The Sunbury Earth Rings (Bora Rings) are prehistoric Aboriginal sites located on the hills to the west of
Jacksons Creek near
Sunbury, Victoria
Sunbury () is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Hume local government area. Sunbury recorded a population of 38,851 at the .
Statistically, Sunbury is ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
.
Description and identification
Sometimes referred to as
Bora rings, they were formed by scraping off grass and topsoil, and piling it in a circular ridge around the outside. They measure between 10 – 25 m diameter. Three of the rings are in close proximity and two others several kilometres away. All are on gently sloping sites. They are somewhat different from the Bora Rings found in New South Wales and southeast Queensland, which tend to be located in hidden, flat sites, and in connected pairs. The Sunbury Earth Rings first came to public attention, and first were investigated and described in the early 1970s, when archaeologist Dr.
David Frankel
David Frankel (born April 2, 1959) is an American filmmaker. Most known as the director of 2006 film, '' The Devil Wears Prada'', he is an executive producer and the director of the first and fourth episodes of the Netflix miniseries ''Inventing ...
undertook a test excavation on one of the rings to determine their origin. Excavations revealed the remains of two small stone
cairns
Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...
, one in the centre and one on the edge of the circle, and a number of sharp stone plades or knives, which may have been used in ritual
scarification
Scarification involves scratching, etching, burning/branding, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification or body art. The body modification can take roughly 6–12 months to heal. In the p ...
or circumcision ceremonies.
Interpretation
The rings have been interpreted as Aboriginal ceremonial sites, although there are no historical or ethnographic accounts of them being used as such. Members of the Wurundjeri Tribe Council have suggested the rings may be more than 1000 years old, based on the results of archaeological investigations, and that the group of three may have related to separate male and female ceremonies and initiation rituals. However, elder Auntie Annette Xibberas acknowledged that the Aboriginal people of the Melbourne area, "''.''..lost a lot of our knowledge with European colonisation, we only found out about these (rings) about 30 years ago".
Management and conservation
Some of the Rings have been put under the management of the
, and have also been included on the Register of the National Estate.
There are ongoing pressures on the sites from development. As a result of housing development along Reservoir Road, one ring in Fullwood Drive is now encircled by the back fences of adjoining houses, while another is subject to residential subdivision plans which will also see it surrounded by roads. A past proposal even considered incorporating one of the rings in the middle of a traffic round-about. The Canterbury Hills housing estate has submitted plans for residential development around the Riddells Road ring. In October 2009, the Sunbury Maribyrnong Valley Green Wedge Defenders made a Submission to the Parliamentary, Legislative Council regarding their inquiry into the impact of the state government’s decision to change the Urban Growth Boundary, citing the Aboriginal ring as a significant element of the threatened Bundanoon woodlands and grasslands, which was being encroached upon by housing.
Views of the rings c2004
File:HopbushAveEarthRing.jpg, Hopbush Avenue Ring
File:CorreaWayEarthRing.jpg, Correa Way Ring
File:WirildaCourtEarthRing.jpg, Wirilda Court Ring
File:ReservoirRoadEarthRing.jpg, Reservoir Road ring
File:RiddellsRoadEarthRingSign.jpg, Riddells Road Ring (on far left) with sign indicating future residential development
Geographical location
* Riddells Road Ring
* Hopbush Ave
* Correa Way
* Wirilda Court
* Fullwood Drive Ring
See also
*
Wurundjeri
The Wurundjeri people are an Australian Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the Traditional Owners of the Birrarung (Yarra River) Valley, covering much of the present location of Narrm (Melbourn ...
References
{{Indigenous Australians
Archaeological sites in Victoria (Australia)
Paleoanthropological sites
Australian Aboriginal cultural history
Sunbury, Victoria