• Berwick News

2nd April 2009 02:50:29 PM

Right: Prospect Hill Road in the early days when it was a brand new housing estate.

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TWENTY years ago this week, residents in Prospect Hill Road, Narre Warren, reported “weird incidents” in their new homes.

The events made page eight of the Berwick City News, 30 March 1989.

Searching for explanations for the strange happenings, the residents wondered whether they had trespassed on sacred Aboriginal tribal ground, they told the News.

There seemed reason to think so at the time.

Pamphlets delivered to the new housing estate to mark the celebration of 150 years of white settlement in the area referred to a burial ground of the original inhabitants, the Bunyurong people.

One family found what they thought to be an animal skull at the back door of their house, another reported a loud creaking noise that caused a child to scream, another reported a door handle too hot to hold and hot air gushing from a bedroom, and another reported continuous knocking on doors and windows.

All events happened within six months of their moving to the new housing estate, the residents said, and after that the events stopped.

Neither the Victorian Archaeological Society nor the Berwick Pakenham Historical Society had any knowledge of a burial ground in the area.

The Department of Indigenous Affairs regulates discoveries of indigenous sites, and the Registrar of Aboriginal Sites records all discoveries.

Anyone who discovers an Aboriginal site is required to notify the registrar and the police. Disturbance of sites is prohibited.

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