This unit of Eureka Miniatures Denisovians consists of a female elder and five warriors
You will note that I have included my attempt at creating a Bora ring as a piece of “Country”. For those interested I have included a short description for you to explore further.
For those near Melbourne I suggest a short trip to Wurdi Youang near “Little River” (above), or to “Jackson’s Creek” near Sunbury (below), where there are a number, for an excellent day trip steeped in Indigenous history.
The three “units” completed so far.
Across Australia, Aboriginal peoples created stone arrangements, often referred to in some regions as Bora rings, though a wide range of local terms and forms exist. These include circles, paired rings, linear alignments, and more complex configurations. They were not random accumulations of stone. They were constructed deliberately, with attention to placement, orientation, and meaning. Many were used for ceremony, initiation, and the transmission of law. Others marked significant locations within Country or were connected to seasonal knowledge and environmental observation. These arrangements form part of a broader system in which landscape, story, and social order are inseparable.¹
In this ruleset, stone circles should be understood as expressions of living Country. They are places where meaning is concentrated and enacted. While they may not obstruct movement in a physical sense, they shape behaviour and constrain decision making. Actions taken in or near such places are not neutral. For Aboriginal groups, these sites are bound to identity, obligation, and authority, embedded within systems of law that govern conduct and relationship to land.² For outsiders, particularly colonial actors during the frontier period, these meanings were often unrecognised or misunderstood, yet the structures themselves remained active within Indigenous systems of knowledge and practice.
This distinction matters for how conflict is understood. The Australian frontier wars did not occur on empty or undefined ground. They unfolded across landscapes already known, named, and organised through long-standing systems of knowledge. Stone arrangements were one visible expression of this order, but they existed alongside pathways, resource zones, ceremonial grounds, and places of restriction.³ Sites such as Wurdi Youang demonstrate that this knowledge could include sustained and precise observation of environmental and astronomical patterns, with alignments marking solar positions across the year.⁴ Movement, gathering, and defence were therefore shaped by an existing spatial logic that structured where people could go, when, and under what conditions.
On the table, stone circles are best treated as locations that narrow choice rather than restrict movement. Units may pass through them freely, but actions taken within or near them carry consequence. They function as centres of influence, shaping morale, decision making, and the accumulation of pressure over time. They are not obstacles in a mechanical sense. Instead, they are points where Country is most present, where the weight of obligation, knowledge, and consequence is heightened, and where the meaning of action is intensified rather than simplified.
- R. H. Mathews, “The Bora, or Initiation Ceremonies of the Kamilaroi Tribe,” Journal of the Anthropological Institute 24 (1895): 411–427; J. V. S. Megaw, “Stone Arrangements in Aboriginal Australia,” Mankind 8, no. 2 (1974): 89–101.
- W. E. H. Stanner, “The Dreaming,” in White Man Got No Dreaming (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1979), 23–40; Deborah Bird Rose, Dingo Makes Us Human (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 8–12.
- Bill Gammage, The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2011), 1–14, 281–307; Bruce Pascoe, Dark Emu (Broome: Magabala Books, 2014), 1–20.
- Duane W. Hamacher and Ray P. Norris, “Bridging the Gap through Australian Aboriginal Astronomy,” in Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 282–290; Ray P. Norris et al., “Wurdi Youang: An Australian Aboriginal Stone Arrangement with Possible Solar Indications,” Rock Art Research 30, no. 1 (2013): 55–65.
Gammage, Bill. The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2011.
Hamacher, Duane W., and Ray P. Norris. “Bridging the Gap through Australian Aboriginal Astronomy.” In Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Mathews, R. H. “The Bora, or Initiation Ceremonies of the Kamilaroi Tribe.” Journal of the Anthropological Institute 24 (1895): 411–427.
Megaw, J. V. S. “Stone Arrangements in Aboriginal Australia.” Mankind 8, no. 2 (1974): 89–101.
Norris, Ray P., et al. “Wurdi Youang: An Australian Aboriginal Stone Arrangement with Possible Solar Indications.” Rock Art Research 30, no. 1 (2013): 55–65.
Pascoe, Bruce. Dark Emu. Broome: Magabala Books, 2014.
Rose, Deborah Bird. Dingo Makes Us Human. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Stanner, W. E. H. White Man Got No Dreaming. Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1979.