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<< Our Photo Pages >> America's Stonehenge - Ancient Village or Settlement in United States in New England

Submitted by stewart on Sunday, 13 December 2009  Page Views: 34884

Multi-periodSite Name: America's Stonehenge Alternative Name: Mystery Hill
Country: United States Region: New England Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Salem, NH  Nearest Village: North Salem
Latitude: 42.843000N  Longitude: 71.21W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
4 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
5 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
5 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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Michelledubois lichen rrmoser would like to visit

DebbieElliott visited on 1st Jan 2016 - their rating: Access: 3 Had this place more or less to myself, it is quite hidden away and not many folk know about it. The access is through the visitor's centre. Who built it or what it was for is still unknown but a four of the stones are set up to equinox and solstice.

MartinJEley visited on 6th Jul 2012 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 3 Understanding that this Stonehenge was unlikely to have the grandeur of the more famous cousin in Wiltshire, England we chose to arrange a visit anyway. The remaining building structures and stones clearly show a long history and knowledge of significant solar events during the year. The fact that much of the site is tree covered makes it harder to appreciate the setting the context of the surrounding landscape. It was worth the visit.

TheCaptain visited on 15th Apr 1990 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 4 Access: 4

sitedowser turtlex have visited here

Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 3.5 Ambience: 4 Access: 3.33

America's Stonehenge
America's Stonehenge submitted by thecaptain : The sacrificial table at Mystery Hill, also known as America's Stonehenge, near Salem, New Hampshire. Is it an ancient site or a fairly modern construction ? They say its over 4000 years old, but who built it ? When I visited 10 to 15 years ago it was a really horrible wet day, so I didnt get many pictures. And I have to say, that despite their best efforts to assure me that carbon dating of ... (Vote or comment on this photo)
About 40 miles north of the city of Boston, and about 25 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean, is what appears to be the greatest, and perhaps oldest, megalithic enigma of North America.

"America's Stonehenge", formerly called Mystery Hill, is a site that has puzzled archaeologists for almost a century. Running across the 30 acres of hillside are a series of low walls, cave-like primitive buildings, and tunnels that are spread about with, according to one archaeologist, "gigantic confusion and childish disorder, deep cunning and rude naivety." While the hill is compared to the English Stonehenge circle, it is, at first glance, physically quite different. Stonehenge is located on a plain, not a hill, and is arranged neatly as a series of concentric circles, horseshoes and squares. Mystery Hill seems a jumble in comparison. The stones involved in Stonehenge are larger, up to 45 tons. The stones at Mystery Hill are smaller (the largest is about 11 tons) and the construction less intricate.

Both sites do have some common points, though. Firstly, they served as observatories. Each has been found to have astronomical alignments including summer solstice. Secondly, we know almost nothing about the builders of either location. While we don't know the type of ceremonies that may have gone on at Stonehenge, we do know something about the apparent activity on the hill. One of the main features of the site is an enormous flat stone, like a great table, resting above the ground on four legs. Around the edge of the table runs a groove that leads to a spout. This great slab has been named the "Sacrificial Stone" and certainly may have served such a function. The gutter probably allowed the blood of the sacrifice to drain off the top.

Underneath the Sacrificial Stone is a shaft eight feet long leading to an underground chamber. It seems reasonable that this allowed a priest concealed in the chamber to speak as the voice of an oracle. To a crowd gathered around the altar the sound would appear to float up from the Sacrificial Stone like the voice of some disembodied spirit. In addition to the oracle chamber and the Sacrificial Stone the site has a number of other artificial caves and passages. At least one was constructed with a drain to keep them from being flooded. The purpose of the rest of these structures, except one which appears to be a water well, are unknown. Courtesy Unmuseum web site.

Note: An article on America’s Stonehenge in the New York Times, see latest comment
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America's Stonehenge
America's Stonehenge submitted by DocRock : Anumber of years after the acquisition of the site, it was noted that there were a number of peripheral stones set up which when viewed from a central point appeared to mark astronomical alignments. This stone marks the Midsummer equinox . (Vote or comment on this photo)

America's Stonehenge
America's Stonehenge submitted by thecaptain : Inside one of the chambers at Mystery Hill, known as America's Stonehenge, near Salem, New Hampshire. Just what is it all about ? And who built it ? Was it ancient Amerindian people ? Was it early European visitors (Icelandic monks a good option) or is it a seventeenth century prank ? I visited in about 1990, and found it to be a very strange place. And its like the Government dont want it to ... (2 comments - Vote or comment on this photo)

America's Stonehenge
America's Stonehenge submitted by DocRock : Astronomical marker at Mystery Hill which would have aligned with Thuban when it was the Pole Star around 1750 bce. (Vote or comment on this photo)

America's Stonehenge
America's Stonehenge submitted by DocRock : The "sacrificial table" in the central area of the site photographed from above. (6 comments - Vote or comment on this photo)

America's Stonehenge
America's Stonehenge submitted by thecaptain : One of the chambers at Mystery Hill, also known as America's Stonehenge, near Salem, New Hampshire. There are several of these chambers and other structures at the site as well as the calendar sighting stones I have to say, despite their best efforts to assure me its 4000 years old, the stones just didnt look weathered enough to me.

America's Stonehenge
America's Stonehenge submitted by musicalchemy : megaliths, the stone is aligned with solstice sun

America's Stonehenge
America's Stonehenge submitted by DocRock : Mystery Hill Equinox sunset marker when viewed from the central viewing point.

America's Stonehenge
America's Stonehenge submitted by DocRock : Mystery Hill Midwinter sunset marker when viewed from the central viewing point.

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"America's Stonehenge" | Login/Create an Account | 14 News and Comments
  
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Re: America's Stonehenge by Anonymous on Friday, 05 November 2021
Danville NH beehive of r111A about 10km away. It's on Google maps
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Mystery Hill / America's 'Stonehenge' sacreficial table by bat400 on Monday, 28 January 2013
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As the site listings and comments describe, the stones at Mystery Hill are a real jumble, with substantial evidence that earlier owners moved stones to where they thought they might have stood originally, or where their locations might support the 'Irish Monk' theory.

One of the most fascinating stone's is the great slab of the "Sacrificial Stone." About a year ago I was looking for antique hinges and found Old Wood Workshop, and eventually: this lye leaching stone. Although I am more familiar with leaching lye in a wooden vat like the one on this page, stones where also packed with ashes and a carved runnel carried the lye water to a waiting bucket. (This would possibly work even better because the slower the runoff, I would think the solution would be stronger.)

It turns out that this question (colonial lye leaching or Native American manufacture) has already attracted the attention of people examining Mystery Hill. See the site Lye Stones, Cider Press Stones, & Native American Grooved Stones and Mary E. Gage's article on examination and conclusions of New Hampshire state archaeologist, Gary Hume. As referenced in some of the comments made previously, Hume believed much of Mystery Hill's stones are Native American constructions, and Gage quotes him on (if I am following this correctly) other grooved stones at the site, although not this particular one. (Which, I must say, looks like the other lye and cider stones described in the http://www.stonestructures.org website.)

A great deal of Mystery Hills authenticity as a pre-colonial site depends on how much the owner Godwin moved stuff around in the 1930's and 1940's.

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What were people in New Hampshire doing 4000 years ago with a sacrificial table? by bat400 on Saturday, 31 March 2012
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An older article from Discover Magazine's Karen Wright discusses the quandary of "America's Stonehenge" and the mix of what appear to be post colonial additions and "stone-on-stone" quarrying methods. Will all the possibilities ever be sorted out? Probably not.
The article, Yankee Doodle Druid is light-hearted, but includes information from Gary Hume, the New Hampshire state archeologist at the time of the article, supporting that at least some of the stone on the site is made from precolumbian stone quarrying methods and that it should be listed in the National Register of Historical Places, if only because, ".... it had been celebrated in so many dubious theories of pre-Columbian visitation" and "... exemplified nineteenth-century commercial stone-quarrying techniques as well as Native American occupation."
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Re: America's Stonehenge by Anonymous on Wednesday, 13 January 2010
shouldn't this be called stonebench ?
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America’s Stonehenge: A Classic Whodunit and Whydunit by Andy B on Sunday, 13 December 2009
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Salem, N.H. — At this leafless and gloomy time of year I traveled, in the spirit of the symbologist Robert Langdon of “The Da Vinci Code,” to America’s Stonehenge, in this town five miles from the Massachusetts border. Scholars have debated whether the stone cairns and chambers here were built by early American Indians, enterprising colonial settlers or, more controversially, a migrant European culture that visited these woods nearly 4,000 years ago.

Determined to plumb these mysteries, I arrived at a rustic information center and gift shop on a cold and gray Sunday morning. Inside I was greeted by the aptly named Dennis Stone, 55, a commercial airline pilot who along with his wife, Pat, 59, owns this unusual roadside attraction. (Dennis’s father, Robert E. Stone, 80, began leasing the site in 1958 and bought all 105 acres in 1965, saving it from possible development.)

A charming mix of prehistoric wonders, alpaca farming and kitsch, America’s Stonehenge is an oasis of eccentricity in an ever-growing world of carefully managed and manicured tourist spots.

Read more in the New York Times:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/travel/escapes/11stonehenge.html?ref=travel
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Re: America's Stonehenge by Anonymous on Tuesday, 25 November 2008
An article making connections about Celtic influence in North American prehistory:

http://planetvermont.com/pvq/v9n2/megaliths.html
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    Re: America's Stonehenge by Aluta on Tuesday, 25 November 2008
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    I recommend that all of that be taken with a grain, no a large chink, of salt. It is certain that most if not all of the pre-Columbian stonework in the northeast was built by the American Indians, and while it it is likely that some European blood ran in the veins of the eastern Indians, myths of Celts and other Old World groups having longstanding separate civilizations on the North American continent before Columbus have little basis other than some people's deep-felt longing that they were true.

    Some of this is based on the supposition that the Celtic peoples built Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments, something we know not to be true.
    [ Reply to This ]

Re: America's Stonehenge by TheCaptain on Monday, 09 June 2008
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Some links for this site.

http://www.stonestructures.org/html/americas_stonehenge.html

http://www.stonehengeusa.com

And for a local topo map, see

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=42.84300,-71.21007&z=15&t=T
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Re: America's Stonehenge by Anonymous on Wednesday, 31 August 2005
There seems to be some questions as to the possibility of this being a real pre-Columbian site, the problem is that the local as well as the international archaeological schools do not want to accept any new or conflicting finds that upset the existing interpretations, so I say, go for it and try and make a connection to an early colony in the area around New England.
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Re: America's Stonehenge by Anonymous on Wednesday, 31 August 2005
This is a mystery, and as an archeaologist I am going there to take a look and see if there can be any real truth to the mystery, it seems that mainstream academics are afraid to admit something new and different into the paradigm, so off to Mystery Hill it is.
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Re: America's Stonehenge by eforrest25 on Monday, 20 June 2005
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I visited the site in 1992. It's fun but there is absolutely no true evidence whatever that this is a prehistoric site, or anything more than a farmer trying to find something useful to do with what was coming out of his field in the rocky soil of a New Hampshire mountaintop. The proprietors (who make a fine living from this tourist destination) have found items that carbon dated to a very long time back, but there was nothing to connect the structure itself to the carbon dated items. The proprietors don't really like to allow outside investigators to dig, because they always come back with answers that the proprietors don't want to hear. The site is disturbed and almost not worth the effort. The two biggest arguments for declaring this anything more than a hoax or misguided recognition of an ancient site are 1) why would anyone in the colonial era go to the bother to build a hoax with stones of several tons; 2) archeologists have found evidence in the last decade of human presence in North America as long ago as 50,000 years.
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Re: America's Stonehenge by TheCaptain on Wednesday, 10 November 2004
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Having been here many years ago, on a filthy horribly rainy autumn day while driving back from Boston to Montreal, I can only add a few thoughts about this place. I only had a quick rush round the main bits in the wet, and saw plenty that could have been photographed, although in those days of film I didn’t take many, and a lot of what I did take were terrible due to the conditions, and have now faded (apologies for the quality of one of them!). And I didn’t even get near to any of the calendar stones in the surrounding circle.

It is a VERY strange place, and I have never found anything in either books or on the internet which really do it justice. One of the main problems is that I don’t think many people take it seriously. I think I am correct in saying that in the “official” American History books it does not exist, or is some 17th century joke, although supposedly proper Carbon dating has been used to give dates of 4000 years old for some of it. There is no doubt that some of it is very old, although the main site bits and pieces have probably been very modified a few hundred years ago. Of course, there is no funding for any proper research, cos its not a proper site, as it would upset the official US history !!! Like the Roman Shipwreck off the coast of Massachusetts, various Viking type habitations and many other things.

And its not helped by the Native Amerindians seemingly having nothing to do with it. So it has no official history, and nobody wants to claim it. And its just left to a few “enthusiastic” type people to try and publicise.

There are quite a few other places like this out there, largely in the Northeast.
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