18 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Australia’s 1,400-year-old Mysterious Earth Rings: Evidence of Millennia of Human Effort, Not Natural Formation

A chain of mysterious earth rings in the Sunbury hills at the fringe of Melbourne, in Australia have been found to be not a natural formation, but an evidence of millennia of human effort.

The Sunbury suburb’s Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country is home to these “earth rings,” which are not naturally occurring. They are actually enormous achievements of human endeavor. They also symbolize the Aboriginal people’s long-standing and continuing ties to their homeland.

A new study integrates the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung knowledge with the first archaeological excavation of one of the rings. This accomplishment adds to our understanding of Australia’s archaeological heritage, which spans more than 65,000 years of ongoing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander habitation.

These amazing earthworks, which are now regarded as artifacts of great cultural significance, were made between 590 and 1,400 years ago by the Aboriginal Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people. They did so by excavating and heaping together earth in a large circle (or circles) measuring up to hundreds of metres in diameter The most recent article in Australian Archaeology showed fresh insights into their meaning and construction.

These earth rings are not isolated phenomena; similar formations have been found globally, including in England and Cambodia. Earth rings are considered sacred ceremonial sites for Aboriginal language groups in eastern Australia. However, as a result of European colonization and land development, many of these rings were destroyed. There used to be hundreds of them in Queensland and New South Wales, but now there are only 100. There have been reports of five earth rings, including the Sunbury rings, in Victoria.

However, the Sunbury rings are uniquely Australian, representing profound connections to the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung’s cultural landscape, or “biik wurrdha,” which encompasses land, water, sky, and ancestral traditions.

Details of refit sets identified in the Sunbury Ring G artifacts. Credit: Caroline Spry et al., Australian Archaeology (2025)
Details of refit sets identified in the Sunbury Ring G artifacts. Credit: Caroline Spry et al., Australian Archaeology (2025)

The Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung conducted a cultural values study of the region encompassing the Sunbury rings during 2021-2022. Also in 2022, the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people performed an archaeological dig at Sunbury Ring G, a place of cultural and ceremonial significance.

Archaeologist David Frankel previously excavated this site in 1979, as well as the area where the Wurundjeri Wilam and Marin Bulluk clans were divided by Jacksons Creek from one another. This new research involved the examination of 166 stone artifacts. In the process of reconstructing the artifacts, the deposits were dated.  All of this brought to light the methods and tools used by the people of Woi-Wurrung.

The team pieced together the way Woi-wurrung-speaking people lived and interacted in these areas using advanced dates and artifact analyses. They prepared plants and animals, made and used stone tools, made decoration out of feathers, lit campfires, and performed rituals such as scarifying human skin. The tools’ wear patterns and residue offer concrete proof of these activities.

The archaeological and cultural interpretation of Australian earth rings is woven together in this first-of-its-kind research. It shows how crucial those sites are and the threats they endure due to land use and climate change developments.

Spry, C., Freedman, D. L., Hayes, E., Hitchcock, G., Morrison, W., … Mullins, B. (2025). New braided knowledge understandings of an Aboriginal earth ring and biik wurrdha (Jacksons Creek, Sunbury) on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country, southeastern Australia. Australian Archaeology, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2024.2428019

Cover Image Credit: Aerial image of Sunbury Ring G. Credit: Caroline Spry et al., Australian Archaeology (2025)

Related Articles

Genetic Analysis Reveals A Woman As The Highest-Ranking Individual In Copper Age Spain: ‘Ivory Lady’

6 July 2023

6 July 2023

According to a study published Thursday (July 6) in the journal Scientific Reports, the highest-status individual in ancient Copper Age...

Archaeologists discover that Iranian farmers grew rice about 3,000 years ago

18 May 2023

18 May 2023

Archaeologists excavating in Iran’s Mazandaran region have revealed that Iranian farmers were cultivating rice as far back as 3000 years...

Africa May not be Where the First Pre-Human First Appeared

22 March 2021

22 March 2021

According to one opinion: About 2 million years ago, our first ancestors moved north from their hometown and left Africa....

The 20-million-year-old fossil of a sea creature in the ancient city of Tyana may have been used as a means of payment

22 October 2021

22 October 2021

During the ongoing excavations in the ancient city of Tyana in the Kemerhisar district of Niğde, a 20-million-year-old fossil thought...

‘Frankfurt Silver Inscription’ Archaeologists Unearth Oldest Christian Artifact North of the Alps

13 December 2024

13 December 2024

An ancient silver amulet unearthed in Frankfurt pushes back Christianity’s history in the region by 50 to 100 years. The...

1000-year-old Cats and Babies mummies of Turkey’s

30 March 2022

30 March 2022

Cat, baby, and adult mummies in Aksaray, which took its place in history as Cappadocia’s gateway to the west on...

The Oldest Semicircular Classroom in the Greek World Unearthed in Sicily

21 April 2025

21 April 2025

In a remarkable archaeological breakthrough in southern Sicily, an international team of researchers has uncovered an extraordinary ancient classroom that...

3,000-year-old ‘charioteer belt’ discovered in Siberia

21 July 2023

21 July 2023

Russian archaeologists uncovered the grave of a Late Bronze Age man buried wearing a “charioteer’s belt”, a flat bronze plate...

2,300-year-old Buddhist temple discovered in Pakistan

23 December 2021

23 December 2021

Remains of a 2300 years old Buddhist Temple have been discovered in Northwest Pakistan by a joint team of Pakistani...

The earliest Buddha statues in China found in northwestern Shaanxi

10 December 2021

10 December 2021

The two copper-tin-lead alloy Buddha statues discovered in northwestern Shaanxi Province became the earliest Buddha statues of this kind unearthed...

Jiroft: The Mysterious Rival of Mesopotamia and the Dawn of an Ancient Civilization

24 March 2025

24 March 2025

Recent archaeological discoveries in southeast Iran are reshaping our understanding of early civilizations, particularly the Jiroft Civilization, which thrived around...

The first Dutch Neanderthal’s ‘Krijn’ face was reconstructed

7 September 2021

7 September 2021

World-renowned “paleo-artists” Kennis brothers have reconstructed the face of the first Neanderthal in the Netherlands. After more than 50,000 years,...

Germany: 700-year-old Causeway Found Under Central Berlin Street

19 February 2022

19 February 2022

Archaeologists from the Landesdenkmalamt Berlin (LDA) made a sensational find during their excavation at Molkenmarkt: about 2.50 m below Stralauer...

The new type of Silla tombs discovered in Gyeongju, South Korea

27 June 2024

27 June 2024

Archaeologists have made a groundbreaking discovery in the ancient capital of the Silla Kingdom (57 BC-AD 935) in the ancient...

Kurt Tepesi: The Silent Sentinel in the Shadows of Göbeklitepe and Karahan Tepe – Unearthing the Forgotten Sister

31 May 2025

31 May 2025

In the arid plains of southeastern Anatolia, a quiet giant slumbers. While Göbekli Tepe has dazzled archaeologists and the global...