America's Stonehenge, once known as Mystery Hill, is the site of a number of large rocks and stone structures scattered around roughly 30 acres (120,000 ms) near the town of Salem, New Hampshire, in the northeast United States.
The site has become a popular tourist attraction, with particular appeal to believers in New Age systems. Among the several unverified speculations which have been put forward concerning the site's origins include claims that the site could be an astronomical observatory built by some unknown, pre-Columbian civilization.
They argue that some stones are encased in trees that may have sprouted before the arrival of the first colonists, point to similarities between the ruins and Phoenician architecture, and say that marks on some stones resemble some ancient writing systems of the Old World. The late Barry Fell, a marine biologist from Harvard University, claimed that inscriptions at the site represented markings in Ogham, Phoenician and Iberian Punic scripts. He detailed his finds in his book America B.C.
On the other hand, artifacts found on the site lead many mainstream archaeologists to the conclusion that the stones were assembled for various reasons by local farmers in the 18th and 19th centuries. For example, a much-discussed "sacrifical stone" which contains grooves that some say channeled blood, closely resembles "lye-leaching stones" found on many old farms that were used to extract lye from wood ashes, the first step in the manufacture of soap.
The site's history is muddled partly because of the activities of one William Goodwin, an insurance agent who purchased the area surrounding the site in 1936. He became convinced that Mystery Hill was proof that Irish monks (the Culdees) had lived there long before Christopher Columbus, a concept he sought to publicize.
He moved many of the stones around from their former positions to better support his idea, thus obliterating a good deal of the archaeological record. The site's current owners, the private company America's Stonehenge Foundation, say his activities are "one of the reasons the enigma of Mystery Hill is so deep".
The site's current name "America's Stonehenge" is of recent coinage, and is used for marketing purposes. There is no connection with Stonehenge in England.
Upton ChamberThey each focused on an extraordinary building known as the Upton Chamber, one of the many, what they called, "unexplained stone works" of the area.
The Upton Chamber is one of the the largest and most perfectly built stone chambers in New England and is all underground. It is mammoth - a six foot high and fourteen foot long tunnel leading into the side of a hill with an inner chamber of small quarried stones. The chamber is topped with several large oval stones weighing several tons as a roof and measures 12 feet in diameter and 11 feet high. The Upton chamber has been dated by experts to 710 A.D.1
The Watch House Over the years the more interesting features and structures on-site have been given un-scientific names that insinuate inferred function. The "Watch House" is the name given to a chamber structure located outside the main complex at Mystery Hill. The entryway of the structure is not easily accessible. After passing through a small entrance hole, a narrow stone passageway leads into a large interior space. An existing glacial boulder was used for one of the walls of the chamber and smaller field stones make up the other walls. The roof is a massive, quarried slab of granite of several tons. On the back wall of the chamber the stones contain a high percentage of white quartz, a stone found in its pure form in many of the neolithic structures over the world and treasured by ancient peoples for its reflective qualities. This particular chamber is aligned to the February first sunrise and lunar minor south. At sunrise on this date the sunlight enters the entrance of the chamber and slowly moves along one wall until it illuminates the quartz crystals at the back wall, making the semi-precious gems sparkle noticeably. February first was one of the eight most important divisions of the Keltic year as we shall discuss in more detail later.
MonolithsAlso found across the Mystery Hill site are huge monolithic standing stones (some now fallen) all of which line up to sun, moon or star alignments as seen from a central viewing slab located by one of the earlier researchers at the site. From this slab, monoliths align to the Midwinter solstice sunrise and sunset, the November one sunrise and sunset, the Spring and Fall Equinox sunrises and sunsets, the May one sunrise and sunset, the Midsummer solstice sunrise and sunset, the August one sunrise and sunset and true north (This stone is aligned to the star Thuban, the pole star of 2,000 B.C.). On these days the sun will either rise or set above worked monolith stones. Exact alignments coincide, according to scholars and astronomers, with a date of 2499 B.C. to 1900 B.C.
Stone walls throughout the site also provide over 200 astronomical alignments with the moon, 45 different stars and important geographic points. One long stone wall aligns with true south. Another alignment wall allows one to observe the southernmost standstill of the moon on its 18.61 year metonic cycle. This cycle reflects the imperfect elliptical orbit the moon takes around the earth. Gravitational forces may sometimes take the moon away from a perfect ellipsis by a relatively subtle 5 degrees north or south of the southern limit of the sun. A period of 18.61 is required to carry the moon to all of its possible positions in respect to the sun. This event is marked at Mystery Hill as the moon passes above the Winter solstice stone and then aligns with the terminal of this wall. This moon cycle was supposedly discovered by the Greek astronomer Meton in 433 B.C. although this astronomical phenomenon would now seem to have been understood much earlier than originally believed.
The purpose of other walls seems less clear to scholars. Two walls made of quarried bedrock (not the field stones of colonial walls) delineate a long path whose starting point is bathed by the May first sunrise. It would appear that it was a processional way through which worshippers would pass to enter sacred areas, much like at several of the megalithic sites in the British Isles, most notably the much larger, mile-long stone-lined Kennet and Beckhampton Avenues of the huge megalithic complex at Avebury, built sometime between 3,000 B.C. and 2,500 B.C. It would be quite a site to have a throng gathered for procession, cued by the crossing of the sunlight and shadow cast by the sunrise across the processional way.
Other impressive constructions on the site include a number of underground chambers with clear astronomical alignments including; a "south facing" chamber made of large quarried rock and covered by several multi-ton lintel slabs; a classic V-hut chamber, above ground, wedge shaped and adjacent to a large basin cut into the bedrock which was a starting point for a network of sophisticated drains that extends to the east. This chamber is oriented to the southwest like many similar European Neolithic structures and bears a striking resemblance to those found like it in the British Isles. The East-West chamber, a three sectioned chamber also made with massive roof lintels and entry stones of several tons is on site as well. This chamber, like others in Europe, is located on an old fault line some say because of the discernible magnetic phenomenon that occur near geological sites of this kind.
The calendrical orientations of the slab-roofed chambers, it would seem, would rule out these structures being constructed as root cellars by early American colonists or the woodlands Indians of the northeast as neither were concerned with alignments that coincide with the most important of yearly Keltic celebrations. Further, noted archaeo-astronomer Byron Dix has determined that New England is replete with underground chambers. He says, ". . . there are some 105 astronomically aligned chambers in Massachusetts, 51 in New Hampshire, 41 in Vermont, 62 in Connecticut, 12 in Rhode Island, and 4 in Maine. Suffice it to say, it is obvious that the alignments found at Mystery Hill, and other sites are not random.
The Oracle ChamberIt too bears a striking resemblance to altar stones found at megalithic sites in Europe. And we do know that blood sacrifice and altars such as these were connected firmly to Neolithic religions.
The builders of Avebury, the Iberian Phoenicians and the Vatic Druids were known to conduct human sacrifices. The bodies of small children or "strangers" (referred to as strangers because the artifacts found with the skeletal remains did not match the cultural objects of the builders of the sites) have been found near megalithic monuments. They were many times interred with the remains of specific animalsóa boar in one or an ox in anotheróinferring a totem or clan relationship to the grave site. These bodies showed obvious forensic signs of ritual murder. It was said in Ireland, a land with over 2,000 megalithic sites, that the greatest enemy of St. Patrick was manifest in a standing stone addicted to human sacrifice.
But even more than mere physical resemblance to European sites, it was carbon dating, carried out under the supervision of respected scientists from Geochron Laboratories in 1971 that supported the disputed claims of researchers who were being ridiculed for insisting that Mystery Hill was a site of extreme antiquity. Carbon tests conducted on charcoal found alongside a stone pick and a hammer stone unearthed at an excavation near one of the underground chambers reveal a date of 2,000 B.C.
The artifacts were clearly related to Neolithic pieces of the same era in the British Isles and Iberia. The excavation pit carbon tested had been undisturbed before digging and layers of strata above were perfectly intact. Charcoal dating of tree roots penetrating one of the other chambers revealed a date of 1690 B.C. (Could it be that this complex was started by the same culture who built Stonehenge? The Stonehenge builders must have possessed sturdy ships if scholars are correct about their ability to haul the multi-ton monoliths hundreds of miles along the rivers of England to their resting sites on the Salisbury Plain.
Artifacts found near another charcoal pit included a hammer stone, spallings and a scraper. Its carbon date was determined to be lateró995 B.C. Obviously this complex had been inhabited, and these tools left, by our distant ancestors thousands of years ago.
Unfortunately, many of the other structures at the site were carted away, vandalized or destroyedóyet what remains should be viewed as one of the most important historical sites in the Western Hemisphere. And Mystery Hill is notaby faróthe only megalithic site in New England whose origins are somewhat clouded.
Megalithic constructions known as dolmens can be found all across new England, the western part of Europe and even into Syria and South Africa. Dolmen comes from the Breton word for stone table as the dolmens in many instances are three, four or five smaller boulders topped by an immense, flat-topped boulder than can weigh any where from several tons to 90 tons. Many of these capstones are however roundish, dressed stones, and not flat topped.
The dolmen usually was erected to commemorate the death of a chieftain or an historical event of great importance and scriptural incisions usually accompany the dolmen on stone markers. Some experts believe that the dolmen was actually a tomb that was then covered in huge amounts of earthóin effect a a tumulous tomb in which the earth has been eroded away. Dolmens are frequently occurring structures in the American northeast. There are in fact over 200 examples of dolmens in New England alone and some very impressive examples can be found in our country as far away as California.
Of the dolmen found at Salem, Massachusetts, author Robert Ellis Cahill asks, "How did these men, without the assistance of proper tools, lift and balance boulders weighing from 30 to 90 tons squarely on top of three little boulders?" And noted ancient sites expert and archaeologist James Whittall adds, "I find it difficult to distinguish the North American examples from the European ones and I believe that both sets were produced by ancient builders who shared a common culture."
Another frequently occurring megalithic structure familiar to all readers is the stone circle. We know of the great Stonehenge complex in England with its huge Sarcen (meaning "heathen stones" and derived from the word Saracen) stones found there and the many calendrical alignments they delineate. But there are ancient stone circles in New England as well.
http://www.crystalinks.com/mysteryhill.html
Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:04 pm