Ned Kelly Uncovered (ATOM Study Guide)

Join Tony Robinson on an archaeological dig unearthing details of Ned Kelly's infamous last gun battle in 1880. Ned Kelly Uncovered follows the first ever excavation of the Glenrowan Inn site where the iconic Australian bushranger and his gang holed up for a showdown with police. The dramatic siege – which lasted over 24 hours – ended with Ned Kelly's capture and the death of gang members Joe Byrne, Dan Kelly and Steve Hart. Nearly 130 years later, can a team of archaeologists and historians reveal new insights into Ned Kelly's final moments of freedom?

More than a century after the Kelly Gang rode the ranges of Victoria and NSW, holding up towns and stealing thousands of pounds, opinion remains passionately divided between those who love Kelly as a persecuted champion of the poor and those who dismiss him as a cold-blooded killer and thief.

Will the dig site shed new light on the motivations of a man cast into legend by history? Or have souvenir hunters destroyed any chance historians have of uncovering the truth?

With expert commentary from Kelly experts Ian Jones and Alex McDermott, this one-hour documentary follows a seven-week dig led by archaeologist Adam Ford.

As the archaeologists unearth a host of artefacts including cartridges and bullets, the team conducts tests with fascinating results. Meanwhile, the historians strip back the myth, piecing together the clues to give a detailed new look at an iconic Australian, literally from the ground up.

Ned Kelly Uncovered would be of interest and relevance to secondary students of English, Australian History, Australian Studies, Studies of Society and Environment/Human Society and Its Environment (SOSE/HSIE) and Media as well as for tertiary level subjects such as Archaeology. Some of the learning outcomes teachers and students could address through this documentary include:

• Distinguishing between fact and opinion through an assessment of a range of historical evidence
• Hypothesising about the motives of the Kelly Gang and the police involved in the final shootout at Glenrowan
• Assessing the value of an archaeological dig at a crucial site to establish what happened 130 years ago
• Evaluating the quality of a documentary as a way of representing history.