The Aborigines(澳大利亚土著居民) have lived in Australia for about 40,000 years. They painted pictures inside caves(洞穴), and these are the rock paintings that have given us so much information about Aboriginal life. For example, some of the paintings mat are about 10,000 years old show men with boomerangs(回飞镖). From this we know that the Aborigines started using boomerangs for hunting at that time. Other pictures show kangaroos, so we know that there were kangaroos at that time.
The Aborigines believed that spirits made people, animals and plants, and that these spirits still live on Earth. For Aborigines, no one can own me Earth—the Earth belongs to the spirits.
In 1700, there were many Aboriginal groups with a population of 750,000 all over Australia, and there were probably more than 240 different Aboriginal languages. The groups didn't have a leader. Instead, things were decided by the order men in a group. People from different groups often travelled hundreds of miles to meet each other.
Aboriginal life changed when an English boat arrived in Australia in 1770. Many Aborigines were killed in the wars that they had with the English. More Europeans came, and they started taking land from the Aborigines. The Europeans also brought new illnesses mat killed the Aborigines. Today there are only about 300,000 Aborigines in Australia.
