Call for investigation into 'lost white tribe'

A historian claims he has found the site of a Dutch settlement about 100 kilometres north of Perth, that pre-dates the First Fleet.

Henry Van Zanden believes the survivors from the Dutch shipwreck Gilt Dragon in 1656 came ashore and started a tribe which may have thrived into the 19th century.

A so-called white tribe was mentioned in a newspaper report in the 1830s but it has often been dismissed as a hoax.

Mr Van Zanden believes it refers to the group of 68 survivors of the Gilt Dragon who disappeared after coming ashore....