Captains of industry: Australia’s ancient seafaring trade rewrites history

via WA Today, 30 January 2022: We hear a lot about prehistoric migration into Australia but not a lot about how indigenous Australians ventured out the opposite way.

Groundbreaking archaeological research has confirmed scientifically what Indigenous peoples already knew, that first Australians were making huge overseas voyages to trade in a vast international network at least three millennia earlier than previously thought.

The common perception is that Australia’s culture evolved like its flora and fauna, in profound isolation across a deep history until Europeans arrived.

The archaeological record now shows as far back as 3000 years ago or more people from mainland Australia were building ocean-going double outrigger canoes up to 20 metres long and loading them up with crew and valuable goods and sailing thousands of kilometres to trade in distant lands.

Source: Captains of industry: Australia’s ancient seafaring trade rewrites history