Marking Country - Mapping Deep Histories
The Research Centre for Deep History is a key outcome of Prof Ann McGrath’s Australian Research Council-funded Laureate program 'Rediscovering the Deep Human Past: Global Networks, Future Opportunities' (FL170100121). This research aims to expand the time scale and scope of Australia’s history beyond the framings of British arrivals and colonisation.
The Marking Country website visualises Australia's deep history by presenting a series of interactive digital stories, histories, and maps, contributed by Indigenous communities in collaboration with the Research Centre for Deep History at the Australian National University. These living narratives have been recorded on people’s respective Country, where they generously share deep time histories told, sung, danced, performed and marked in the landscape.
The website is a culmination of many years of work, created with a web-developer with contributions from a team of historians who co-curated stories of deep time with Aboriginal communities in in Western Australia, New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Queensland. The Marking Country website is a front-facing output of potentially high impact. We anticipate that this will prove a useful resource about Australia’s deep past for educators and future generations. Led by Indigenous elder Jackie Huggins and former postdoctoral scholar Beth Marsden, the team is collaborating with Ngarrngga; an Indigenous-led interdisciplinary project based at the University of Melbourne. The partnership goal is to develop curriculum resources for teaching and learning about deep history, of which Marking Country will form a core component.
The continued existence and maintenance of the Marking Country site is imperative as a support tool for the Deep Time subject which is part of the Australian national curriculum, and as a work of high-quality co-researched output that represents cutting-edge research methods and practices. Above all, it is our obligation to the respective Indigenous communities that have contributed to ensure that this site remains live for their young people and elders to use.