Post by Alethea Kinsela

It all started in April 2013 with a visit to the high school where I used to be an English/History teacher.

I went to spruik La Trobe University’s Young Archaeologists’ Program to the Head of Humanities. While I was there, she mentioned that teachers are in desperate need of a book on Ancient Australia, a unit that focuses on the Indigenous past. In response to this, I started a blog (Ask the Archaeologist) which explains the key terms for Ancient Australia in a way I thought teachers might find helpful.

In July 2013, I presented a 1-hour seminar on Ancient Australia at the HTAV Annual Conference, and the same question was asked: Why wasn’t there a textbook about Ancient Australia yet? Where could teachers access quality and comprehensive resources about this elusive topic?

I began a thorough investigation into currently available resources and soon learned why teachers found the textbooks so unhelpful.

There was virtually nothing available.

Several of the most popular school history textbooks barely even mentioned Ancient Australia.

It was at this point that I decided to address the problem and write a book. The rest, as they say, is history.

Here is my original Pozible pitch video: Ancient Australia Unearthed Pozible pitch