In 1708, so the story goes, a great ship called the Concordia was wrecked on the coast of Australia,

with 90 survivors going inland and founding a colony in Central Australia.

In 1834, the Leeds Mercury newspaper published a story about a British army expedition that had come across the survivors,

and an 1851 Dutch magazine told of a British

sea captain recounting a tale of carrying passengers that had met a Dutch colony living in a primitive

manner. Dutch DNA found in modern native people from the area, European-style cave paintings

encountered by early explorers and native women

with Old Testament names encountered by early missionaries all make this story intriguing.

Thirty years after the Leeds Mercury report, there was no trace of any colony.

If they existed at all, they had disappeared entirely from Central Australia.

All we are left with is fragmented and tantalizing pieces of information that may or may not

inform that this story is true. So should we believe it? It is intriguing, perhaps to some

even compelling, but should it be convincing?

The pursuit of truth is very important, and how we assess the evidence and form our conclusions

is a matter of discussion.

Are we being biased?

Are we motivated by the story being true?

Does the evidence sufficiently support the claim?

The great thing about the above

story is that it would rewrite Australian history if it were true, and yet it hasn't convinced

historians. Imagine if those historians hadn't only got those scraps of evidence, but had

been brought up in a culture and society where tradition held that the

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