Committee exploring final resting place for unidentified Indigenous remains

The Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation is exploring Canberra as a possible final resting place for unidentified Indigenous remains.

(AAP) Source: AAP

While it's difficult to know the magnitude of Indigenous remains abroad, one expert believed the remains of at least 1,000 individuals currently remained overseas.

While efforts had been made to return remains and place them within their communities of origin, Lyndon Ormond-Parker at the University of Melbourne said the task wasn't always clear cut.

"It's a matter of putting together a larger picture of where these individuals have come from,” he said.

“And a lot of archival research needs to go into finding out where these individuals were taken from in the first place."

Listen: Peggy Giakoumelos speaks with Lyndon Ormond-Parker.

Mr Ormond-Parker was one of three members recently appointed to the six-member Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation by the Australian Government.

One of the tasks of the Committee was to look at what to do with remains that can't be identified.

Currently unidentified remains were being kept in the National Museum in Canberra, a situation Mr Ormond-Parker said was distressing for some Indigenous people.

"Many Aboriginal people have been uncomfortable with the fact that the remains were being kept in the National Museum in Canberra over a long period of time, and would like to see a national resting place established in Canberra within the parliamentary triangle,” he said.

“This was a recommendation of the Advisory Committee."

Mr Ormond-Parker said the committee was also looking at a number of other recommendations made in a report recently released on the issue.

Along with a central resting place in Canberra, resting places in other cities were also being considered.

"Perhaps keeping places in individual states could be established so that the remains are closer to their communities of origin,” he said.

For around 30 years, the Australian Government has been involved in a process of assisting Indigenous people return ancestral remains to their communities or origin.

Museums, universities and Government agencies at all levels have been involved in the process.