In short:
A burial site and artefacts were discovered during RAAF Base development works at Edinburgh, north of Adelaide.
The Air Force worked with the local Kaurna people to establish a Keeping Place at the site, which includes an Indigenous war memorial.
What’s next?
The Keeping Place is designed to be a meeting location for defence and broader First Nations communities.
A “Keeping Place” has been unveiled at RAAF Base Edinburgh on the Adelaide Plains after an Indigenous burial ground was discovered on the site.
The RAAF found the burial site during base development works, also unearthing more than 100 documented artefacts, such as cutting tools, stone tools, weapons and other items of cultural significance.
“These discoveries identified the need of a Keeping Place to not only ensure all items of cultural significance were documented and kept safe, but a space which RAAF Edinburgh could utilise to enhance cultural understanding for all members working on Kaurna land,” a spokesperson said.
“Defence has worked closely with the Kaurna in this process.”
The Keeping Place includes an Indigenous war memorial and ceremonial spaces for both men and women, along with a welcome area, education space, yarning circle and scarred tree.
Kaurna elder Uncle Jeffrey Newchurch attended Thursday’s dedication ceremony, earlier telling ABC Radio Adelaide it had been a “long, long journey”.
“Finally, after all these years, we’re getting a place of belonging,” he said.
“They’ve memorised that as a Keeping Place, not only for our old people who have died in the burial ground there, but it’s allowed RAAF personnel and ADF personnel to take that time reflecting on the people that have passed away in wars serving our country.
“Even though we [Indigenous Australians] included ourselves in wars, and we had every opportunity to represent our country, when our diggers men and women came back, they were excluded.
“It’s honouring those men and women who served the country.”
The RAAF said the Keeping Place was designed to be a meeting location for defence and broader First Nations communities, designed for ceremony, education, kinship and heritage.
“For thousand of years before European settlement, the Kaurna lived on the Adelaide Plains in territory ranging from Crystal Brook in the north to Cape Jervis in the south and to the Mount Lofty Ranges in the east,” a RAAF spokesperson said.
“The area around Edinburgh is home to Kaurna occupational and sacred sites.”
Sites of significance across Adelaide
As part of NAIDOC week, which ends on Sunday, Mr Newchurch was among Kaurna elders who spoke to ABC Radio Adelaide about the importance of other locations in the Greater Adelaide Area.
Among them is Pinky Flat, north of Torrens Lake adjacent Adelaide Oval, which is known traditionally as Piltawodli, meaning home of the brushtail possum — an endemic species readily seen across the city’s parklands.
“Pinky Flat was created when the settlement, the town of Adelaide was developed, and reverends [Christian] Teichelmann and [Clamor] Schürmann found a place of belonging for our Aboriginal people,” Mr Newchurch said.
The German linguist missionaries recorded the Kaurna language and used it to teach Kaurna children at the site from 1838 to 1845.
“There was a school for our people and a place to look after us, seeing that they couldn’t accommodate us anywhere else,” Mr Newchurch said.
Uncle Mickey O’Brien spoke about the land around Port Adelaide, or Yartapuulti, which in Kaurna language means the place of sleep.
“It is talking about our people who have been laid to rest in burial grounds, but it also talks about the migration of the birds as they come through this landscape,” he said.
“Our people noticed that the fish in the river would be paralysed by certain conditions of the river and the mangroves that leaked toxins into the water … so that’s why it got its name.”
He said the Lefevre Peninsula, on the west side of the Port River, is known as Mudlunga, or the nose.
“Language is really important because it gives us that understanding of the First Nations people, the value they saw in culture, and in naming places,” he said.
“They didn’t really name the place; they came to know the place.
“And when you come to know a place, the place becomes a part of you, and therefore you become a part of it, and therefore you understand.”
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