New doubts that Cook discovered Australia

Fact or fiction ???????????

http://tinyurl.com/29po7y

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bungie wrote:

Fact or fiction ???????????

http://tinyurl.com/29po7y

Fiction as the link in your artical explains.

Quote:

Alan Dash, a surveyor with the Gosford City Council between 1968 and 1993, first noticed the carvings about 1975. Thoroughly familiar with the area, he revisited the site several times over the next 5 years, each time observing that more and more carvings appeared on the rock face. He considered the engravings the work of an irresponsible vandal.

Neil Martin himself found the man responsible. "In 1984 1 was in the area helping to put out a fire", he told me. "As I came around the base of the hill, I could hear a noise like someone chipping stone. I walked over to the cleft and found an old Yugoslavian man, chipping the stone with a Sidchrome cold chisel. Because this was national park property, I confiscated the chisel and the man left. Because he was mentally handicapped, we took no further action, but I later gave the chisel to the local historical society. We never saw the old man again."
http://donsmaps.com/hoax.html

The rest is just folklore and tourist attracting bullshit.

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dadpad wrote:

NickFun wrote:
To say that any European dicovered Australia is like saying Colombus discovered America. There were PEOPLE there already! The Aborigines dicoverd Australia!

No nick, I tried to explain that earlier.
Aborigines have "always" been with Australia. The land gave birth to people who were "of the land"

There is at least one book I have read which would disagree with what you say dadpad. One book in particular puts forward the theory that the present aborigines displaced a previous race, which were the peoples who painted the Bradshaws.

But as none of us were here a thousand years ago, or even a hundred years ago, I guess the the truth will never be known for sure. But one thing is for sure, some academics have made a mint out of it.

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bungie wrote:

dadpad wrote:
NickFun wrote:
To say that any European dicovered Australia is like saying Colombus discovered America. There were PEOPLE there already! The Aborigines dicoverd Australia!

No nick, I tried to explain that earlier.
Aborigines have "always" been with Australia. The land gave birth to people who were "of the land"

There is at least one book I have read which would disagree with what you say dadpad. One book in particular puts forward the theory that the present aborigines displaced a previous race, which were the peoples who painted the Bradshaws.

But as none of us were here a thousand years ago, or even a hundred years ago, I guess the the truth will never be known for sure. But one thing is for sure, some academics have made a mint out of it.

The Bradshaws, I personally think, are just a style of art like Sydney Nolan's lanky figures or even Picasso. Remember that that area would have been a virtually separate and isolated country until the inland sea that was much of Australia receded.

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Not the first Author to make this claim.
In 1977, Kenneth Gordon McIntyre (a Lawyer and Amateur Historian) wrote a boot titled "The Secret Discovery of Australia". This book claimed that the Portuguese discovered Australia 248 years before Captain Cook. His main argument stems from French Maps with Portuguese place names which were similarly acquired illegally from the Portuguese. These maps also show what appears to be Queensland but, like the map for this book, becomes less recognisable the further south you go. However, his claim to the inaccuracy of the southern part of the map "Dieppe" was not about splicing but about mathematical inaccuracies in the charting process made by the Portuguese which were more pronounced the further from the equator you went. Thus Queensland beyond near the equator was very discernible whereas the southern part of Australia less discernible. In the book, he corrects the mathematical inaccuracies and you end up with a map that looks very much like the east coast of Australia. I've read a number of articles about this new book by Peter Trickett and I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Mr Mcintyres book. Mr mcIntrye equally believes that it was Cristovao Mendonca who was the explorer.

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NickFun wrote:

To say that any European dicovered Australia is like saying Colombus discovered America. There were PEOPLE there already! The Aborigines dicoverd Australia!

No one can doubt that the Aborigines were the first here. my interpretation of "Discovering" is about making something that wasn't known common knowledge. The Aborigines didn't tell the world that Australia existed, the Portuguese (well it can be argued they didn't as they kept it a secret), Dutch and English did.

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bungie wrote:

There is at least one book I have read which would disagree with what you say dadpad. One book in particular puts forward the theory that the present aborigines displaced a previous race, which were the peoples who painted the Bradshaws.

But as none of us were here a thousand years ago, or even a hundred years ago, I guess the the truth will never be known for sure. But one thing is for sure, some academics have made a mint out of it.

The Bradshaw paintings are so old, that standard dating techniques simply won't give an accurate answer. The pigments are now actually part of the rock, which led to assumptions that a different form of "painting" was used to apply them to the rock face.

No similar form of artwork has been found, and even the local indigenes seem clueless as to their origin, as no dreaming exists surrounding the artworks.

Knowing that the "Myall" blacks were particularly warlike, the tribes responsible for this art may have been wiped out by invaders.

What I do know is, the local indigenes resisted early attempts to record these paintings, due to land rights claims pending.

Scratchings of the rock containing pigments have failed to date the paintings, but the rocks themselves are over fifty thousand years old, which is not surprising, considering the age of all the rock structures in the region.

I'm not convinced that these artworks are the work of current aboriginals.

I'm thinking Gondwana, and the birth of mankind.

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If you wish to read a book about the early tribes of Cape York, the book " Cape York The Savage Frontier" by Rodney Liddell is worth reading.
It has cause so much embarrassment to some academics that they insisted libraries put it in the historical fiction section.
He states his information comes from esteemed sources ,noted libraries, state archives etc.
Basically, Mr Liddell believes the original people of Australia were in fact Papuans and that they were overtaken by the present day aborigines who came from Southern India and Ceylon, and who brought the Indian Jackal (the dingo) with them. Dampier's description in 1688 of the people he saw, would bear out the Papuan claim, and that would further mean that some of these people were here about 300 years ago. Mr Liddell also claims that the Tasmanian aborigines were also the (curly haired)papuan people.
There is also detailed descriptions of tribal wars, with some tribes being entirely wiped out.
All in all, and interesting book.

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Another book that should be part of the Australian curriculum is one written by a Roper River soul. I can't find it on google, but it's called "I, the Abroriginal" The author was the first aboriginal health worker in the Northern Territory.

Delves deeply into tribal conflict, and skin priveliges.

Worth reading twice. :wink:

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Builder wrote:

Another book that should be part of the Australian curriculum is one written by a Roper River soul. I can't find it on google, but it's called "I, the Abroriginal" The author was the first aboriginal health worker in the Northern Territory.

Delves deeply into tribal conflict, and skin priveliges.

Worth reading twice. :wink:

Sounds like a good read Builder, I will look for it.

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tdos wrote:

The Aborigines didn't tell the world that Australia existed, the Portuguese (well it can be argued they didn't as they kept it a secret), Dutch and English did.

One of the problems in the "Age of Discovery" is that prior to the 18th century, accurate clocks were not available. Although it was relatively simple to find how far north of south of the prime meridian you were by determining the angle of the sun above the horizon at local noon, and consulting an astronomical almanac, finding how far east of west one was of any point in Europe was a serious problem. For example, La Salle took an expedition to find the mouth of the Mississippi by sea (he had already marched almost all the way the mouth of the river by land), but ended up too far west, near modern day Galveston, Texas. He eventually decided that he was too far west, and took a party to march east to find the river. He was killed by his men before he reached the Mississippi.

In the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch mariners were getting seriously rich by sailing to the "East," and bringing back valuable cargoes such as silk and spices. Some expeditions would be nearly wiped out, returning with a single small ship, and the cargo would still make them rich beyond their wildest dreams.

But because of the problem of knowing how far east or west of any given point, these mariners kept "rutters," in which they described landmarks (which is why they tended to sail within sight of a coastline if at all possible--Carbral "discovered" Brazil because he was blown off course on his way to the Red Sea), water color and condition, reefs, prevailing winds, etc., all with reference to north or south of the equator. Because so much serious money was involved, these rutters were genuine top secret state secrets, and people would literally kill to get their hands on one, or kill to keep them secret. Only one of Magellan's ships survived the voyage around the earth, and it was a small one at that--but cloves and cinnamon on board paid for the entire expedition, the one ship that returned, and the three larger ships that were lost and the one that returned to Spain, and even managed a small profit.

So, especially with the Portuguese and the Dutch, when mariners returned to Europe, they either kept their mouths shut about what they had found, or they made up preposterous stories. "Discoveries" were not accurately decribed, because there was too much money at stake.

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New doubts that Cook discovered Australia

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