Originally posted by pravdaseeker
Chinese used to mine gold in New Zealand.. a fleet was severely damaged by a fire ball ages ago.. set the sails on fire, scorched men on deck.. and killed a bunch of the MOA birds off, their feathers caught on fire.

Yep the Chinese used to mine gold in New Zealand. In fact, some of them have been here nearly as long as the Pakeha. But other than that there is no evidence of Pre-European gold mining in Aotearoa. If you're referring to Gavin Menzies hypothesis, he's just plain wrong.
There is no evidence.

Originally posted by pravdaseekerThe old Maori name for MOA bird means something like bird that disappeared by fire..

Thanks for the laugh. Love your sources.

Deleted for later use

Originally posted by JailTales

Originally posted by DeepThoughtCriminal
I am not of Australia, but I did lived there for a year. And when I was there, I learned something about their Aborigines, that being that they came from Asia. Like, Indonesia. The dogs they had, the dingoes, are closely related to wild dogs found in South East Asia. They even look very similar. And if you look at the evolution of Australia's mammalian life, a wild dog would be very weird thing to only sort of spontaneously occur.

Also what are these Masonic hand gestures you say was exchanged between Captain Cook and the Aborigines? When I was looking at Australia's history I never seen anything like that. And if I live in another country for an amount of time, I do all I can to learn all about them and their historys. So, I'm not saying, what my knowledge is complete and it probably worse than an Australian, but I did spent a little time learning this and I saw nothing about Masonic hand gestures at the arrival of Cook.

Also, there is no remains of civilisation. Aborigines were nomadic, and if alien visitors left things like Egyptian pyramids for the Egyptians, why they don't do the same for Australian Aborigines?

So I guess what I ask is, where do you get this information from? Please not, a dodgy website. I suppose that I am academic, and I require verifying sources of information, ones to convince. So don't take me in the wrong way - I seem to offend a lot of Westerners by accident. (I just don't know how to be not direct I guess.)

Is that true? I thought the aboriginals and melanesians down there came from Europe, isn't that a fact? I was sure i read somewhere that aboriginals have substantial amounts of denisovan genes, which shows they came directly from the mountains in eastern europe or interbred at least with people who did

No that is not correct, the denisovans originated in south east Asia, Thailand,Vietnam,Laos, Cambodia southern China. It is likely that the denisova cave represents the northwestern extent of thier range.
The presence of a denisovan genetic contribution in the "negrito" and melanesian populations, speaks to the
arrival of the first peoples to to move into se Asia from the Indian ocean area.
And the presence of dogs with both the late native Australians and the polynesians, shows that there was in fact a migrational backwash, so to speak.
The first people who moved up the east coast of asia left founding populations as they moved north and east.

These groups of people would have settled along the deltas of the rivers, and along the streams that drained Asia and the islands of western pacific. It would have been at this time these people would have domesticated the dog or ran across people who had already settled the area from the interior of the continent, following the same rivers and streams to the coast. Some of these people subsequently struck out for Australia, and some to the new world.

There has never been any ancient buildings discovered in Australia.
There have been stone artifacts discovered in what 'appear' to be old mining sites dating to some 30,000 years ago but these were mainly to do with coloured pigments which were traded between tribes.
There has been some evidence that there was a Phoenician(?) settlement in the Sydney area a few thousand years ago but lack of funds and noncooperation from the tribal elders (they will not have anything to do with evidence which could suggest that another race settled here before them in case they could lay claim to what is currently recognized as Aboriginal sacred land) has seen this disappear down the gurgler.

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, I haven't read the whole thread yet.
Just wanted to weigh in on the Masonic hand gestures. The bush tucker man (Les Hiddins) talks about stoies of a tribe that responded to Masonic hand gestures in the early settlement days, (seoson 3 I think, I'll get back with the specifics). If anyone has first hand knowledge it'd be that codger.

Originally posted by seudonymous
Sorry if this has already been mentioned, I haven't read the whole thread yet.
Just wanted to weigh in on the Masonic hand gestures. The bush tucker man (Les Hiddins) talks about stoies of a tribe that responded to Masonic hand gestures in the early settlement days, (seoson 3 I think, I'll get back with the specifics). If anyone has first hand knowledge it'd be that codger.

I think I did mention that in my original post. But otherwise yes I have heard of masonic hand gestures particularly in north western Australia.

I don't have much to add to the subject apart from what I already did, and most of you seem to have done a damn sight more reading that I have.

But seeing as the talk about human movement has gone global, would any of our Australasian brothers care to shed some light on the Fijian belief that they came directly from Nigeria, I believe it is? I've been told by several Fijians that they have an oral history which claims they came to the islands directly from Africa, and I think the country specifically was Nigeria, but I can't remember for certain.

This would contradict everything we're taught, and seems to contradict the facts. But I'm curious of why they believe that?

Originally posted by punkinworks10

Originally posted by JailTales

Originally posted by DeepThoughtCriminal
I am not of Australia, but I did lived there for a year. And when I was there, I learned something about their Aborigines, that being that they came from Asia. Like, Indonesia. The dogs they had, the dingoes, are closely related to wild dogs found in South East Asia. They even look very similar. And if you look at the evolution of Australia's mammalian life, a wild dog would be very weird thing to only sort of spontaneously occur.

Also what are these Masonic hand gestures you say was exchanged between Captain Cook and the Aborigines? When I was looking at Australia's history I never seen anything like that. And if I live in another country for an amount of time, I do all I can to learn all about them and their historys. So, I'm not saying, what my knowledge is complete and it probably worse than an Australian, but I did spent a little time learning this and I saw nothing about Masonic hand gestures at the arrival of Cook.

Also, there is no remains of civilisation. Aborigines were nomadic, and if alien visitors left things like Egyptian pyramids for the Egyptians, why they don't do the same for Australian Aborigines?

So I guess what I ask is, where do you get this information from? Please not, a dodgy website. I suppose that I am academic, and I require verifying sources of information, ones to convince. So don't take me in the wrong way - I seem to offend a lot of Westerners by accident. (I just don't know how to be not direct I guess.)

Is that true? I thought the aboriginals and melanesians down there came from Europe, isn't that a fact? I was sure i read somewhere that aboriginals have substantial amounts of denisovan genes, which shows they came directly from the mountains in eastern europe or interbred at least with people who did

No that is not correct, the denisovans originated in south east Asia, Thailand,Vietnam,Laos, Cambodia southern China. It is likely that the denisova cave represents the northwestern extent of thier range.
The presence of a denisovan genetic contribution in the "negrito" and melanesian populations, speaks to the
arrival of the first peoples to to move into se Asia from the Indian ocean area.
And the presence of dogs with both the late native Australians and the polynesians, shows that there was in fact a migrational backwash, so to speak.
The first people who moved up the east coast of asia left founding populations as they moved north and east.

These groups of people would have settled along the deltas of the rivers, and along the streams that drained Asia and the islands of western pacific. It would have been at this time these people would have domesticated the dog or ran across people who had already settled the area from the interior of the continent, following the same rivers and streams to the coast. Some of these people subsequently struck out for Australia, and some to the new world.

Thank you, that's a very insightful post. I didn't know that. Always interesting to read about stuff I have no idea on! I must have confused myself with the remains of a denisovan person being found in the caucus mountains, and not knowing much more than that, other than that denisovan genes are present to up to 6% in melanesian people

So if you don't mind me asking, as you seem to know a damn sight more than me, what's the reason for variation in height in pacific islanders? why are people in somewhere like PNG so short, but people in somewhere like Fiji or Tonga(i realise these are polynesians and not melanesians) can grow so much taller.

Even the PNG rugby team is stocked with midgets where as the other island nations have monsters. The aboriginal players also seem extremely short, except for mixed race aboriginals

It strikes me as really odd that despite proximity and travel between islands some people are so much taller or shorter. Is there a reason for this that i've missed?

I think that the differences is size amongst the various pacific islanders is due to several factors, one being the "pacific islanders" have multiple ethnic roots in some cases.
The polynesians, in many instances are very large people, but not as whole. Some polynesians aren't nearly as big as others, diet and general nutrition play a huge part.
Case in point, I'm of philipino decent, my father who was born here in the states, but grew up in farm labor camps, and was raised on a laborcamp diet, a mix of philipino,Japanese, Chinese, Armenian and Mexican cuisine, that was heavy with greens and fish and rice of coarse but light on protiens.
I was cared for by my philipino aunts while my parents worked when I was very young and was raised on the same sort of diet lots of fish and rice and greens. I am a little bigger than my father, but not much. But my brother who is 16 yrs younger than me was raised on a typical American diet, and is easily 60lbs heavier and 5 inches taller. The same is true for my cousins that were born and raised here as compared to thier brothers and sisters that were born and raised in the islands.
There is also a very food nutritional study that was done about 15 years ago, involving yaqui Indians who's tribe was split ny the Mexican US border. Those that still live in Mexico and maintain a subsistance farming lifestyle are with the historic size range for thier people. Those that live on the US side do not practice subsitance farming but live a fairly modern lifestyle, have the distinction of being the most obese population in the US. Not only are they extremely overweight they are physically much larger than thier relatives in Mexico.