Kaurna leaders are calling for an independent assessment of a mass grave at Riverlea in Adelaide’s north

Pressure on the Riverlea housing development north of Adelaide over the discovery of a mass grave of Aboriginal remains will intensify at a rally on Saturday.

Indigenous leaders will strongly call for a second archaeological assessment of a mass grave of ancestral remains discovered at a housing development site north of Adelaide.

At a rally on Saturday, Kaurna traditional owners and supporters will gather at Victoria Square before they head to the Riverlea housing development site, north of Adelaide, for further protesting.

Organiser and Kaurna woman Natasha Wanganeen told the Advertiser that there was a consensus among traditional owners that there needed to be an independent archaeological assessment of the site.

Natasha Wanganeen at Victoria Square. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Emma Brasier.

“We need to get our own archaeologist out there to do their own testing so we can protect what’s out there,” she said.

“A lot of people that I have spoken to believe that it is a massacre site so we are protesting the removal and any further destruction of the site so that we can deal with it as a community.

“The protest is about shedding light on what‘s happening out there now and letting the community in Riverlea know what they’re doing out there is horrible.

“It feels like there is a lot of dodgy stuff going on.”

So far, 29 ancestral remains have been excavated from the ground and stored in a shipping container, angering traditional owners, who are also calling for the remains to be “put back in the ground where they belong”.

The protest is ahead of a meeting between Ms Wanganeen and Premier Peter Malinauskas on Wednesday, after she confronted him about it on the ABC’s Q&A program on October 9.

Natasha Wanganeen clashed with federal Liberal MP James Stevens on Q+A. Picture: ABC

Ms Wanganeen and traditional owners say the way the bodies were buried is not how they do traditional burials, suggesting their deaths could have been a result of a massacre.

In a statement to The Advertiser, Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation said Walker Corporation, who is developing the site, commissioned an archaeological expert to assess the site following the discovery in July, and determined that the grave was not due to a massacre.

“An expert archaeological assessment of the site commissioned by the developer ruled out the assertion that the site was a massacre site, and concluded that the remains were buried in a traditional pre-colonial manner,” the statement read.

“AAR is not aware of any evidence that would suggest that the remains are part of a massacre site.

“AAR remains in regular contact with (the) Kaurna Yerta Aboriginal Corporation, the developer and on-site cultural heritage monitors.”

Archaeological expert Neale Draper, who conducted the initial assessment, has been contacted for comment.

Originally published as Kaurna leaders are calling for an independent assessment of a mass grave at Riverlea in Adelaide’s north