Sunbury Aboriginal earth ring

[Gary Vines]

There are five earth rings at Sunbury which are among the most significant Aboriginal places in Victoria. One has recently had ploughing done right up to the edge of the raised mound of earth around its perimeter. It is located north of Sunbury in the proposed Canterbury Hills housing development and can be viewed across a small valley from Riddells Road.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/TAjabDS3KDVpcfey8

At a similar ring nearby, David Franken of La Trobe University excavated a small test trench in the 1980s and found Aboriginal artefacts and the remains of stone cairns both inside and several metres outside the ring. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285402460_Earth_Rings_at_Sunbury_Victoria

The damage was initially reported to Aboriginal Victoria and the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Aboriginal Corporation, in August 2020 when only one side of the ring had been ploughed, but because the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Register does not include an extent but only a point location for this site, and a compliance inspection did not reveal any evidence (possibly because it was not carried put untill the grass had grown back), it was determined that "no offences were detected." 

And yet in an area which may never have been ploughed before, Aboriginal artefacts have almost certainly been disturbed.

You can see the extent of ploughing in the recent aerial photo as well as the tracks where the tractor turned inside the ring and gully erosion to the north west.