NO FIXED ADDRESS
flew south and dropped the seed, which resulted
in the verdant extravaganza we now have. Or,
the palms were brought to this gorge sometime
in the distant past by Aboriginal Australians.
That seems to be the most likely scenario, but it
raises the question, why only to these three very
separate places?
Over in the Kimberley another tree that was
once thought of as a survivor from the ancient
epoch of Gondwana is the boab. These great,
twisted and contorted trees are so distinctive
they are hard to miss and attract many admirers
- both locals and visitors. All told, there are eight
species of boabs, or baobabs, in the world: six
in Madagascar, one in wider Africa and one in
Australia. The Australian species is most similar
to the African version.
The close genetic connection between the
Australian and African boabs means that there
is no chance they have been separated for more
than a hundred thousand years or so. Now the
question is, how did our Aussie boabs arrive
here?
While some researchers have looked at a
transoceanic voyage of dispersal, that has now
been almost universally rejected for a number of
reasons, including the fact that our thin-shelled
boab nuts couldn't stand such a long soaking
in sea water. That has raised the possibility that
the dispersal of the boab out of Africa occurred
with one of the last human migrations out of that
continent, which occurred between 60 and 70
thousand years ago.
Now it becomes a bit more controversial!
The distribution of boabs in northern Australia
seems to relate closely to the distribution of the
ancient rock art known as Bradshaw or Gwion
Gwion art. While there is a lot of discussion about
Bradshaw art it's almost universally agreed that
it is much older than the Wandjina rock art that
dominates much of the Kimberley.
When the late Grahame Walsh and others
proposed the theory that Bradshaws were
painted by an earlier lot of immigrants than the
current Aboriginals, Walsh and his supporters
were branded as 'racist'. I'm not sure why, but
I'm guessing there's a lot of vested interests in
that debate.
Still, if people did bring the boab to Australia
about 60,000 years ago, how did they get
here? The current Aboriginal people do not
have the sea-going technology for such a long
journey, but it seems the civilisation that painted
the Bradshaws did. Walsh found, among the
many galleries he discovered and researched, a
number of paintings which look like large boats
with up to 30 people on board.
It seems we have much to learn about where
our palms, boabsandancient peoples first came
from. Whatevertheanswers, it probably wont
please everyone! CTALooking a little Mad Max in a Can-Am ATV. Soon after this shot,
the Moons hit the tracks hard, trying to distract their minds – for
but a fleeting instant – from the burning questions explored hereImpressive Bradshaw art in
the King George River regionVerdant Palm Valley...
but how did they get here?Trying to solve a riddle