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The continent of Australia has been inhabited by Aboriginal people for many thousands of years. Most historians believe that no Europeans visited Australia until 1606. Recently, however, some historians have questioned that belief, suggesting that sailors from the European country of Portugal in fact reached Australia as early as the 1520s. They cite several pieces of evidence.

First, a series of European maps produced around 1550 depicts a large landmass to the southeast of Asia where we now know Australia to be. These maps, made by professional mapmakers, showed rivers and coasts labeled with Portuguese place names and were sold to wealthy and royal patrons. Some historians consider this reliable evidence that the Portuguese visited Australia in the early 1500s.

Second, there is evidence that Europeans had knowledge of Australian animals before 1606. One illustrated page from a European book published in 1593 features a picture of a marsupial. Marsupials are mammals that are typical of Australia (kangaroos are marsupials, for example). Female marsupials have pouches in which young animals peeking out of their mother’s pouch. This strongly suggests that some Europeans had been to Australia before the book’s publication.

Last, some artifacts found in Australia suggest that Europeans were present there in the 1500s. Archaeologists working in Northern Australia discovered a set of European-made metal keys while excavating a site. A common method of dating objects found in the ground is to analyze the soil in which the objects are buried. In this case, the soil where the keys were located is thought to date to the 1500s. This suggests that the keys were dropped at the site at some point in the 1500s.

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