Historical mining archaeology has been uncovered in the Creswick Regional Park.A recent planned burn across the old mining site at Lincoln Gully Road has revealed shafts, trenches, water races and walls of hundreds of mines that covered the area from the 1800s.Parks Victoria ranger Paul Fernando recognised small circular earth shapes as manual ore crushers, which have been verified by a local historian."The round trenches have a raised centre, often with a hole in the middle, and were operated by human power rather than horse power," Mr Fernando said."A metal tray was placed around the trench and a large stone wheel on a central pivot was pushed by hand to crush the ore."Large scale sluice mining sites have also been discovered. These sites were done with high pressure water hoses, and whole hillsides were literally washed away for their gold content.At the moment diggings at the site are exposed, "so it is like taking a walk back in time," Mr Fernando said. "But it won't be long before grass and shrubs cover up the visible history that's been temporarily revealed." The lack of vegetation has made it easy to identify the round shafts of the Chinese mines and the square shafts of the European mines.Parks Victoria ranger Tony Veit said Parks Victoria did not know the mining archaeology was there until it was uncovered.He encouraged the public to have a look at the discovery before the native flora regenerated but warned people to take care near mine shafts. Other fascinating relics of the mining era can be seen at the Lal Lal Reserve, site of a major open cut iron ore mine where a huge hand-made brick blast furnace is still largely intact. Signage at the site shows what the original furnace looked like and how it operated, as well as the location of the railway lines built to transport the ore. It pinpoints the locations of a blacksmith's shop and other historic spots on the site.More evidence of the mining era is seen in the Jubilee Historic Area near Scarsdale, site of a venture to extract gold using cyanide. Concrete cyanide vats and other structures remain.