Dryad
A dryad is a tree nymph or tree spirit in Greek mythology. Drys signifies "oak" in Greek, dryads are the nymphs of oak trees, but the term has come to be used for all tree nymphs in general, they were considered to be shy creatures except around the goddess Artemis, known to be a friend to most nymphs. These were nymphs of the laurel trees; the Maliades, Meliades or Epimelides were nymphs of apple and other fruit trees and the protectors of sheep. The Greek word melas -- from which their name derives -- means both sheep. Hesperides, the guardians of the golden apples were regarded as these type of dryad. Dryads, like all nymphs, were supernaturally long-lived and tied to their homes, but some were a step beyond most nymphs; these were the hamadryads who were an integral part of their trees, such that if the tree died, the hamadryad associated with it died as well. For these reasons and the Greek gods punished any mortals who harmed trees without first propitiating the tree-nymphs; the dryads of ash trees were called the Meliae.
The ash-tree sisters tended the infant Zeus in Rhea's Cretan cave. Gaea gave birth to the Meliae after being made fertile by the blood of castrated Uranus; the Epimeliad were nymphs associated with apple trees, the Caryatids were associated with walnut trees. Some of the individual dryads or hamadryads are: Atlanteia and Phoebe, two of the many wives or concubines of Danaus Chrysopeleia Dryope Erato Eurydice Pitys Tithorea Dryads are mentioned in Milton's Paradise Lost, in the works of Coleridge, in Thackeray's novel The Virginians. Keats addresses the nightingale as "light-winged Dryad of the trees", in his "Ode to a Nightingale". In the poetry of Donald Davidson they illustrate the themes of tradition and the importance of the past to the present; the poet Sylvia Plath uses them to symbolize nature in her poetry in "On the Difficulty of Conjuring up a Dryad", "On the Plethora of Dryads". The story "Dear Dryad" by Oliver Onions features a dryad influencing several romantic couples through history.
Ghillie Dhu, a similar Scottish spirit Kodama, a similar Japanese spirit Green spirit Elf Querquetulanae, Roman nymphs of the oak Salabhanjika, a similar Indian spirit Citations Bibliography Greek Mythology Link: Nymphs. Hans Christian Andersen, "The Dryad", 1868 Andersen, H. C.. 1914 Tim Hoke, "The Dryad", 2002
Network Ten
Network 10 is an Australian commercial television network. One of five national free-to-air networks, 10's owned-and-operated stations can be found in the state capital cities of Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to regional areas of the country; the network is owned by a subsidiary of CBS Studios International. From the introduction of TV in 1956 until 1965 there were only two commercial television networks in Australia, the National Television Network and the Australian Television Network, as well as the public Australian Broadcasting Commission. In the early 1960s, the Australian Government began canvassing the idea of licensing a third commercial television station in each capital city; this decision was seen by some as a way for the government to defuse growing public dissatisfaction with the dominance of imported overseas programming and the paucity of local content. The first of these "third" licences was granted to United Telecasters Sydney was granted on 4 April 1963.
Structurally, the Australian television industry was modelled on the two-tiered system, in place in Australian radio since the late 1930s. One tier consisted of a network of publicly funded television stations run by the ABC, funded by government budget allocation and by fees from television viewer licences; the second tier consisted of the commercial networks and independent stations owned by private operators, whose income came from selling advertising time. The network was launched as ATV-0 in Melbourne opened on 1 August 1964 and was owned by the Ansett transport and media group, which at the time owned one of Australia's two domestic airlines. TEN-10 in Sydney, which opened on 5 April 1965, was owned by United Telecasters Sydney Ltd, which in July that year opened TVQ-0 in Brisbane, Queensland. Opened that month was SAS-10, serving the city of Adelaide in South Australia; the new television network was dubbed the "Independent Television System" or ITS, but in 1970 adopted the title "The 0/10 Network", which reflected the names of the first two stations launched in the group, ATV and TEN.
Melbourne's ATV was the first station of the network to stage colour broadcasts in 1967, the broadcast was that of the Pakenham races, seen by network and RCA executives and invited members of the media and press. This would the first of many test colour telecasts for the station, in tribute to this event, the 0-10 Network adopted the First in Colour slogan in 1974, within months before 1 March 1975 transition to colour broadcasting. For its first five years, the 0/10 Network led a hand-to-mouth existence. By the beginning of the 1970s the network was in a precarious financial position and there were predictions that it would fail. In 1971, the 0/10 Network first aired Young Talent Time, a huge ratings success, ran for 17 years. However, the network's true financial reprise came about due to the controversial adult soap opera serial Number 96, which premiered in March 1972 on the night that "Australian TV lost its virginity"; the series broke new ground for Australian television and captured the imagination of viewers like few programs before or since.
For the next three years it was Australia's top-rating television program and, not its huge popularity attracted advertisers to Ten en masse, with the result that its revenue increased from A$1 million in 1971 to more than A$10 million in 1972. However, the pattern of ratings dominance was set, for most of the next five decades from the mid-1960s there was little deviation from the prevalent rankings, with the Nine Network in first place, the Seven Network second, 0/10 third and ABC fourth; the gradual evolution of Network Ten into its current form has its origins in the ongoing attempts by media mogul Rupert Murdoch to acquire a prized commercial television licence in Australia's largest capital city market, Sydney. This began when Murdoch's News Limited purchased the Wollongong station WIN Television in the early 1960s, around the same time he bought Festival Records. In 1977, frustrated by regulatory blocks that prevented him from expanding into the Sydney market, Murdoch sold WIN and purchased a 46% share in Ten Sydney.
In 1979, Murdoch made an unsuccessful takeover bid for the Melbourne-based The Herald and Weekly Times media group, which owned HSV-7. Although the bid failed, he gained a 50% stake in Ansett, which thus gave him control of channel 0 in Melbourne. In 1979, 0/10 first aired the soap opera Prisoner, a huge ratings success. On 20 January 1980, the 0/10 Network became known as Network Ten to reflect ATV moving from channel 0 to channel 10 – although the Brisbane station continued to broadcast as TVQ-0 until 10 September 1988 when the station changed to TVQ-10. In 1987 Adelaide's Network Ten affiliate and Seven Network affiliate negotiated to exchange affiliation rights and channel frequencies due to ownership problems. On 27 December 1987, the exchange came into effect and ADS-7, owned by the same owners as the main Network Ten stations, became ADS-10 with SAS-10 converting to SAS-7, operated by TVW-7 in Perth; when Murdoch became an American citizen in 1985 so that he could expand his media empire in the United States, Australia's media ownership laws obliged him to dispose of the flagship television stations, which were sold to The Northern Star, an offshoot of the Westfield Group conglomerate controlled by property tycoon Frank Lowy.
However, Westfield was badly hit by the stock market crash of 1987, in 1989 sold Network Ten to a consortium led by Charles Curran and form
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction set in a fictional universe inspired by real world myth and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which became literature and drama. From the twentieth century it has expanded further into various media, including film, graphic novels and video games. Fantasy is distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the absence of scientific or macabre themes though these genres overlap. In popular culture, the fantasy genre is predominantly of the medievalist form. In its broadest sense, fantasy consists of works by many writers, artists and musicians from ancient myths and legends to many recent and popular works. Most fantasy uses other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Magic and magical creatures are common in many of these worlds. An identifying trait of fantasy is the author's reliance on imagination to create narrative elements that do not have to rely on history or nature to be coherent; this differs from realistic fiction in that realistic fiction has to attend to the history and natural laws of reality, where fantasy does not.
An author applies his or her imagination to come up with characters and settings that are impossible in reality. Many fantasy authors use real-world mythology as inspiration. For instance, a narrative that takes place in an imagined town in the northeastern United States could be considered realistic fiction as long as the plot and characters are consistent with the history of a region and the natural characteristics that someone, to the northeastern United States expects. Fantasy has been compared to science fiction and horror because they are the major categories of speculative fiction. Fantasy is distinguished from science fiction by the plausibility of the narrative elements. A science fiction narrative is unlikely, though possible through logical scientific or technological extrapolation, where fantasy narratives do not need to be scientifically possible. Authors have to rely on the readers' suspension of disbelief, an acceptance of the unbelievable or impossible for the sake of enjoyment, in order to write effective fantasies.
Despite both genres' heavy reliance on the supernatural and horror are distinguishable. Horror evokes fear through the protagonists' weaknesses or inability to deal with the antagonists. Elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were a part of literature from its beginning. Fantasy elements occur throughout the ancient Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh; the ancient Babylonian creation epic, the Enûma Eliš, in which the god Marduk slays the goddess Tiamat, contains the theme of a cosmic battle between good and evil, characteristic of the modern fantasy genre. Genres of romantic and fantasy literature existed in ancient Egypt; the Tales of the Court of King Khufu, preserved in the Westcar Papyrus and was written in the middle of the second half of the eighteenth century BC, preserves a mixture of stories with elements of historical fiction and satire. Egyptian funerary texts preserve mythological tales, the most significant of which are the myths of Osiris and his son Horus. Folk tales with fantastic elements intended for adults were a major genre of ancient Greek literature.
The comedies of Aristophanes are filled with fantastic elements his play The Birds, in which an Athenian man builds a city in the clouds with the birds and challenges Zeus's authority. Ovid's Metamorphoses and Apuleius's The Golden Ass are both works that influenced the development of the fantasy genre by taking mythic elements and weaving them into personal accounts. Both works involve complex narratives in which humans beings are transformed into animals or inanimate objects. Platonic teachings and early Christian theology are major influences on the modern fantasy genre. Plato used allegories to convey many of his teachings, early Christian writers interpreted both the Old and New Testaments as employing parables to relay spiritual truths; this ability to find meaning in a story, not true became the foundation that allowed the modern fantasy genre to develop. The most well known fiction from the Islamic world was The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, a compilation of many ancient and medieval folk tales.
Various characters from this epic have become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin and Ali Baba. Hindu mythology was an evolution of the earlier Vedic mythology and had many more fantastical stories and characters in the Indian epics; the Panchatantra, for example, used various animal fables and magical tales to illustrate the central Indian principles of political science. Chinese traditions have been influential in the vein of fantasy known as Chinoiserie, including such writers as Ernest Bramah and Barry Hughart. Beowulf is among the best known of the Nordic tales in the English speaking world, has had deep influence on the fantasy genre. Norse mythology, as found in the Elder Edda and the Younger Edda, includes such figures as Odin and his fellow Aesir, dwarves, elves and giants; these elements have been directly imported into various fantasy works. The separate folklore of Ireland and Scotland has sometimes been us
Camelot
Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and, after the Lancelot-Grail cycle came to be described as the fantastic capital of Arthur's realm and a symbol of the Arthurian world; the stories locate it somewhere in Great Britain and sometimes associate it with real cities, though more its precise location is not revealed. Most scholars regard it as being fictional, its unspecified geography being perfect for chivalric romance writers. Arguments about the location of the "real Camelot" have occurred since the 15th century and continue to rage today in popular works and for tourism purposes; the name's derivation is uncertain. It has numerous different spellings in medieval French Arthurian romances, including Camaalot, Chamalot, Camaaloth, Camahaloth, Kamaalot, Kaamalot, Kameloth, Kamelot, Cameloth and Gamalaot. Arthurian scholar Ernst Brugger suggested that it was a corruption of the site of Arthur's final battle, the Battle of Camlann, in Welsh tradition.
Roger Sherman Loomis believed it was derived from Cavalon, a place name that he suggested was a corruption of Avalon. He further suggested that Cavalon became Arthur's capital due to confusion with Arthur's other traditional court at Carlion. Others have suggested a derivation from the British Iron Age and Romano-British place name Camulodunum, one of the first capitals of Roman Britain and which would have significance in Romano-British culture. Indeed, John Morris, the English historian who specialized in the study of the institutions of the Roman Empire and the history of Sub-Roman Britain, suggested in his book The Age of Arthur that as the descendants of Romanized Britons looked back to a golden age of peace and prosperity under Rome, the name "Camelot" of Arthurian legend may have referred to the capital of Britannia in Roman times, it is unclear, where Chrétien de Troyes would have encountered the name Camulodunum, or why he would render it as Camaalot, though Urban T. Holmes argued in 1929 that Chretien had access to Book 2 of Pliny's Natural History, where it is rendered as Camaloduno.
Given Chrétien's known tendency to create new stories and characters, being the first to mention the hero Lancelot's love affair with Queen Guinevere for example, the name might be invented. Arthur's court at Camelot is mentioned for the first time in Chrétien's poem Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, dating to the 1170s, though it does not appear in all the manuscripts. In the C manuscript, which might in fact contain the proper reading of Chretien's original text, instead of the place name we find the Old French phrase con lui plot, meaning "as he pleased"; the other manuscripts spell the name variously as Chamalot, Camehelot and Camalot. In the tale, the court is mentioned only in passing and is not described: A un jor d'une Acenssion / Fu venuz de vers Carlion / Li rois Artus et tenu ot / Cort molt riche a Camaalot, / Si riche com au jor estut. King Arthur, one Ascension Day, had left Caerleon and held a most magnificent court at Camelot with all the splendour appropriate to the day. Nothing in Chrétien's poem suggests the level of importance Camelot would have in romances.
For Chrétien, Arthur's chief court was in Caerleon in Wales. Chrétien depicts Arthur, like a typical medieval monarch, holding court at a number of cities and castles, it is not until the 13th-century French prose romances, including the Lancelot-Grail and the Post-Vulgate cycles, that Camelot began to supersede Caerleon, then, many descriptive details applied to Camelot derive from Geoffrey's earlier grand depiction of the Welsh town. Most Arthurian romances of this period produced in English or Welsh did not follow this trend. One exception is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which locates Arthur's court at "Camelot"; the romancers' versions of Camelot drew on earlier descriptions of Arthur's fabulous court. From Geoffrey's grand description of Caerleon, Camelot gains its impressive architecture, its many churches and the chivalry and courtesy of its inhabitants. Geoffrey's description in turn drew on an established tradition in Welsh oral tradition of the grandeur of Arthur's court; the tale Culhwch and Olwen, associated with the Mabinogion and written in the 11th century, draws a dramatic picture of Arthur's hall and his many powerful warriors who go from there on great adventures, placing it in Celliwig, an uncertain locale in Cornwall.
The Lancelot-Grail Cycle and the texts it influenced depict the city of Camelot as standing along a river, downstream from Astolat. It is surrounded by plains and forests, its magnificent cathedral, St. Stephen's, is the religious centre for Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. There and Guinevere are married and there are the tombs of many kings and knights. In a mighty castle stands the Round Table.
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. Centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, it is near the longitudinal centre of North America 110 kilometres north of the Canada–United States border; the city is named after the nearby Lake Winnipeg. The region was a trading centre for aboriginal peoples long before the arrival of Europeans. French traders built the first fort on the site in 1738. A settlement was founded by the Selkirk settlers of the Red River Colony in 1812, the nucleus of, incorporated as the City of Winnipeg in 1873; as of 2011, Winnipeg is the seventh most populated municipality in Canada. Being far inland, the local climate is seasonal by Canadian standards with average January lows of around −21 °C and average July highs of 26 °C. Known as the "Gateway to the West", Winnipeg is a railway and transportation hub with a diversified economy; this multicultural city hosts numerous annual festivals, including the Festival du Voyageur, the Winnipeg Folk Festival, the Jazz Winnipeg Festival, the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival, Folklorama.
Winnipeg was the first Canadian host of the Pan American Games. It is home to several professional sports franchises, including the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, the Winnipeg Jets, Manitoba Moose, Valour FC, the Winnipeg Goldeyes. Winnipeg lies at the confluence of the Assiniboine and the Red River of the North, a location now known as "The Forks"; this point was at the crossroads of canoe routes travelled by First Nations before European contact. Winnipeg is named after nearby Lake Winnipeg. Evidence provided by archaeology, rock art and oral history indicates that native peoples used the area in prehistoric times for camping, hunting, tool making, trading and, farther north, for agriculture. Estimates of the date of first settlement in this area range from 11,500 years ago for a site southwest of the present city to 6,000 years ago at The Forks. In 1805, Canadian colonists observed First Nations peoples engaged in farming activity along the Red River; the practice expanded, driven by the demand by traders for provisions.
The rivers provided an extensive transportation network linking northern First Peoples with those to the south along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. The Ojibwe made some of the first maps on birch bark, which helped fur traders navigate the waterways of the area. Sieur de La Vérendrye built the first fur trading post on the site in 1738, called Fort Rouge. French trading continued at this site for several decades before the arrival of the British Hudson's Bay Company after France ceded the territory following its defeat in the Seven Years' War. Many French men who were trappers married First Nations women, they developed as an ethnicity known as the Métis because of sharing a traditional culture. Lord Selkirk was involved with the first permanent settlement, the purchase of land from the Hudson's Bay Company, a survey of river lots in the early 19th century; the North West Company built Fort Gibraltar in 1809, the Hudson's Bay Company built Fort Douglas in 1812, both in the area of present-day Winnipeg.
The two companies competed fiercely over trade. The Métis and Lord Selkirk's settlers fought at the Battle of Seven Oaks in 1816. In 1821, the Hudson's Bay and North West Companies merged. Fort Gibraltar was renamed Fort Garry in 1822 and became the leading post in the region for the Hudson's Bay Company. A flood destroyed the fort in 1826 and it was not rebuilt until 1835. A rebuilt section of the fort, consisting of the front gate and a section of the wall, is near the modern-day corner of Main Street and Broadway Avenue in downtown Winnipeg. In 1869–70, present-day Winnipeg was the site of the Red River Rebellion, a conflict between the local provisional government of Métis, led by Louis Riel, newcomers from eastern Canada. General Garnet Wolseley was sent to put down the uprising; the Manitoba Act of 1870 made Manitoba the fifth province of the three-year-old Canadian Confederation. Treaty 1, which encompassed the city and much of the surrounding area, was signed on 3 August 1871 by representatives of the Crown and local Indigenous groups, comprising the Brokenhead Ojibway, Long Plain, Roseau River Anishinabe, Sandy Bay and Swan Lake communities.
On 8 November 1873, Winnipeg was incorporated with the Selkirk settlement as its nucleus. Métis legislator and interpreter James McKay named the city. Winnipeg's mandate was to govern and provide municipal services to citizens attracted to trade expansion between Upper Fort Garry / Lower Fort Garry and Saint Paul, Minnesota. Winnipeg developed after the coming of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1881; the railway divided the North End, which housed Eastern Europeans, from the richer Anglo-Saxon southern part of the city. It contributed to a demographic shift beginning shortly after Confederation that saw the francophone population decrease from a majority to a small minority group; this shift resulted in Premier Thomas Greenway controversially ending legislative bilingualism and removing funding for French Catholic Schools in 1890. By 1911, Winnipeg was Canada's third-largest city. However, the city faced financial difficulty when the Panama Canal opened in 1914; the canal reduced reliance on Canada's rail system for international trade.
Yani Gellman
Yani Gellman is an American film and television actor, known for playing Paolo Valisari in The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Garrett Reynolds in Pretty Little Liars and Diego Flores in 90210. Gellman was born in Florida, to a Canadian father and an Australian mother, he is of Jewish heritage. He was named after writer Jan Joors, his father was a reporter, the family moved during Gellman's childhood, living in Australia and Texas before settling in Toronto. Gellman speaks Spanish, he has a university degree in political science. Gellman's acting debut was in a 1998 episode of Animorphs. After appearing in several more television productions, he was cast in supporting roles in the 2000 film, Urban Legends: Final Cut and in 2002's Jason X. In both films, his characters became victims of serial killers, he appeared in 2002's The Matthew Shepard Story as Pablo, the love interest of the title character. Gellman became known among teenage audiences after playing the part of Paolo Valisari, an Italian pop singer and the main antagonist of 2003's The Lizzie McGuire Movie.
Most he has been cast in the Canadian series Monster Warriors. He plays Rafe Torres, in the long-running soap opera, The Young and the Restless. In April 2009 it was revealed. Gellman has appeared as a model in numerous print ads, including Omega watches, he made a cameo in Degrassi Goes Hollywood, as well as playing Pete in multiple episodes of "Greek". He has played the role of police officer, Garrett Reynolds in hit TV show Pretty Little Liars, he has starred as Diego in the hit TV show 90210. In 2017, Gellman appeared in the underwater survival thriller film 47 Meters Down, released in theaters on 16 June 2017. Yani Gellman on IMDb "The Young and the Sexless", interview in Out Magazine
Australia
Australia the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area; the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea and East Timor to the north. The population of 25 million is urbanised and concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, its largest city is Sydney; the country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, it is documented. After the European exploration of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, who named it New Holland, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day; the population grew in subsequent decades, by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Being the oldest and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils, Australia has a landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres. A megadiverse country, its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east and mountain ranges in the south-east. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, remains among the lowest in the world. Australia generates its income from various sources including mining-related exports, telecommunications and manufacturing. Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. Australia is a developed country, with the world's 14th-largest economy.
It has a high-income economy, with the world's tenth-highest per capita income. It is a regional power, has the world's 13th-highest military expenditure. Australia has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 26% of the population. Having the third-highest human development index and the eighth-highest ranked democracy globally, the country ranks in quality of life, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights, with all its major cities faring well in global comparative livability surveys. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Islands Forum and the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism; the name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis, a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times. When Europeans first began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as "New Holland", a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts; the name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth". The first time that Australia appears to have been used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst. In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known by that name; the first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office. Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz" and "the Land Down Under". Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", "the Wide Brown Land".
The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country". Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia; these first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continual civilisations on earth. At the time of first European contact, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. Recent archaeological finds suggest. Indigenous Australians have an oral culture with spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime; the Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. The northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited s
