Australia is described as the lucky country.
A simple internet search will tell you it is celebrated by those near and far for its beautiful scenery, its beaches, animals, laid-back culture, climate and celebrities like Kylie and the Hemsworths.
But the deep and long history of its First Peoples rarely makes the cut.
Is it a missed opportunity?
Australia is home to the oldest continuous cultures in the world. That’s a special thing and surely grounds to be highlighted in the same vein.
The epic ancient story you were never told about Australia
Here at ABC News Story Lab, we’ve listened deeply to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia to learn more about this place’s long history.
Its deep history.
We’ve called it Deep Time, and we’ve flipped the script to put Indigenous Australians back at the centre of their own stories instead of being cited as a footnote or reference.
Our consultation with communities was driven by values we saw as non-negotiable and kept us accountable. Among those values were building relationships with community, celebrating the true deep history of our country and respecting the knowledge that had been shared with us.
What is the ABC’s Deep Time project?
Australia’s First Peoples have lived on this continent for 65,000 years. But have you ever thought about what that actually means?
How people lived alongside enormous, now-extinct animals, migrated across the land and survived an ice age.
Deep Time is a collection of about 150 cultural stories that bring this ancient history to life.
Find stories near youJump into topics of interestStep through a timeline to the very beginning
Explore Deep Time for yourself and share it with others today.
Building relationships through deep listening
Deep Time isn’t about chasing a sound bite.
It’s about connection, learning, deep listening and at times acknowledging, navigating and understanding that Indigenous communities and the media haven’t always had the best relationship — even with the ABC.
At times, the ABC, along with other media, has been responsible for negative depictions and racist stereotyping of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Those media depictions are something Birri and Guugu Yimidhirr woman and SBS’s director of First Nations, Tanya Denning-Orman, has tried to counter through her work at NITV and SBS.
Tanya Denning-Orman says negative media stereotypes can have serious consequences for Indigenous people. (Supplied: Claudine Thornton)
At the Indigenous Languages Symposium at the State Library of Queensland earlier this year, Ms Denning-Orman delivered a keynote address speaking to the frustration Indigenous people have with their portrayal in the media.
“There are records of when people living in remote areas had first contact with the media in the early 1900s. Anthropologists and ethnographers took cameras to record Indigenous people, telling the story of us through a colonial lens,” she said.
“Research repeatedly showed that the overwhelmingly negative stereotyping of Indigenous people in the media led to negative public opinion. Negative public opinion led to destructive public policies but, more importantly, it led to negative self-perception by Indigenous people.”
Each dot marks 250 years — together they reveal Australia’s ancient story
It was essential for Deep Time that we engage with Indigenous groups as safely and respectfully as possible.
The important tradition of passing down knowledge has ensured Indigenous communities’ recollections and stories of law and lore have been retained for thousands of years and can continue to be shared.
However, some communities have parameters about how they choose to share their knowledge, if at all.
To build an authentic relationship, we approached communities about being a part of the Deep Time with an invitation to participate. A choice to say yes or no to sharing their story.
Dozens of knowledge holders said yes, resulting in more than 130 stories from all over the country.
Shannon Bauwens at Gummingurru, an ancient gathering place used for teaching young men. (ABC News: Nathan Morris)
One of those who agreed to be part of Deep Time was Shannon Bauwens from the Bunya Peoples Aboriginal Corporation in Queensland.
“I’m inspired by my deep connection to Country and the responsibility I feel to carry forward the stories of my people,” Mr Bauwens said.
“Sharing this knowledge isn’t just about the past — it’s about honouring our ancestors, strengthening identity, and creating understanding for all who walk on this land.”
Find stories of ancient Australia near you
As we stood on the edge of the Bunya Mountains, he pointed out different parts of Country and described what the old people would have done.
“The story of the Bunya gatherings and our people is a vital part of Australia’s history,” he said.
“By sharing it, we show that Aboriginal culture is living, strong, and central to the story of this nation, not a footnote.
“It brings balance to the narrative and invites others to see Country and history through our eyes.”
Traditional custodian and Bunya Mountains ranger Shannon Bauwens (left) discusses documents in the back of a ute with ABC journalist Solua Middleton. (ABC News: Tim Leslie)
An example of a scar tree. This one is from Gummingurru, about an hour south-west of the Bunya Mountains. (ABC News: Nathan Morris)
Later he took me to an area nearby where the local rangers were getting ready to inspect a tree known as a scar tree because of the marks they bear from bark being removed. Shannon explains to me that scar trees had many purposes on his Country, including being a home to native bees, a signpost to a significant site, or being used as a vessel to hold the remains of an ancestor.
Later that day, I spy more scar trees as I leave his Country and make my journey home.
I realise that many things are hidden in plain sight and knowledge is all around us if you look and listen closely.
Telling this deep history is a form of truth-telling
We know that the impact of colonisation disrupted First Nations peoples’ lives and, in instances, their right to access and maintain knowledge and practices contributing to identity, like language, law, culture and tradition.
To understand, or even know, what was there before helps one understand what was lost.
That’s one element of truth-telling.
“Truth-telling enables a fuller and more accurate account of Australia’s history to recognise the strength and contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” according to Reconciliation Australia’s Truth-telling Pathways fact sheet.
This is one small part of the bigger picture around truth-telling, but it speaks strongly to the way we have approached the Deep Time project.
This means opening the door to learning and listening, and leaning into the history.
Denise Lovett says Indigenous people’s voices have too often been ignored in the telling of their history. (ABC News: Margaret Burin)
Gunditjmara woman Denise Lovett contributed several stories to the project. She believes understanding this history is an important part of our nation’s truth-telling.
“There’s more to the story — it didn’t start in 1788,” she said.
“It started a long, long time ago, right back to the Dreaming, and that story has to be told, and it has to be told by us, in the way that we want to tell it.
“It doesn’t have to meet scientific expectations. It’s our story. And if science can match up with it, that’s good. But if it doesn’t, it doesn’t make it any less true.
“We don’t need the scientists to validate us. We know who we are. And there’s enough left in the landscape to say, ‘Wow, yes, we’re still here.'”
Bidjara/Birri Gubba Juru Elder Jackie Huggins is an author, historian, reconciliation and human rights advocate. She’s also the ABC’s Elder in residence.
Her experience as a senior adviser and honorary professor at the Australian National University Deep History Centre, and now in the role of director of Indigenous Research at the University of Queensland, gives her an understanding of how our deep history and truth-telling intersect.
“In order for us to become fully reconciled and fully human, most of all in this country, means that you have to know the true history of what has happened here,” she said.
That includes both the pre- and post-colonial history.
“Really understanding each other as human beings, as people, but more so for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people — it’s been a long time coming in terms of wanting to be recognised,” she said.
Ms Huggins recently published Deep History and Sovereignty with Ann McGrath, an anthology that examines the relationship between deep history and the present.
She says truth-telling is such a vital component of why we have the problems and the issues that we do right across our communities — because people haven’t stopped, listened and taken an interest in Indigenous peoples’ worldview of this country as a nation and its deep and contemporary history.
“Indigenous deep history is experienced by being on Country, a history drawn from environmental knowledge, connection and revelation embraced by place,” Ms Huggins said.
“There is a responsibility to honour deep history — a historical presence that can be felt, especially if you are silent and listen.Â
“If you look carefully and are open to experiencing history, sovereignty and place in a layered sensory and multi-temporal way.Â
“The possibilities of these ensuring historical practices may well enrich and expand the scale of scope and historical thinking.”
Knowledge in the right hands
Archivist Tasha James works to ensure cultural knowledge holders are properly credited for the stories they tell. (Supplied: Tasha James)
Much of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ ancient history and cultural knowledge has gone without acknowledgement of contribution or ownership.
Even within the ABC archival unit’s walls, there is material missing that information.
Tasha James is the ABC Archives Indigenous collection and community access manager, and is responsible for the ABC Archives’s Kin-nect and Two-Ways program, which connects ABC-held material with traditional owners.
Material that includes cultural knowledge, especially that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, is deeply problematic when it lacks prior, free and informed consent, Ms James says.
She says the absence of such consent not only undermines the rights of communities but also blurs the lines of custodianship, and highlights how colonial collection practices often bypassed relationships and responsibilities, leading to archival inheritances that are fraught and contested.
“Just because something is in a national archive or keeping place doesn’t mean it belongs there, or that we have the right to use or share it without going back to community,” she said.
Ms James believes there is a moral obligation for those working in the cultural and memory sectors to actively reassess their role in relation to Indigenous knowledge.
“Through our ABC Archives Kin-nect and Two-Ways program, we are not just opening the archive, we are opening a space for Indigenous sovereignty, voice, and knowledge to shape its future,” she said.Â
“These approaches reframe the archive from a place of holding to a place of healing.
“We’re not just caretakers of audiovisual material, we’re participants in systems that have historically removed voice, story and sovereignty from community. We need to confront that with truth-telling.
“Righting the wrongs starts with deep listening. It’s not about inserting ourselves into cultural narratives, but stepping back to let communities lead.”
However, that is changing and increasingly Indigenous Australians are co-authoring research taking place on their lands.
The inclusion of First Nations knowledge in this history is essential.
Terri Janke says companies cannot just take Indigenous cultural knowledge and use it for their own purposes. (Supplied: Will Horner)
But having the correct attribution to go with it is essential too as their knowledge is their cultural heritage and intellectual property.
Terri Janke is a Wuthathi, Yadhaigana and Meriam woman, a solicitor and director of Terry Janke Company, a law firm specialising in Indigenous cultural and intellectual property (ICIP).
“It’s the cultural heritage of First Nations people, which includes traditional knowledge, cultural expression like your art, story, songs, dances, knowledge of plants and animals, knowledge of Country, sand, sea and sky Country,” she said.
It can also include the documentation of Indigenous people on films and records, languages, songlines, sacred sites, and sacred secret material.
“It is just everything that First Nations people need to practise their culture.”
Dr Janke says ICIP is not fixed to time and it is continuous.
“It’s a living culture to hand on and nurture, so there’s that ongoing nature and it’s collective in that respect,” she said.
“It may start off individual, or there’s an individual component of it, but it’s around that collective history that makes us — that forms part of the identity of First Nations people, and it can be very complex because it includes old things.”
In creating Deep Time, we know anyone can read the stories of those knowledge holders, and while we hope people will interact with that content respectfully, Dr Janke highlights the any organisation dealing with cultural material, including the ABC, needs to share the responsibility in helping to protect it.
“Companies that want to use traditional knowledge shouldn’t be just going to a book in a library or an online archive and getting it. They need to think about the connection to the community because a lot of what’s collected in the past might be unprovenanced, it might be wrong, and it’s not collected to living culture,” she said.
Things like including a notice or protocol remind readers that the ICIP contained within a story belongs with the knowledge holder and/or the community, and that it can’t just be ripped out and popped onto someone’s next commercial venture.
Part of Dr Janke’s work is advocating for companies to respect ICIP through deep engagement, and her book True Tracks dives into the principles around respectful consultation and provides a framework. We used the True Track principles to create our own ICIP protocols for Deep Time.
While Australia does not have a legal framework around ICIP right now, Dr Janke chairs an expert working group alongside other Indigenous people looking at the development of standalone legislation to protect First Nations traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions.
Shannon Bauwens from the Bunya Mountains is proud to have shared deep time stories from his Country. (ABC News: Nathan Morris)
What we’ve learned by doing this project is it’s not about reframing how we celebrate this country, but rather how we better include the voices, perspectives, history and stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the frame to acknowledge and celebrate all the things that make Australia special, unique and beautiful.
Mr Bauwens says: “Projects like Deep Time are about legacy.”
“They ensure that young people, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, can learn from the wisdom of the old people, feel pride in Country and be inspired to walk together with respect and responsibility,” he said.
So, when the opportunity presents, will you engage in authentic experiences, listen deeply and forge new connections to learn this country’s epic history?