| abstract | - Australia’s documented and researched history continues to produce astonishing details on the Australian culture. From way back in 50,000 BC when the first Aborigines are thought to have immigrated to Australia, until the modern-age economical bloom, Australia has always been a place of exotic habits, exotic wildlife and exotic people. Expressed through customs, habits, folklore, language, traditions or food, the Australian culture is one of the most complex in the world. For example, Aboriginal culture is still kept today with some of the indigenous peoples of Australia, who have specific nomenclature and different habits from colonised Australia. Actually, the whole Australian culture consists of two combined cultures: the one kept alive for thousands of years by the indigenous peoples and the modern culture derived from Europe and, more recently, American media. The modern cultural traditions include a strong inclination for arts, like painting, dancing, singing or writing - A.B. (Banjo) Paterson, Henry Lawson, C.J. Dennis, Dorothea McKellar, Thomas Keneally or Nobel Prize Winner, Patrick White, to name just a few of the most famous Australian writers. Sports are also very important to Australian culture, rugby and Australian Rules football being amongst the national sports. Australian sports also have a time-tested tradition in swimming and surfing. Aboriginal culture includes the belief in the Dreamtime, an ancient time of creation. It also includes the unusual habit of starting controlled 'bushfires', ravaging fires that spread through the bushlands and grasslands of Australia. These fires are used by the aborigines to rejuvenate the land and encourage growth of edible plants. They are also used to purposely reduce the risk of catastrophic naturally occurring bushfires, thus giving them somewhat of a control over nature.
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