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The AboriginalArt.com.au website proclaims defiantly: "They say we have been here for 40 000 years, but it is much longer - However, a more pragmatic, western view is that Australia's original inhabitants -- the Aborigines -- migrated to the Land Downunder in three major waves from Asia, starting some 40,000-60,000 years ago. The Aboriginal culture is the oldest in the world, and Aborigines have lived in Australia so long they have been able to watch whole global weather cycles come and go. For example, 30,000 years ago the country was mainly a pleasant place in which to live - a place of greenery where giant animals roamed, kangaroos three meters high and marspial lions, the lakes were full, and the mountains were covered with snow. This idyllic paradise was frozen over by a great Ice Age around 20,000BC, which lasted 5000 years. Australia became a severely inhospitable land in which to live -- the average temperature dropped to 10 degrees lower than the present levels, while rainfall was reduced to half its current level. Cold dry winds scoured the continent and made life very difficult.
Temperatures started rising 14,000 years ago and by 10,000 years ago the country was warmer and wetter than now, sparking a widespread surge in plant growth and recolonisation, and leading to optimum conditions for hunters and gathers. This was the Aboriginal Golden Age. By 10 000 years ago the vegetation patterns reached approximately their present condition. Through all this time sea levels were also fluctuating. At their lowest point sea levels were more than 100 metres below their present level and Australia formed one giant landmass from the bottom of Tasmania through to New Guinea.
Eureka StockadeI believe this was Australia's second crisis war, coming about 70 years after white settlement. I mentioned before that experts believe there were three great Aboriginal influxes, bringing immigrants from Asia. The fourth great migration began in 1788, and carried millions of colonists from Europe, principally the United Kingdom and Ireland, but more recently from southern Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Somehow the peoples of the four influxes have managed to mix and create a new race of humanity n the next article, I will discuss what exactly makes up the Australian personality.
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