Locals in the Greta area have known about the stones in the Toombullup State Forest for at least 20 years and they were observed by a group including former Wangaratta mayor Geoff Dinning and well-known winemaker John Brown on Saturday.

Ideas put forward about the cairns included they were markers left by Hume and Hovell, or they were prayer stones built by the Chinese.

However Paul McGregor, secretary of a not-for-profit organisation conducting archaeological excavations on historic sites called the Uncovered Past Institute, is confident they have no links to the Chinese.

“Any indication these might have been built by them would be a guess without any foundation,” he said.

“There’s no tradition of it happening in Australia.

“Sometimes the early surveyors in Victoria would use stone cairns to mark positions on the landscape they could use as reference point, but they have been much more carefully made.

“It’s my guess these were built by some local people.”

Di Talbot of the Bright Historical Society, who has done research into Chinese communities and gold mining across the region, said it was difficult to say who put the cairns there and why.

“There were a lot (of Chinese) around Whitfield and Edi, which is not that far from Greta, growing tobacco and maize crops,” she said.

“There is a possibility there were a few Chinese around that area, but I wouldn’t say that definitively. Over the last 20 years I have never come across anything like this and I would be inclined to agree with Paul.”

Archaeologist Gordon Grimwade, who has conducted excavations in the North East recently, agrees it’s highly unlikely the cairns are associated with the Chinese.

He said they may have been left by early exploration parties, and said judging by photos the lichen and moss well-distributed across the rocks showed they were quite old.

There is one collection of built survey markers on the Victorian Heritage Register – three base stones from the Geodetic Survey Baseline of the 1860s located on the Werribee Plains.

Another theory put to The Border Mail was they were built by Beechworth prisoners.

Mr Brown said he was sticking to the belief the cairns had cultural significance.

“I haven’t heard of Hume and Hovell building cairns at any other high points, though they could be out there,” he said.

Doug Brockfield, who has a copy of the book The Reporting of Ned Kelly and the Kelly Gang, said there was evidence of Chinese in the King Valley region.

“It contains an article from The Argus newspaper from 1878, saying the Chinese were growing peanuts and tobacco,” he said.

“We have to get to the bottom of this … someone out there will know what the cairns are.”