Deep History

What is deep history? How do histories make sovereignty on Country? What is history’s future?For Aboriginal people, the past is the present. Competing histories form and transform the lands, peoples and nations of Oceania, from the Pacific Islands, New Guinea and Aotearoa/New Zealand to Australia. In nations impacted by colonialism, such questions are particularly pertinent. First Nations peoples have long made history, living on their Country far longer than the colonial invaders.In Deep History: Country and Sovereignty, edited by Ann McGrath and Jackie Huggins, leading historians and thinkers explore Indigenous histories of caring for places and people over millennia. With contributions from Brenda L. Croft, Anna Clark, Lynette Russell and many more, Deep History considers how stories of the past and the future are inscribed on land, waterways and skies. Walking on Country, gardening and agriculture and rock art are historical practices that continue to play an important role in asserting sovereign rights.While colonial powers crafted historical narratives of entitlement, First Nations people continue to perform deep histories of sovereignty. Deep History offers readers an invitation to walk the Country, to see how it reveals the most crucial of all histories for the planet.

For the past seven years, Ann McGrath AM, who is the WK Hancock Chair at the Australian National University, has led a Laureate Program which, along with Indigenous knowledge holders, collaboratively explored the meanings of deep history. She has published various prize-winning books and held prestigious international fellowships, including at Princeton and the Rockefeller Centre, Bellagio. Jackie Huggins is a Bidjara Elder of the Carnarvon Gorge area Central Queensland, and the recipient of knowledge passed on by her last surviving cultural knowledge holder Uncle Frederick Conway from Rockhampton. She has worked in Aboriginal affairs for over four decades in community, government and non government in areas of reconciliation, social justice and womens issues. An historian and author she is currently Professor, Director of Indigenous Research, School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Herston campus.