It is thought that the dingo was introduced to Australia between 5000 and 4000 years ago. There is little genetic divergence between the Australian group and the Asian group of dingos.

Makassan trepangers planted tamarind trees to support their basecamps when operating in Northern Australia from the early 18th century onwards.

That’s two (2) examples of pre-Cook introduced species. Any of you familar with others?

Homo Sapiens.

Dropbear said:

Homo Sapiens.

Pretty good catch there.

But introducing oneself is always awkward…

I read somewhere fairly recently, that some consider Portulaca oleracea (common purslane, red pigweed) may have been introduced – possibly around the same time as the dingo. I have had a quick look tonight, but haven’t been able to find the reference to that notion.

Many years ago I read somebody had proposed the Australian Native Cashew (Semecarpus australiensis) was introduced a long time ago. But I doubt that. It’s a different genus to normal cashews, and appears not to occur elsewhere.

There is some possibility that Australian Native Bananas were introduced. But bananas are an extremely complex group and it might be difficult to unwind their history in Australia.

Maybe some of the rice species were introduced – especially red rice (Oryza rufipogon), which is well loved by some groups of people (including me), and occurs elsewhere in the world.

Michael V said:

I read somewhere fairly recently, that some consider Portulaca oleracea (common purslane, red pigweed) may have been introduced – possibly around the same time as the dingo. I have had a quick look tonight, but haven’t been able to find the reference to that notion.

Many years ago I read somebody had proposed the Australian Native Cashew (Semecarpus australiensis) was introduced a long time ago. But I doubt that. It’s a different genus to normal cashews, and appears not to occur elsewhere.

There is some possibility that Australian Native Bananas were introduced. But bananas are an extremely complex group and it might be difficult to unwind their history in Australia.

Maybe some of the rice species were introduced – especially red rice (Oryza rufipogon), which is well loved by some groups of people (including me), and occurs elsewhere in the world.

Cheers for the leads.

On rice, these people did a comparison between the processing, cooking and nutritional properties of native rices versus introduced.

http://riel.cdu.edu.au/sites/default/files/managed/downloads/rirdc_native-rice_10-175.pdf

Yolngu people made cakes from taro traditionally. Taro is known to have been restricted in range to South Asia in historical times.
The Qld Dept of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry website says that Asian fishermen “probably introduced it into Australia well before European settlement.”

dv said:

Michael V said:

I read somewhere fairly recently, that some consider Portulaca oleracea (common purslane, red pigweed) may have been introduced – possibly around the same time as the dingo. I have had a quick look tonight, but haven’t been able to find the reference to that notion.

Many years ago I read somebody had proposed the Australian Native Cashew (Semecarpus australiensis) was introduced a long time ago. But I doubt that. It’s a different genus to normal cashews, and appears not to occur elsewhere.

There is some possibility that Australian Native Bananas were introduced. But bananas are an extremely complex group and it might be difficult to unwind their history in Australia.

Maybe some of the rice species were introduced – especially red rice (Oryza rufipogon), which is well loved by some groups of people (including me), and occurs elsewhere in the world.

Cheers for the leads.

On rice, these people did a comparison between the processing, cooking and nutritional properties of native rices versus introduced.

http://riel.cdu.edu.au/sites/default/files/managed/downloads/rirdc_native-rice_10-175.pdf

Interesting, thanks. :)

dv said:

Yolngu people made cakes from taro traditionally. Taro is known to have been restricted in range to South Asia in historical times.
The Qld Dept of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry website says that Asian fishermen “probably introduced it into Australia well before European settlement.”

So, the notion that many of the useful animals and plants that inhabit lands to the north were introduced to Australia by humans, is worth testing.

Indeed.

On rufipogon: a paper called “Molecular Relationships between Australian annual wild rice, Oryza meridionalis and two relation perrenial forms”

mentions the issue of rufipogon crossing the Wallace line: it does suggest that it was in the recent prehistory and that it may have been carried inadvertantly, by humans, or by animals. Makes sense as grasses tend to stick to skin and fur, and the introduction appears to have been way before any kind of agriculture anyway.

From the answer to everything:

“The islands’ indigenous inhabitants are the Torres Strait Islanders, Melanesian peoples related to the Papuans of adjoining New Guinea. The various Torres Strait Islander communities have a distinct culture and long-standing history with the islands and nearby coastlines. Their maritime-based trade and interactions with the Papuans to the north and the Australian Aboriginal communities have maintained a steady cultural diffusion between the three societal groups, dating back thousands of years at least.”

Which raises the questions:

When did Polynesians settle in New Guinea and the Torres Strait?
Was there a prior indigenous population?
If yes did this population travel by sea, and when did they arrive?
Did they come from Australia, NG, or elsewhere?

The Rev Dodgson said:

When did Polynesians settle in New Guinea and the Torres Strait?

Where Polynesian = Melanesian

Origins of the Australian Boab

………………….

We are investigating a third scenario based on the very close genetic relationship between A. gregorii and A. digitata: transoceanic dispersal mediated by human migrations out of Africa around 60-70,000 yrs ago. ……….

Boab

Any exploration vessel pre-Cook which made landfall would have provided an opportunity for species to be introduced. These may have included rodents, cats and insects. Perhaps they died shortly afterwards due to predators and environment, or were unable to breed as there were no mates.

Rodents would probably be a good angle, but also a tricky one: there were certainly rodents that appeared in Australia at various times over the last five million years, so it appears they are quite able to make the journey under their own steam (floating on logs etc I suppose), so it might be hard to determine which were introduced.

Speedy said:

Any exploration vessel pre-Cook

Btw, the vessels that visited Australia’s north from about 1400 onwards were not mainly exploration vessels but trepangers and other fishing craft: the trepangers from Celebes etc would return to the same basecamps year after year in what is now WA and NT.

dv said:

Speedy said:

Any exploration vessel pre-Cook

Btw, the vessels that visited Australia’s north from about 1400 onwards were not mainly exploration vessels but trepangers and other fishing craft: the trepangers from Celebes etc would return to the same basecamps year after year in what is now WA and NT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanging
says from 18th Century and likely earlier.

So what is the evidence for 1400?

Isn’t it likely that like that people have been visiting and perhaps trading for far longer than that?

love a lamb roast, reheated day-after, gravy over most, quite tastier.

Pre-cooked lamb with gravy could be nice.

pre-cooked lamb’n gravy be nice.
like our mothers made
you and me twice
to a man’s heart the blade
to carve and slice
with food be the way

Rev, let me get back to you on that toniz

I wouldn’t take too much notice of what you read in AiG about this.
What we do know is that in pre-Piltdown time there was a land bridge to Asia and rodents could have walked across and then evolved into monotremes like bilbies and platypus.

Peak Warming Man said:

I wouldn’t take too much notice of what you read in AiG about this.
What we do know is that in pre-Piltdown time there was a land bridge to Asia and rodents could have walked across and then evolved into monotremes like bilbies and platypus.

I’m pretty sure that most people don’t know that.

and once known can’t be unknown. mores the pity.

Bilby is a monotreme now?

I’m sure you meant echidna.

Peak Warming Man said:

…….
What we do know is that in pre-Piltdown time there was a land bridge to Asia and rodents could have walked across and then evolved into monotremes like bilbies and platypus.

Nope, there are fossil records of monotremes in other parts of the world.

I think BC may have introduced Kava… not sure if it was pre-cooked.

PWM, at no time in the last forty million years has there been a land bridge connecting Asia and Australia. The waters between the continental shelves are too deep for that. However, the gaps would have been small enough to canoe or raft across, and rodents can get carried aboard logs shifted by storms etc.

dv said:

PWM, at no time in the last forty million years has there been a land bridge connecting Asia and Australia. The waters between the continental shelves are too deep for that. However, the gaps would have been small enough to canoe or raft across, and rodents can get carried aboard logs shifted by storms etc.

I’m not sure there is a continental shelf drop off between Australia and PNG… :-/

Dropbear said:

dv said:

PWM, at no time in the last forty million years has there been a land bridge connecting Asia and Australia. The waters between the continental shelves are too deep for that. However, the gaps would have been small enough to canoe or raft across, and rodents can get carried aboard logs shifted by storms etc.

I’m not sure there is a continental shelf drop off between Australia and PNG… :-/

I am sure there is NOT a continental shelf dropoff between Australia and PNG.

The gap is further east. There is a deep channel between Celebes and Borneo, between Lombok and Bali.

Im glad we’re both sure then

dv said:

Dropbear said:

dv said:

PWM, at no time in the last forty million years has there been a land bridge connecting Asia and Australia. The waters between the continental shelves are too deep for that. However, the gaps would have been small enough to canoe or raft across, and rodents can get carried aboard logs shifted by storms etc.

I’m not sure there is a continental shelf drop off between Australia and PNG… :-/

I am sure there is NOT a continental shelf dropoff between Australia and PNG.

The gap is further east. There is a deep channel between Celebes and Borneo, between Lombok and Bali.

This map on WP illustrates it well: this shows sea levels during the last glacial maximum around 20000 years ago. There are two island hopping routes from Asia to Australia: one via Bali/Lombok/Timor, the other via Celebes (Sulawesi)/Ceram.

it does seem there’s a bit of a trench along the southern flank of east timor.. who knew?

Here I am having a archaeologasm over Doggerland, when right on our doorstep there are two large areas that were dry and presumably peopled only 20000 years ago, the Sahul and Sunda shelves.

ChrispenEvan said:

and once known can’t be unknown.

Unless you are a minister in the NSW govt.

dv said:

ChrispenEvan said:

and once known can’t be unknown.

Unless you are a minister in the NSW govt.

I am reminded of the known unknowns

Dropbear said:

it does seem there’s a bit of a trench along the southern flank of east timor.. who knew?

Probably that Jacques Cousteau smartarse knew, damn his Froggy whiskers.

dv said:

Dropbear said:

it does seem there’s a bit of a trench along the southern flank of east timor.. who knew?

Probably that Jacques Cousteau smartarse knew, damn his Froggy whiskers.

Dropbear said:

it does seem there’s a bit of a trench along the southern flank of east timor.. who knew?

Oceanic Airlines

diddly-squat said:

Dropbear said:

it does seem there’s a bit of a trench along the southern flank of east timor.. who knew?

Oceanic Airlines

I’m lost.

Dropbear said:

it does seem there’s a bit of a trench along the southern flank of east timor.. who knew?

I did.

Michael V said:

Dropbear said:

it does seem there’s a bit of a trench along the southern flank of east timor.. who knew?

I did.

Me too.

well there ya go!

dumb as a post, again

Dropbear said:

well there ya go!

dumb as a post, again

When I first read the topic I thought it was about pre-cooking introduced animals.

The Rev Dodgson said:

From the answer to everything:

“The islands’ indigenous inhabitants are the Torres Strait Islanders, Melanesian peoples related to the Papuans of adjoining New Guinea. The various Torres Strait Islander communities have a distinct culture and long-standing history with the islands and nearby coastlines. Their maritime-based trade and interactions with the Papuans to the north and the Australian Aboriginal communities have maintained a steady cultural diffusion between the three societal groups, dating back thousands of years at least.”

Which raises the questions:

When did Polynesians settle in New Guinea and the Torres Strait?
Was there a prior indigenous population?
If yes did this population travel by sea, and when did they arrive?
Did they come from Australia, NG, or elsewhere?

The Melanesian people probably arrived in PNG around the time Aborigines arrived in Australia, so they would have been the original inhabitants. Around 50,000 years ago, they would have arrived from islands to the west, the same way as Aboriginals did ie by raft or small boat. During the last Ice Age there was a land bridge from PNG to mainland Australia and even to Tasmania. During the early part and height of the last ice age, Central Australia was probably uninhabitable, so as conditions changed and good rainfall returned to this area, it was probably occupied by people that had crossed via the PNG and Australian land bridge.

I’m not sure when the kiwis were first introduced to Australia but there’s a metric shed load of them here now. Plague proportions

That paper (Molecular relationships between Australian annual wild rice, Oryza meridionalis, and two related perennial forms) was pretty interesting, dv. Thanks for pointing it out.

Australian annual & perennial wild rice

This would have been an interesting talk to attend. “Waters DLE, Nock CJ, Ishikawa R, Rice N and Henry RJ (2012) Chloroplast genome sequence confirms distinctness of Australian and Asian wild rice. Ecology and Evolution 2: 211-217.” Has an Australian distribution map for all four recognised species, as well.

Two new rice species?

dv said:

Rodents would probably be a good angle, but also a tricky one: there were certainly rodents that appeared in Australia at various times over the last five million years, so it appears they are quite able to make the journey under their own steam (floating on logs etc I suppose), so it might be hard to determine which were introduced.

Yes. that’s what I was thinking. The “New endemics”. Perhaps:
Dusky rat, Rattus colletti
Bush rat, Rattus fuscipes
Cape York rat, Rattus leucopus
Swamp rat, Rattus lutreolus
Canefield rat, Rattus sordidus
Pale field rat, Rattus tunneyi
Long-haired rat, Rattus villosissimus

But even the “new endemics” may have arrived 2 million years ago, long before the Australian aborigines.

The Rev Dodgson said:

So what is the evidence for 1400?

Rev, I find references to Dutch documents written in 1451 that mention Macassar traders visiting Marege. It was only later, of course, that the Dutch mapped Northern Australia and made the connection with Marege. However, none of the references are exactly academic.

e.g. this Arnhem Land Progress document: 40 Years: celebrating the past, planning the future

Contact history before 1824 Fort Dundas: Dominated by the Macassans from 1450 to 1906
The Dutch documented the Macassans coming to Australia to trade (known to them as
Marege) in 1451. It is likely they were here before then. This trade continued until 1906
when they were barred entry. It is generally accepted that the Chinese visited around the
same time, as well as Arab traders.

I find heaps of refs like this to 1451, but nothing more specific.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Isn’t it likely that like that people have been visiting and perhaps trading for far longer than that?

Given the proximity of Australia to the Indonesian archipelago, and the fact that the area has been part of maritime trade routes for 2000 years at least (http://maritimeasia.ws/topic/chronology.html), it seems a good bet. As mentioned previously, there is also Y-chromosomal evidence for an influx from Asia coinciding with the introduction of the dingo.

It is interesting that one of the Yolngu song cycles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baijini) mentions people that built stone houses and farmed rice. There isn’t any evidence that the trepangers or traders built houses of stone on Australian soil or farmed rice here, so some people have suggested that these were tales of aboriginals who were taken to visit Sulawesi. To my mind it seems another possibility that the trepangers simply told the aboriginals about their way of life in detail.

Bidens pilosa a native of Temperate and tropical America was collected in 1770 when Cook visited Botany Bay. I would imagine with the burred seed, it arrived on the clothing of a much earlier explorer, which might have been from anywhere as this species has a worldwide distribution.

http://www.iewf.org/weedid/Bidens_pilosa.htm

>>Finally Bidens pilosa is a most interesting record. This
species is currently regarded as an introduced species and is
widespread in disturbed sites in eastern Australia. However
the identification of it in material from Botany Bay in 1770
(the specimen is in material held in the National Herbarium
of NSW) is surely the smoking gun evidence that it is a pre-
European occurrence, and therefore should be regarded as
a native species. Robert Brown appears to have collected
Bidens pilosa at Newcastle in 1804 and does not seem to
have considered it as introduced (Vallance et at. 2001), while
Bentham (1866) could only say This species is very common
as a weed over most warm countries…., and may therefore
have been introduced into Australia by cultivation.
Certainly another case for a bit of DNA work.<<

http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/85067/Cun101113Ben.pdf
Page 123.

“However
the identification of it in material from Botany Bay in 1770
(the specimen is in material held in the National Herbarium
of NSW) is surely the smoking gun evidence that it is a pre-
European occurrence, and therefore should be regarded as
a native species. “

Well, now, that would be bold. As we’ve now established, there are several species that are not native but were present in Australia before 1770.

dv said:

“However
the identification of it in material from Botany Bay in 1770
(the specimen is in material held in the National Herbarium
of NSW) is surely the smoking gun evidence that it is a pre-
European occurrence, and therefore should be regarded as
a native species. “

Well, now, that would be bold. As we’ve now established, there are several species that are not native but were present in Australia before 1770.

Yes, but they now seem to have it now pinned down to temperate and tropical America. There have numerous earlier visitors to Australia, some of which we know about, but there must be others we do not. I recall there is a Mahogany ship somewhere around western Victoria that may have been Portuguese.

PermeateFree said:

dv said:

“However
the identification of it in material from Botany Bay in 1770
(the specimen is in material held in the National Herbarium
of NSW) is surely the smoking gun evidence that it is a pre-
European occurrence, and therefore should be regarded as
a native species. “

Well, now, that would be bold. As we’ve now established, there are several species that are not native but were present in Australia before 1770.

There is claimed to be a mahogany ship in the sand dunes near Warrnambool. Somewhere. I don’t think anyone has really ever found proper evidence.

Yes, but they now seem to have it now pinned down to temperate and tropical America. There have numerous earlier visitors to Australia, some of which we know about, but there must be others we do not. I recall there is a Mahogany ship somewhere around western Victoria that may have been Portuguese.

It’s a bit long to copy and paste….have a read here:

http://www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/heritage/maritime/shipwrecks/shipwreck-stories/mahogany-ship

I think it’s probably just a nice legend.

dv said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

So what is the evidence for 1400?

Rev, I find references to Dutch documents written in 1451 that mention Macassar traders visiting Marege. It was only later, of course, that the Dutch mapped Northern Australia and made the connection with Marege. However, none of the references are exactly academic.

e.g. this Arnhem Land Progress document: 40 Years: celebrating the past, planning the future

Contact history before 1824 Fort Dundas: Dominated by the Macassans from 1450 to 1906
The Dutch documented the Macassans coming to Australia to trade (known to them as
Marege) in 1451. It is likely they were here before then. This trade continued until 1906
when they were barred entry. It is generally accepted that the Chinese visited around the
same time, as well as Arab traders.

I find heaps of refs like this to 1451, but nothing more specific.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Isn’t it likely that like that people have been visiting and perhaps trading for far longer than that?

Given the proximity of Australia to the Indonesian archipelago, and the fact that the area has been part of maritime trade routes for 2000 years at least (http://maritimeasia.ws/topic/chronology.html), it seems a good bet. As mentioned previously, there is also Y-chromosomal evidence for an influx from Asia coinciding with the introduction of the dingo.

Thanks DV, all makes sense.

dv said:

It is interesting that one of the Yolngu song cycles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baijini) mentions people that built stone houses and farmed rice. There isn’t any evidence that the trepangers or traders built houses of stone on Australian soil or farmed rice here, so some people have suggested that these were tales of aboriginals who were taken to visit Sulawesi. To my mind it seems another possibility that the trepangers simply told the aboriginals about their way of life in detail.

Or maybe these stories are from a much earlier time, and all the remains are now under water!

Bidens pilosa : Common names: “Farmers Friends”, “Cobblers Pegs”.

aka “that fkn bastard think that covers your clothes with fkn bastard burrs”

white fella, he introduced species.

That’s true.

Mamase mamasama macassan

Geophysical investigations at the Anura Bay trepang site: a new approach to finding Macassan archaeological sites in Northern Australia

McKinnon, Wesley, Raupp and Moffat

Check out that paper

what do trepang taste like? anyone know?

Similar to twopang only richer.

The mail is that they are pretty bland, but take on the taste of the sauce they are cooked in

That paper Aboriginal-Makassan interactions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in northern Australia and contemporary sea rights claims (Denise Russell) gives the start year of Macassan contact as 1720 but also mentions pre-Macassan visitors (about which I have found out very little…)

A Minimum Age for Early Depiction of South East Asian Praus in Rock Art of Arnhem Land, Northern Territory (Paul SC Tacon et al) says:

“Based on the probability distribution of the calibrated ages, it is 99.7% probable this image dates to before AD 1664 and likely is much older.”