On Air Highlights

Indigenous Australian traders settled in Indonesia hundreds of years ago

10 February 2012

Listen and download: MP3

Historians have known for a long time that indigenous people of Northern Australia have engaged in trade with Indonesians for hundreds of years.

Evidence of a sea cucumber trade can be found in Australian rock art and in the paintings on the sides of old Indonesian fishing boats.

Dr Marshall Clark from the Australian National University has organised  a symposium to explore these links. He tells Phil Kafcaloudes that what many people don’t know is that some Australian aborigines settled in Indonesia and their descendants still remain.

Presenter: Phil Kafcaloudes

Speaker: Dr Marshall Clark, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences