Aboriginal burial ground on Parry Street - ABC Online

According to Gionni Di Gravio, University of Newcastle archivist, those burials were described as being in 'perfect' condition, wrapped in tea tree bark.

"The workmen brought the bones up and over the next few days continued the excavation to see how many of these Aboriginal burials remained."

"These burials were later taken to The Lockup, no autopsy or investigation was deemed necessary because they were Aboriginal bones."

"The only way to really understand why these burials were here is to have a look at original maps from the 1880s."

"The NAGS map of Newcastle fro 1887 is a beautiful contour map of Newcastle shows that this area formed a dune system."

"On the other side, the sports ground side, was swamp land so for hundreds, if not thousands, of years Aboriginal people walked, camped, lived on this site and it formed this lovely dune system which went all the way back and looped around what is now Steel Street and back towards Honeysuckle Point which is where the Hunter Street KFC is now."

"To explain what happened in 2007 with the June storm and floods, especially in Steel Street, is easy to see in these maps because it was all under water, it was all swamp, so the ancient memory of water goes back to the ancient landscape rather than what we see."

"Eight years later in 1888 another news report appeared about how during the emptying of the septic tanks of a number of gentlemen in Parry Street, workers discovered two shin bones."

"The police sent constables to investigate thinking a murder had occurred and one poor guy had to actually empty the sump but it was quickly said that the bones came from the Aboriginal burial ground across the road. So we know that at least two of the bones were thrown down a septic pit."

"The last known location of the bones was with Constable Rochefort. The story ends there. We don't know of any report having been done even though the Coroner was brought in and the bones removed to The Lockup. "

"It's really important with Aboriginal burials to understand that in our region, this is part of 60,000 years of human habitation, it's the equivalent of uncovering an Egyptian mummy."

"What we have to ask ourselves is how would we accept the treatment of Egyptian mummies by the Egyptians in the same way that we've treated our ancient burials."

"With any new excavations or building works that go on here people really must keep in mind that there could well be more burials as yet undiscovered."

Gionni Di Gravio's blog can be found here.

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