It's the Engines on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes your host. And in today's episode

where I am super excited to share this podcast with you, we are going to Australia to talk

all about indigenous Australian astronomy. We're going to be talking about several different

constellations. We're going to be looking at stories associated with these constellations.

We're also going to be looking at how indigenous Australians used astronomy to learn more about

the world around them, for instance in regards to seasons and in regards to weather. Now joining

me to talk through all of this and more, I was delighted to get on the podcast Peter

Swanton from the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Pete is an absolute

joy to talk to and I hope you enjoy. Peter, thank you so much for coming on the podcast

today. No worries, thanks for having me, Tristan. You're very welcome indeed. I mean, indigenous

Australian astronomy. This is something which stretches back thousands of years. Yeah, absolutely.

So, you know, people have been looking at the stars like human beings do and it's just a

fascination that we've had and being the longest living culture here on earth, it's something that

has a real depth of knowledge to it and it's absolutely fascinating for me to be able to

to explore that and to even come here and share that with you today. Well, really looking forwards

to you showing that today. I mean, they are the world's first astronomers and Peter, before we start,

I do appreciate we need to do an acknowledgement of country. I mean, first of all, what is this and

then go ahead? Yeah, thanks. Yeah, so an acknowledgement of country is actually deeply engrained within

our tradition and it's closely tied to a welcome to country. And so we can think of that as so

traditionally when someone would go on to another person's country. So now Australia is, you know,

it's one big continent, one country, but that's not the real Australia. So traditional, we had hundreds

of countries on this landmass and if you wanted to visit someone else, well, the traditional

...