Did the Chinese discover Australia first, way before the Europeans? The answer may soon be known. As CRI's Australia correspondent reports, wood found by a team searching for the famed Mahogany Ship in south-western Victoria has been taken to China for carbon dating to determine its age. In an effort to search for the mysterious Mahogany Ship, a team of amateur archaeologists recently unearthed some 20 lumps of red wood in dunes near the coast of Warrnambool in south-western Victoria. Patrick Connelly, Chairman of the Mahogany Ship Committee, says the wood uncovered about 12 meters beneath a sand dune, is hard and an unusual colour of red. According to timber analysis in Melbourne, they've already discovered that the wood was not native Australian timber, so it must have come from overseas. He says the Chinese have taken a keen interest in identifying the wood and samples have been sent to the country for carbon dating. "We're just waiting for the carbon dating from China because if it's several hundred years old it could be from the Chinese." Connelly says according to British maritime expert and author Gavin Menzies, the Chinese discovered the world early in the 15th century. In his book titled "1421: The Year China Discovered the World", Menzies claims that the fleets led by Zheng He from the Ming Dynasty were both in Australia and New Zealand.

However, many historians have sought to debunk these theories. Connelly says for many years, the fabled Mahogany Ship has been believed to be a Portuguese ship wrecked on shore in Australia. "The unusually made ship was first found in about 1836. It disappeared in the sand about 1880. No one had cared very much about it. In the 20th century people started to wonder what it was and tried to find it. But they just can't find it anywhere." Earlier this year, the Melbourne excavation team based its work on a neglected compass bearing said to have been recorded by a whaling captain in 1836 and a dubious painting made in 1860 with a ship and a sand dune behind it. The team ignored the traditional search area along the shoreline and unearthed the lumps of wood a few kilometers from central Warrnambool.

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It is more than plausible that the Chinese discovered Australia well before the Europeans.
After all, China and Australia are very close to each other.
Actually, when you look at where did the Australian Aborigines come from, the Chinese did technically discover Austrlia some 50,000 years ago .

The Aboriginies weren't the first either. It's been confirmed that there was a tribe that lived in Australia that were wiped out by the Aboriginies thousands of years ago. Aboriginies don't like to hear it so it's widely dismissed.

China discovering Australia doesn't surprise me in the slightest...in fact others have speculated this before given the closeness of the continents.

I wonder what Australia would be like today if they had decided to settle?


Question...what ever happened to that (apparently) 3,000 (or 6,000?) year old ship that was discovered off the coast of Queensland? It was Mesopotamian or Sumerian or something...can't recall.

Maybe Im not sure???

Nightshade

If i remember my world history correctly, weren't the Chinese well advanced in ship building before anyone else, but later destoryed their naval fleet due to the emporer's command?

It does make sense that earlier chinese people discovered australia, because of their location and their very impressive fleet!