Kangaroo sketch could rewrite Aussie history

A drawing of a kangaroo on a 16th-century Portuguese manuscript could change the world's understanding of Australia's history.

The manuscript, which is thought to date from between 1580 and 1620, appears to show a small kangaroo within the illuminated capitals of its text.

If the image is of a kangaroo, the implication is that Portuguese explorers discovered Australia before the first recorded European landing by Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606.

The document, which contains text or music for a liturgical procession, was recently acquired by the Les Enluminures Gallery, in New York, which has valued it at about R164 000.

It was in the possession of a rare book dealer in Portugal.

Laura Light, a researcher at the gallery, told Australia's The Age newspaper that "a kangaroo in a manuscript this early is proof that the artist of this manuscript had either been in Australia, or which is even more interesting, that travellers' drawings of the interesting animals found in this new world were already available in Portugal.''

The text also includes images of two half-naked men wearing crowns of leaves that some researchers believe represent aborigines.

Others are not so convinced.

Dr Martin Woods, of the National Library of Australia, told The Age that "it could be another animal in Southeast Asia, like any number of deer, some of which stand up on their hind legs to feed off high branches''.

Other researchers speculate that the manuscript dates from slightly after Janszoon's arrival in Australia, or from a 1526 Portuguese voyage to Papua.