PORT DOUGLAS, AUSTRALIA: “How and when did the Aboriginal peoples
arrive in Australia?” is a question that has been bothering me ever since I
arrived in Australia. I have asked at least a dozen Australians and have gotten
a range of answers, the most common has been, “That’s a strange question, why would you even want to know?” But some
have had an opinion: “They came over from
Indonesia on a land bridge when the sea was low.” “They came over on rafts.” Or my favorite, “They were always here — humankind originated in Australia.” The
later was the expressed view of the two Aboriginal guides I had. With respect
to when they came, the answers have also varied ranging from between 4,000 and
50,000 years ago. I put the question to my tour group at Daintree Rainforest
near Port Douglas, which resulted in a lively debate. Most agreed that
Australian’s wildlife is so different that there couldn’t possibly have been a
land bridge of any kind otherwise other mammals would have made the migration
as well. I had to get to the bottom of
this and so instead of going on another tour the next day, I went to the local
library with its four shelves of books, about half the size of your typical
bookmobile. It did have a librarian, however. Surprised at my question, she
told me that no one had ever asked her that question before but that the
library in Mossman might have something on it. Her online search, however, was
in vain and so I left the library empty-handed. I turned then to a local
bookstore and to my surprise found the answer in a book entitled First Footprints, by Scott Cane, published
in 2013. In this well-researched book, the author persuasively argues that the
original Aboriginal people came over by boat from Indonesia 70,000 years ago. As
a point of reference, this was 40,000 years before the Neanderthal went
extinct. At that time, due to the low sea levels, only 90 miles separated
Australia from the Indonesian islands. Genetic research, the author reports,
has shown that the initial group consisted of around 1,000 individuals. Pretty amazing
stuff!
