Aboriginal groups have called on AV Jennings to publicly release the findings of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) studies carried out on land the company is developing near a cemetery adjacent to the old Deebing Creek Mission site.

AV Jennings is developing the site next to the cemetery for private owners and agreed to wider site investigations late in 2019 after earlier GPR studies found three, 1-2m trenches with anomalies around the grave site, which Indigenous groups said supported their oral history of massacres at the site.

Before carrying out the work in December, AV Jennings promised to release the findings to the public. This week a company spokesman told the Guardian & Tribune it would release the GPR results as part of the development application’s Cultural Heritage Report after it was signed off by Indigenous group YUP.

“The results of a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) conducted on the Deebing site, to be developed by AV Jennings for two local owners, will be included in a cultural heritage report currently being compiled by the archaeologist advising representatives of the traditional owners,” the spokesman said. 

The report is expected to also include the results of a separate GPR conducted on the Deebing cemetery site which does not form part of the proposed housing development.

Ipswich Aboriginal activist Daniel Thompson said he was part of the crew that conducted the GPR study and saw enough evidence to suggest a mass burial site on what is referred to as the cemetery to halt development.

He called for the findings to be released to the wider public before any decisions were made by YUP or the private landholders on future development plans.

“I’m pretty sure we went over a trench which contained human remains. Nature doesn’t make straight lines like that,” Mr Thompson said.

“We believe there was a massacre that has taken place on the site. We believe it was a massacre of children and they should be given a proper burial.”

Deebing Creek Sovereignty Camp spokeswoman Lekina Thompson also called for the report to be released to the wider public, not just members of YUP.

“The promise happened a long time ago, the GPR happened a long time ago and as far as making it public, if they were really intending to do that they would have made it public as soon as they got the findings,” she said.

“I believe they have found something. From what I have already seen there are trenches. There are anomalies in those trenches.”