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MYSTERY OF STONE STRUCTURES IN AMERICA Explored by Andrew Rothovius (Contacts) For
years it has been widely assumed that Bronze Age megalithic people from the British
Isles crossed the Atlantic around 1200 B.C. and established a short-lived
colony in New England. Not is seems
that it might have been the other way around—that is, that the stone-building
culture which gloomed into Europe’s first civilization had its origins in
Salem, New Hampshire, 4000 years ago. In the May 1964 issue of Yankee,
A. E. Rothovius reviewed the status of what were then termed the Great Stone
Mysteries of New England. These are
scores of enigmatic dry-stone constructions in may parts of Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine.
These structures were similar to those in the stone village at Mystery
Hill in North Salem, New Hampshire, which since the 1930s had been a focus of
archeological dispute and speculation.
It was not yet possible in 1964 to offer hard facts to account for
these puzzling structures, beyond pointing out that while most were locally
known as root cellars, there was little real evidence that they had ever been
used as such. The majority have a
strong resemblance to the megalithic (= “big stone”) constructions of the
Neolithic and Bronze Ages in the British Isles and Western Europe, where they
are variously called dolmens and cromlechs. There has been much light shown on revealing the origin of
these stone structures even though some mysteries still remain. It can be stated with some assurance that
the central site, Mystery Hill, is of great antiquity, dating back to at
least 2000 B.C. More importantly, the
stone structures have astronomical alignments that are potentially as
significant as those of Stonehenge, which is almost as old. The work of Dr. Colon Renfrew at Sheffield
University in England during the 1960s has shown that the European megalithic
civilization was older than Egypt or Crete or Mycenae, and also suggests that
the antiquity and technical sophistication of Mystery Hill belong within the
mainstream of the prehistoric cultural development that laid the foundations
of all succeeding civilizations. The New England Antiquities Research Association, a group
of amateur archeologists who in the late 1950s and early 1960s became
interested in locating and studying New England stone constructions, deserves
much of the credit for resolving the Great Stone Mysteries of 1964. The president and moving spirit of NEARA
was Robert E. Stone of Derry, New Hampshire, owner of Mystery Hill, who has
devoted many years of effort to finding an answer to the puzzle of New
England megaliths. For the first few years, until about 1967 or 1968. the
NEARA researchers concentrated on locating as many of the stone constructions
as possible. More than 200 were
recorded, the majority still intact, a few fallen into ruin or recently
bulldozed away. There are certain
areas where the sites are clustered, e.g., the eastern Berkshires around
Shutesbury, Massachusetts; in central Vermont, around Royalton and Woodstock;
in southeastern Connecticut, where a site with stonework second only to
Mystery Hill was found near the Gungywamp marsh in Groton; and just outside
New England, on both sides of the Hudson River in lower New York State. Most extraordinary of all were the
standing stones or “monoliths” discovered on a mountaintop in the
northwestern Berkshires; the exact location is not being publicized for fear
that vandals may damage the site.
However, the site appears to be aligned on the Pole Star, and has
close similarities to standing stone configurations in the British Isles that
were used by Bronze Age people for observing the motions of the stars and
planets and the rising and settings of the sun and the moon. Some of the over 200 structures turned out to be of
colonial origin; they were used for various purposes from gunpowder storage
to settings for hunters’ traps. For
instance, the stone “beehives” on Kennedy Hill in Acworth, New Hampshire,
seem to fall into this latter category.
But, by far the greater number were found to predate colonial times;
their similarity to West European megalithic constructions indicated they
were of equal antiquity. None of these, however, except those at Groton,
Connecticut were grouped into an entire settlement complex such as that at
Mystery Hill. Rather than disperse
the investigation over a number of widely scattered sites, the group decided
to concentrate on Mystery Hill, the site that was apparently central to all
others, and with the greatest potential for significant results. The NEARA workers searched for places where radioactive
carbon dating might be applied to determine the age of material found. There was a small area in the center of
the complex of 22 stone structures where the thin topsoil covering the
granite bedrock of the hilltop had been less severely disturbed by previous
diggers. An effort was concentrated
here and each spoonful of earth was carefully sifted for any organic remains
that could be carbon dated. In 1967 a piece of pine root was obtained from the walls
of one of the structures. It yielded
a radiocarbon date of about 1690 A.D. (a century and a half before the time
of Jonathan Pattee, who had build a house at the site and was credited by
skeptics with having built the site itself, for some eccentric Yankee
purpose, even though Pattee was a reputable citizen and definitely not
eccentric). The stone structure
penetrated by the pine root had to have been in place before the tree grew
large enough to send out such a root, and thus this dating demolished once
and for all the myth that Pattee was the architect of Mystery Hill. But, 1690 was well within the colonial era. The dating did not disprove the
possibility that the site might have been constructed by the early colonists. Therefore, the search continued for
additional datable material. In 1968 some charcoal was recovered from a stump pit at
the northern exit of one of the rock-cut drains, and it yielded a date of
1540 A.D. This was almost a century
before the landing of the Pilgrims; and since there was reason to believe
that drainage from the Pattee house had contaminated the charcoal, its actual
age was probably much greater. The researchers resumed their search in the central area,
and on May 17, 1969 they discovered almost directly below where the pine root
had been found, some charcoal only 2-4 inches above bedrock and along with
granite spallings from the working of that bedrock. This charcoal had to be contemporary with the construction of
at least that part of the site. The
Geochron Laboratories in Cambridge, Massachusetts dated it at 1045 B.C., or
about the time that the era of the European megalith builders had come to its
close. Then in 1971 another specimen of charcoal was obtained
from the pine-root area, even closer to the bedrock. It was radiocarbon dated at 1525 B.C.,
contemporary with the later stages of the construction of Stonehenge. There could no longer be any doubt that
Mystery Hill (and by implication, most of the other New England megaliths as
well) and the European Bronze Age were linked. In 1969 the swampy area to the left of the Mystery Hill
entrance was investigated and was found to contain a large deposit of clay
that had been worked for pottery material.
Just to the right, researchers uncovered a very large fire-pit where
the pottery had been fired; charcoal here was badly contaminated by swamp
seepage, and yielded no consistent dates.
However, this excavation had found the source of the clay for the
peculiar soft yellowish pottery shards that have been found at the site, and
which resemble Mediterranean ware of Bronze Age times, rather than native
American Indian pottery. Later refinements in the field of radiocarbon dating gave
Mystery Hill an even greater antiquity, and at the same time proved that its
megalithic counterparts in Western Europe were older than the Minoan and
Mycenean civilizations (from which they had previously been thought to be
derived). Dr. Hans E. Suess of the
University of California at La Jolla, working with the tree-rings of the
bristlecone pines of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, established that there had
been fluctuations in the solar radiation affecting organic carbon, and that
for several centuries before 1000 B.C. the radiation had been so much more
intense that all radiocarbon datings for that period had to be radically
revised in the direction of greater age.
The recalibrated date for the original 1525 B.C. reading from the
Mystery Hill charcoal found in 1971 is now 2000 B.C., and contemporary with
the earliest stages of Stonehenge. Mystery Hill contains numerous astronomical alignments
similar to those in may of the British and French megalithic sites. From a point just to the north of the
grooved stone platform popularly known as the Sacrificial Stone, but whose
real function has yet to be determined, several lines can be drawn outward to
stones that indicate the key points on the horizon of the astronomical
year. To the southwest, the sun sets
behind a triangular monolith on the year’s shortest day, December 21st. To the west and east are other stones
marking the sunrise and sunset points on the dates of the spring and autumn
equinoxes, march 21 and September 22.
To the northwest another triangular monolith marks the setting point
of the sun on the year’s longest day, June 21st. Due north is a monolith situated directly
in line with the celestial North Pole (now located in the heavens by the
current Pole Star, Polaris, but in 2000 B.C. by the star Thuban in the
constellation Draco). In the northeast
is a fallen monolith which appears to indicate the point of the longest day’s
sunrise on June 21st. To have laid out these lines of sighting and to have
erected the marking stones at the correct locations, the builders of Mystery
Hill must have possessed observational, surveying and measuring skills of the
highest order. The determination of the existence of these astronomical
alignments at Mystery Hill has required several years of clearing of trees
and brush that hid the sighting lines, and a survey of the entire site. It has been
generally believed by archeologists that the megalithic culture in Western
Europe had flourished from around 1750 to 1000 B.C., and that it had been
inspired by the great early civilizations of the Mediterranean: Egypt, Minoan Crete and Myceneae. A recalibration of radiocarbon dates now
shows that the megalithic culture goes back to before 4000 B.C. and that it
peaked before 2000 B.C. The great
megalithic complex of New Grange in Ireland is now dated at 3300 B.C., 700
years earlier than the Great Pyramid of Egypt and 1800 years before the
Minoan sea-kings ruled in Crete.
Stonehenge, built between 2200 and 1700 B.C., is now viewed as
representing a late and declining stage of the megalithic civilization. But if the megalith builders of Western Europe were
neither migrants from the Mediterranean, nor inspired by the early
Mediterranean civilizations, then where did they come from ,and what was the
origin of their stonework technique? A suggestion, heretical to earlier archeologists, is that
North America was where it all began.
For evidence, the oldest megalithic sites so far dated in Ireland are
in the northwest of that island, and have an age of around 4000 B.C.. Progressing southeastward toward New
Grange, the sites are gradually younger and show an advance in quality of
workmanship that culminates in the artistry of New Grange. Then a Neolithic settlement on the island
of Harris in the Hebrides off northwest Scotland ahs been dated at 4300 B.C.,
with similar and progressively less primitive sites being found southward
along the Scottish coast. As a third argument, there is the evidence of human blood
groups as determined by noted serologist A.E. Mourant in his work of the
1950s. There are three main blood groups,
for convenience noted as Type A, B. and O.
Type A is most common in Central and East European inhabitants; Type B
in Asians and Type O in American Amerindians as well as in the Irish and the
Scots. Rothovius had noted in 1964 that there was a possibility
that the New England megaliths were built by a native American culture, of
which the crude stone constructions found in the Appalachians represented an
early phase and Mystery Hill was an advanced phase. At that time it was believed that Bronze Age Magalithic people
from the British Isles had crossed the Atlantic by the northern
island-hopping route during the period of milder and less stormy climate that
ended about 1200 B.C.; and that they had established a short-lived colony
there, of which Mystery Hill and the new England megaliths remained as
witness. Now it appears as if the crossing may have been in the
other direction, from America to Europe or there may have been crossings both
ways. Whatever the details prove to
be, the following scenario is beginning to emerge: Somewhere around 4000 B.C., some
still unknown group of early American Indians in the Appalachian area started
to build crudely in stone. Gradually
the technique spread northward, improving in quality and dimensions. Finally some of these stone builders from
new England were carried across the Atlantic in their skin boats, possibly
caught in a strong westerly gale.
Landing in northwest Ireland and the Hebrides, they communicated their
skill to the Neolithic peoples there.
The stone-building culture thus initiated bloomed into Europe’s first
civilization, between 3500 and 2000 B.C.
This culture was strongly oriented to the heavens, from whose
movements it social rituals and rhythms were derived. In the mild North Atlantic climates of
that age, there were voyages back to the ancestral shores of New England; and
by 2000 B.C. Mystery Hill was built
as a center of ritual incorporating the astronomical knowledge attained by the
megalith builders across the ocean. Then, typical to human history, the Magalithic
civilization faded and vanished.
Essentially unwarlike, in Europe it was supplanted by the warrior
culture of the Battle-Axe peoples from the steppes of the East, ancestors of
the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons and Slavs. In America, the stone-building culture had perhaps flowered
only at Mystery Hill and one or two other places. It declined when the Atlantic climate became more severe and
terminated access to Europe; and it finally relapsed into the general
barbarism of northeastern America around 1000 B.C. Continued work on Mystery Hill and other great stone
mysteries of New England will either confirm this picture and fill in the
gaps, or derive an even more startling explanation. --------------------------- Reference: Rothovius, Andrew E. 1975. The new thing at
Mystery Hill is 4000 years old. Yankee.
September 1975. |