You’ve probably heard of Stonehenge–that mysterious collection of megaliths (big rocks) over in the old England. But did you know that America has its own Stonehenge here in New England?

If you want to see a prehistoric archaeological enigma, all you need to do is head about 40 miles north of Boston to Salem, New Hampshire, where you can explore 30 acres of cave-like dwellings, astronomically aligned rock formations, a sacrificial stone, and other mysterious structures left behind by an unknown people.

America’s Stonehenge opened to the public in 1958 under the name Mystery Hill Caves. Renamed America’s Stonehenge in 1982, the site continues to intrigue visitors and to puzzle archeologists and other researchers. I’ve visited the southern New Hampshire attraction twice, and each time I was mesmerized by the strange series of stone structures and compelled to develop my own theories of how they came to be.

Were the astronomically aligned megaliths positioned by migrant Europeans, maybe the descendants of the original builders of Stonehenge, who arrived in America long before Columbus? Were the secret passages and chambers constructed by Native Americans? Is this truly one of the oldest megalithic sites in North America, as radio-carbon dating would suggest?

Origin

The site’s history is muddled partly because of the activities of William Goodwin, who became convinced that his Mystery Hill was proof that Irish monks (the Culdees) had lived there long before the time of Christopher Columbus, a concept he sought to publicize. He moved many of the stones from their former positions to better support his idea.[4]

Proponents of a pre-Columbian, yet non-Native American, origin for the site argue that some stones are encased in trees that may have sprouted before the arrival of the first colonists, claim that there are 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 and amateur epigrapher, claimed that inscriptions at the site represented markings in Ogham, Phoenician and Iberian scripts, which he also called Iberian-Punic.

Artifacts found on the site lead archaeologists to the conclusion that the stones were actually assembled for a variety of reasons by local farmers in the 18th and 19th centuries. For example, a much-discussed “sacrificial 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.

Carbon dating of charcoal pits at the site provided dates from 2000 BC to 173 BC, when the area was populated by ancestors of current Native Americans. In archaeological chronology, this places indigenous use of the site into either the Late Archaic or the Early Woodland time periods.

In 1982, David Stewart-Smith, director of restoration at Mystery Hill, conducted an excavation of a megalith found in situ in a stone quarry to the north of the main site. His research team, under the supervision of the New Hampshire state archaeologist, excavated the quarry site, discovering hundreds of chips and flakes from the stone. Both the state archaeologist and Dr. Stewart-Smith concurred that this was evidence of indigenous tool manufacture, consistent with Native American lithic techniques, although no date could be ascertained.

It is possible that in its original form the site may have been one of the ceremonial stone landscapes described by USET (United South and Eastern Tribes) in their resolution on sacred landscapes.

If you want to draw your own conclusions take a photo tour of America’s Stonehenge!