A theoretical study on the propagation of linear and nonlinear heavy ion-acoustic (HIA) waves in an unmagnetized, collisionless, strongly coupled plasma system has been carried out. The plasma system is assumed to contain adiabatic positively charged inertial heavy ion fluids, nonextensive distributed electrons, and Maxwellian light ions. The normal mode analysis is used to study the linear behaviour. On the other hand, the well-known reductive perturbation technique is used to derive the nonlinear dynamical equations, namely, Burgers equation and Korteweg-de Vries (K-dV) equation. They are also numerically analyzed in order to investigate the basic features of shock and solitary waves. The adiabatic effects on the HIA shock and solitary waves propagating in such a strongly coupled plasma are taken into account. It has been observed that the roles of the adiabatic positively charged heavy ions, nonextensivity of electrons, and other plasma parameters arised in this investigation have significantly modified the basic features (viz., polarity, amplitude, width, etc.) of the HIA solitary/shock waves. The findings of our results obtained from this theoretical investigation may be useful in understanding the linear as well as nonlinear phenomena associated with the HIA waves both in space and laboratory plasmas.