Prior to European settlement, the area was inhabited by the Kaurna people. They called the general area north of the Torrens River "Yatala" retained in an early land division in the area and the cadastral Hundred of Yatala which is the lands administration unit defining real estate boundaries in the southern half of Rosewater and more than a hundred other suburbs north of the Torrens. Further north, the area was known as "Yertabulti" and "Yerta Boldingga", which means 'land of sleep or death' according to John Phillip Gell.