Though he was born in Melbourne, Pretty and his family moved to Richmond, New South Wales, because his father was in the Royal Australian Air Force and was stationed there.
[1] Studying under Norman Tindale, Pretty undertook several "rescue expeditions" to recover artifacts across Southern Australia.
[3] Because of these efforts, he was invited back to review Papua New Guinea's Museum and Art Gallery and assist in creating reports and inventory of their cave paintings.
[2] 1968 was also the year he began an operation to recover human remains at a surface campsite in Roonka near the River Murray.
Potentially, one of his most important contributions to Australian anthropology was his unusual consultation with the Aboriginal people who lived there.