WALK AROUND THE Sydney city block bounded by Kent, Sussex, Napoleon and Erskine Streets and you are on top of a cultural ground zero. Below your feet is one of the first places where Australia’s Stone Age ended and the Industrial Revolution began.

And ironically, that very spot is one of the most recent places the nation’s prehistoric heritage has been uncovered. Dig deep enough and you will not reach the apocryphal China but rather Australia as it was for tens of thousands of years.