Mystery Hill, the Upton Cave, Calendar I and Calendar II, Gungywamp and Druid’s Hill are just several of the names given some incredibly important historical sites of which many have never heard a whisper. But their existence—and their importance—is becoming harder and harder to hide as more are discovered and interested folk become exposed to their grandeur.

Sometime in the late 1600s or early 1700s, early American colonists began discovering and utilizing underground "root cellars" made of large, but manageable pieces of dressed stone as storage houses for food stuffs. Colonists were also finding numerous stone buildings, usually of "one story, circular or rectangular in form, and up to 30 feet in length and up to 10 feet wide and eight feet high or more." Many included roof slabs or lintels of several tons. Many also had carefully crafted openings in their roofs which allowed a small amount of light to pass through to the interiors.The colonial newcomers were convinced that these so-called root cellars had been constructed by the former Amerind inhabitants of the area—irregardless of the fact that their Indian neighbors showed little hint of an ability to work in large stone or the desire to do so. Before long, the inheritors of these properties thought their own American ancestors had built these cellars—some which were eighty feet deep and lined the entire way with roughly hewn stone.

Simultaneously, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of oddly-inscribed flagstones were being found in the surrounding New England woods, carted off by farmers for use in stone walls or in larger stone structures in the settlements of the growing northeast. The angular cuts on these stones looked much like the marks a plow makes when it strikes a submerged piece of stone—at least they looked that way to most of the simple country farmers of the day. Others believed the markings appearing in rocks all across New England were "the action of the roots of trees." For decades nothing at all was thought of them. As any New Englander can tell you, the entire northeast is strewn with large chunks of striated stone material left from the last era of glacial recession.

But a local Puritan clergyman, Cotton Mather, was not convinced. In 1712 he discovered some strange incisions on an exposed seaside rockface in Dighton, Massachusetts—far from where any plow could have marked it. Winter ice and constant submergence at high tide under the Taunton River began obliterating some of the older markings and Mather was concerned the inscriptions would be lost for posterity.

He immediately wrote to the Royal Society in London, England, to inform them of his find and to convey his belief that the rock carvings were in fact an ancient scriptural alphabet—perhaps several differing ancient alphabets. Unexpectedly, his letter generated little interest. The scientists of the Royal Society were already busy exploring newly discovered rock inscriptions in neighboring Ireland. These European inscriptions were later identified as Irish Hinge Ogam, a form of Gaelic Keltic writing unknown for centuries and stubbornly undecipherable. It is referred to as "hinge" Ogam because a central dividing line or a facet edge was used to separate the subtly different individual characters. Little did anyone know at the time, the inscriptions found on both sides of the Atlantic were firmly connected.

Yet how could Celtic writing, a style reminiscent of that from the first millennium B.C., be in America? Who were the authors of the many rock engravings? How could the carvers possibly have gotten to America a thousand years before the birth of Christ? Why had they come and what evidence is there to support such a far-fetched notion? And what of the large stone structures found across the American northeast, eerily similar to types found in Europe? The answers were being spoken loudly and clearly if someone could only listen to what the rocks and buildings themselves had to say. But time seemed to be running out. Thousands of the inscribed rocks were being broken up for building material and the larger stone structures were being dismantled or vandalized, destroying the monumental works of these mysterious builders.

For answers, we first turn to an odd stone arrangement found in the hills of New England. In 1823 a stone complex in North Salem, New Hampshire known as Mystery Hill became the property of a settler named Jonathan Pattee. An ardent abolitionist, Pattee was said to have turned the stone caves and structures of Mystery Hill into a way station for the Underground Railroad, hiding slaves in the ancient edifices found there. Pattee, an insurance millionaire of the time, built a home directly upon several of the most important ancient buildings of the site. Experts estimate that during the next 50 years, contractors bought and removed over 40% of the stone structures found at Mystery Hill. To this day, many of the older churches, stone fences and stone houses in the area contain bits of stone from the site (although most of the stones were used as street curbing and for the construction of the nearby Lawrence Dam). Ancient inscriptions can still found be on the stones used to build these more modern-day edifices.

Even as the Mystery Hill site was being hauled away by quarrymen, other sites like it were not going unnoticed by more learned men. In 1893, Professor Hugh Morrisson, Chairman of the Architecture Department of Dartmouth College and Daniel Fiske, an interested author, wrote about the impossibility of the megalithic structures at Mystery Hill and the surrounding New England area being the work of Amerinds or American settlers. They each focused on an extraordinary building known as the Upton Chamber, one of the many, what they called, "unexplained stone works" of the area.

Even with the publicity generated by the Upton Chamber, it took until 1936 to find an owner for the Mystery Hill property who truly appreciated the importance of the site and the structures within. In that year William Goodwin purchased the property and erected a high fence around much of the site, ending, for a time, the rampant vandalism. He was the first owner to begin the restoration and study of Mystery Hill. Goodwin believed, erroneously, that the site was built by Culdee Monks from Ireland. He spent the rest of his life trying to find evidence to support his theory. Irish Monks did in fact arrive and settle in the new World, but over a thousand years after construction of the mysterious megalithic sites had begun. (See TBR, October 1995)

In 1950 Mystery Hill was leased by a far-sighted and open-minded man named Robert Stone. He later purchased the property in 1956 and began in earnest the restoration, study and preservation of the area around Mystery Hill. Stone’s informed (still-ongoing) restoration of the site has yielded some astonishing finds.

The Mystery Hill complex, the largest and most sophisticated of its kind in North America, covers over 30 acres and is composed of monolithic standing stones, stone walls and underground chambers, most of which are aligned to obvious astronomical points. Even now the site can be used as an accurate yearly calendar utilizing the stones set up over two thousand (perhaps as long as 5,000) years ago. The lack of household artifacts and grave goods leads us to believe that the site was a ceremonial center and neither living quarters nor a "city."

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.

The "Oracle Chamber" is one of the most interesting and important structures located at Mystery Hill—or anywhere for that matter. It is significantly larger than any other chamber found at the site and contains unique characteristics found nowhere else in any of the other megalithic sites in New England.

The Oracle Chamber has two entry passageways that form a "T," with one of the arms forming another unique chamber under a five foot thick wall/ceiling of stonework. One enters the Oracle Chamber through a vestibule, once capped by large roof slabs. A 42-foot stone-lined drain exits from the wall and still keeps the underground excavation free from flooding. The bedrock floor of the Oracle Chamber was channeled for drainage as well and the corbeled roof, made without mortar, does not leak, the interior staying remarkably dry. A "secret bed," a niche cut carefully into the wall that is 6’4" long by 22" wide by about 12" high, is just the right size for a man to lie within it and be completely hidden from view but still able to monitor activity within the chamber.

A 4" by 6" shaft, lined with thin facing stones, runs from the exterior down through the roof material and exits through the interior wall at about chin level. A stone step is below the hole in the wall this shaft makes, ostensibly for the comfort of a speaker. The "Speaking Tube," as it is called, emerges above ground, yet concealed underneath a sacrificial altar with runnels. It would seem that the speakers within the Oracle Chamber would talk into the tube, their voices warped and amplified, carrying up to the altar above and creating quite an impressive sound to a group of worshippers who might be gathered around the altar—in effect making the altar talk.

There is also an opening in the roof that once had functioning stone louvers that could open and close. A large slab slid on stone tracks and could be adjusted to allow smoke to be released and would keep the interior smoke-free yet warm. Two great corner stones were used to solidify the entire structure. These have been determined NOT to be glacial stones and were moved with great effort to create the structure. The weight of the two stones has been estimated at 45 tons and 70 tons each. A stone bench, comfortable seating for three, has been carved into one wall and a finely made "closet" exists in one wall above a 21 ton worked stone. The ultimate purpose of this feature is unknown.

It is obvious from the layout of the Oracle Chamber that each of the features found within had a particular ceremonial or functional purpose in this incredibly well thought-out and masterfully crafted underground edifice.

Also 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.

According to Charles Pearson, who surveyed the complex in 1987,

. . . the number of very large and prominent stones is limited and those very large stones happen to be the ones that make up the significant astronomical alignments. To state that this site is a calendar by statistical probability or by "accident" and not by design demonstrates a complete misinterpretation of the obvious physical evidence at the site, and a misrepresentation of the facts located at the site. Comments were made indicating that with over 100 standing stones and the freedom to adjust the observation center of the site to any location desired, that purely by chance one could demonstrate a calendar site at any location. This is obviously not the case at Mystery Hill.3

There are many other exciting and surprising features at the Mystery Hill complex. These include an ancient on-site well providing the site with fresh water and not dated to the Colonial period; a megaron court area which may have been an entry area to the complex or a gathering place for large groups of worshippers to meet before entering; a tool sharpening stone and a quartz crystal mining shaft for the extraction of pure quartz.

One of the central features of the Mystery Hill site is the sacrificial table/altar. It is a 4.5 ton grooved slab whose purpose is still under debate by scholars. In the words of archeologist and Mystery Hill curator Robert Stone:

It 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.

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 later—995 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 destroyed—yet what remains should be viewed as one of the most important historical sites in the Western Hemisphere. And Mystery Hill is not—by far—the 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 earth—in 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.

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.

Probably the most intriguing archaeological site in Connecticut is located in Groton and is called "Gungywamp," thought to be an ancient Indian name, but actually ancient Gaelic meaning, "Church of the People."

Besides containing beehive chambers and petroglyphs, the Gungywamp site has a double circle of stones near its center, just north of two stone chambers. Two concentric circles of large quarried stones—21 large slabs laid end to end—are at the center of the site. Extensive fire burning on some of the slabs is apparent which leads many to believe it was an ancient altar. Nearby there are several large pillar stones and one boulder slab that have been carefully positioned along astronomical site lines.

Visiting the Gungywamp site on the afternoon of September 21st, Dave Barron, the head of the Gungywamp Society, saw a sight that he would never forget. He said,

James Whittall had this to say about an astonishing megalithic site he viewed at LeBlanc Park in Lowell, Massachusetts: "There I saw a sight I had not seen since my travels in the British Isles. Situated on a mound were weathered megalithic stones. I was filled with disbelief—it just couldn’t be—western Europe, yes, but here in Massachusetts—no. The reality of the scene was astonishing."

This oval mound was measured at 112 feet long by 56 feet wide. And the stones, as Whittall predicted, pro vided astronomical alignments. The monoliths were oriented east to west, and bearings of the sight indicated that it had been used to observe solar events. The first observation was made on September 22nd, the fall equinox, from the highest stone on the western side from the peak of the eastern most stone. The sun set behind stone number four just as Whittall had surmised.

Taken all together, these megalithic carvings, buildings, monoliths, calendar circles, stone phalli, fertility fetishes and other striking stone monuments, all so reminiscent of those in Europe, might be enough to infer an ancient European culture had built them—but was it possible that the Amerinds had in fact constructed them? After all, scientists are now realizing that an invention, such as pottery or weaving, can be invented in two places by two different cultures at the same time. So what did the undecipherable rock carvings strewn across New England have to tell us, if anything at all? This will be explored in depth in next month’s installment of The Mysterious Megaliths of New England.

FOOTNOTES

1. Robert Ellis Cahill, New England’s Ancient Mysteries. (Salem, Massachusetts: Old Saltbox Publishing House, 1993), p. 41.

2. Barry Fell, America, B.C.—Ancient Settlers In the New World. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), p. 215.

3. Joanne Dondero Lambert, America’s Stonehenge—An Interpretive Guide. Kingston, New Hampshire, Sunrise Publications, 1996), p. 83.

4. Warren Dexter and Donna Martin, America’s Ancient Stone Relics—Vermont’s Link to Bronze Age Mariners. (Rutland, Vermont, Academy Books, 1995), p. 88.

5. Joanne Dondero Lambert, America’s Stonehenge—An Interpretive Guide. Kingston, New Hampshire, Sunrise Publications, 1996), p. 45.

6. Maive and Conor Cruise O’Brien, A Concise History of Ireland. Kingston. (New York, Beekman House, 1972), p. 29.

7. Robert Ellis Cahill, New England’s Ancient Mysteries. (Salem, Massachusetts: Old Saltbox Publishing House, 1993), p. 22.

8. Ibid., p 29

9. Ibid., p. 41

A Concise History of Ireland, Maive and Conor Cruise O’Brien, Beekman House, New York 1972.

America, B.C.—Ancient Settlers in the New World, Barry Fell, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1976.

America’s Stonehenge—An Interpretive Guide, Joanne Dondero Lambert, Sunrise Publications, Kingston, New Hampshire, 1996.

America’s Stone Relics—Vermont’s Link to Bronze Age Mariners, Warren Dexter and Donna Martin, Academy Books, Ruland, Vermont 1995.

Ancient and Modern Quarry Techniques, Dr. David Stewart-Smith, Gamesmasters Publishing Association, Nashua, New Hampshire, 1989.

Keltic Connection, Michel-Gerald Boutet, Gloria Farley and Others, Stonehenge Viewpoint, Santa Barbara, California, 1990.

Keltic Secrets, Donald L. Cyr, Stonehenge Viewpoint, Santa Barbara, California, 1990.

Native American Myths and Mysteries, Vincent H. Gaddis, Borderland Sciences, Garberville, California,1976.

New England’s Ancient Mysteries, Robert Ellis Cahill, Old Saltbox Publishing House, Inc., 1993, Salem, Massachusetts.

Prehistoric Avebury, Aubrey Burl, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1979.

Ruins of Great Ireland In New England, William B. Goodwin and Malcolm D. Pearson, Meador Publishing Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 1946.

Scotland Through the Ages, Michael Jenner, Michael Joseph Publishers, Ltd., London, England, 1987.

Spain at the Dawn of History—Iberians, Phoenicians and Greeks, Richard J. Harrison, Random House, New York, 1987.