by Parag Ranjan Dutta

Unlike other continents the history, culture and peopling of Australia is quite different. It is the extreme eastern and southernmost continent of the world. The name Australia had come from the Latin ‘Australis’, meaning southern. Interestingly before 1900 there was no country called Australia. Only six colonies of New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, existed at that time.

In the distant geological past the positioning of the continents was not like as it looks today. In the Palaeozoic era (544 to 245 million years ago) there was a supercontinent called Pangaea, which was surrounded by a primeval sea, called Panthalassa. A greater part of the remains of which is the present day Pacific Ocean. The word Pangaea came from ancient Greek pangaia’, meaning one world. During the early stages of world’s geological history Pangaea divided into two large land blocks, Laurasia to the north and Gondwanaland to the south. These two blocks were separated by narrow elongated sea, called the Tethys, the remains of which is the present day Mediterranean Sea. The concept of Pangaea was first presented in the International Geographical Congress in 1912 by the German meteorologist and botanist Alfred Wegener. The supercontinent started breaking up in the Mesozoic era, when the continents undertook long journeys from their actual positions. According to Wegener the Gondwanaland started breaking up from Antarctica. The continents undertook long journeys from their actual positions. The northbound journey of the southern continents from where the south pole is located today was poetically described by Wegener as ‘polflutch’ or flight from the pole. A part of this northbound block broke away and started drifting towards the east from the parent body and formed what is known as Australia today.
Once known as New South Wales, Australia was originally a penal colony of the British for the convicts. That Australia was once ruled by the Queen of England could be seen in naming of the two erstwhile colonies, Queensland and Victoria. Initially England used to transport their convicts to America. But by the end of the American War of Independence the Americans refused to accept more convicts. That necessitated England to find a new location to send their convicts. Possibly they found a better location in far off Australia. In October 1786, Captain Arthur Philip, in charge of the ship H.M.S Sirius was told by the Queen to establish an agricultural work camp for the convicts. He had no idea of this mysterious land called New South Wales. Philip was the Governor designate appointed by King George III. He had tough time to assemble the ships for eight month long sea voyage. Other than the convicts he had other ideas to include in the group the people with experience of farming, building and crafts, but was categorically rejected. Of the 772 (of them about 200 were women) convicts, mostly petty thieves, mainly from the slums of London, 732 survived. Philip, the governor of New South Wales established the first settlement at port Jackson on February the 15TH when he landed at Botany Bay in 1788. Prisoners mainly came from England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. On May 1787 a fleet of 13 ships left Portsmouth New South Wales to the penal colony that became the first European settlement for the convicts. Before leaving England Captain Philip said ‘in a new colony there will be no slavery and hence no slaves.’ Initially England used to transport their convicts to America. But at the end of the American War of Independence, Americans refused to accept more convicts. Possibly they found a better location in far off Australia. That necessitated England to find a new location to transport their convicts. Eventually colonies were set up in Tasmania, Queensland and Western Australia. Over the years more than 160,000 convicts were shipped to Australia. A sizable population, including some prominent citizens of Australia today are the direct descendants of these convicts.

Australia Day is observed on 26th January, which marks the landing of the first fleet by Arthur Philip at Sydney Cove in New South Wales. January 26 is often referred to as Survival Day for the gross historical injustice against First Nations people, or the aboriginals. Invasion of their homeland by the European settlers infuriated the aboriginals and resisted the invasion which resulted in bloodbath and large scale massacres known as frontier war.

Australia is not only unique in its isolation and geological history from the rest of the world, it has some endemic animals which have no structural parallels found nowhere in the world. Australia became the home of some of the unique mammalian fauna including marsupials like kangaroo, koala, wombat, echidna and an egg laying mammal, Duck billed Platypus. In the absence of natural predators and large carnivores a number of endemic flightless birds like emu and cassowary evolved and flourished in Australia. Was this faunal diversity the creation the God? In order to understand the presence of these exotic animals we must delve a little deeper into the land formations of East Indies and the neighbouring regions.

Philip Lutley Sclater, a British ornithologist, was the first person to develop the concept of zoogeography and divided the world into six realms on the basis of the bird fauna. But Alfred Wallace, a friend of Charles Darwin was not much convinced with his division and later on included mammals and reptiles as a basis for Zoogeographical realms. Wallace was a naturalist, who independently proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. During his extensive travel through Malay and Indonesian Archipelago, forests of Borneo and New Guinea. Wallace found that this region is a storehouse of varied fauna. He found striking differences of faunal life between the two small Indonesian islands of Bali and Lombok, separated by a narrow stretch of water. Later on an imaginary line was drawn between these two islands which later on came to be known as Wallace’s Line. Wallace’s travel through the Indonesian Islands helped him to propose a well defined Zoogeographical region. The Oriental Region to the west of Wallace’s line have a large number of carnivores while the Australian Zoogeographical Region have no large carnivorous animal. Thanks to a large scale subsidence of the Indonesian Archipelago in the distant geological past. As a result the continuity of the landmass was broken and land bridges ceased to exist and hence no crossing- over of the carnivorous animals was possible to far off Australia.

The author was the former Head Department of Geography, St. Edmund’s College