Would it have been possible for Australia to be more connected to the Old World and for complex civilizations to spring up in Northern Australia?

[Yonaraja]

Aside from the well-known periodic visits by Buginese trepangers, the controversial Kilwa coin and Western Austronesian traders in the Torres Strait, there doesn’t seem to have been much contact between the Old World and Australia.

Would it have been possible for contact to be more intense that Australia would be more integrated into the Old World? Could semi-Indianized states form in Northern Australia from contact with the Indianized cultures of Island Southeast Asia?

While the place is pretty underpopulated today, the savannah climate there is pretty similar to that of the neighboring islands in East Timor and Indonesia, including Bali and Eastern Java which have been historically home to complex Indianized polities. Much of Mainland Southeast Asia like Thailand and Cambodia have similar climates as well, and parts of Northern Australia around Darwin and Cape York seem to have more than enough rainfall for complex states to form with just the right push from outside trade.

Thoughts?

 

[ramones1986]

There were already been a series of threads that discussed such an idea, such as:

• Austronesians reach Australia (2019)
• Austronesian exchange with Indigenous Australians (2020)
• Counting the Polynesian colonization of Australia is counted as a variation of the same scenario, just like in a series of earlier threads (2013/2015/2019)

In addition, you can consult @Jared on such matter, as he's the reference here in AH.com in relation to the scenarios centered in the Land Down Under.

 

[Yonaraja]

Yes, but Island Southeast Asian (and far more so Polynesian) settlement does not necessarily mean that Australia would remain connected to the Old World, nor would Austronesian settlement be the only way to create native Indianized Australian states and integrate Australia into the wider trade networks of Eurasia and Africa. I wasn’t referring only to Austronesian colonization or transfer of technology (though that would be one way to do it), but what it would take for Australia to be more connected to Eurasia and Africa. It is possible that trade for example could bring ideas of complex state formation to Australia, even without Austronesian settlement, though the Austronesians would be the most likely group to do so.