Stone circles are the stuff of ancient rituals and druid mythology. While many of us are most familiar with the stone circle at Stonehenge near Amesbury, England, which dates back to about 2500 BC (4,525 years ago), there are numerous examples of ‘menhirs’ (standing stones) and ancient stone arrangements worldwide.
Some of these stone monuments are even older than Stonehenge. Northern Japan’s Ōyu Stone Circles, discovered in 1931, for instance, date back some 3,500 years, while there are Aboriginal stone circles dotted across Australia, some of which have been estimated to be nearer to 10,000 years old.
Stone monuments are rarer in America, however. Which is why, in 2007, archaeologists got excited when they discovered what appeared to be a human-made arrangement of stones at the bottom of Lake Michigan.
One of the archaeologists, Mark Holley, has been trying to raise funds to excavate the site ever since, protecting it from disturbance by withholding its exact location.
At this point, it’s not clear how the stones got there. One possibility is that the line marks a ‘driving lane’ for caribou hunting, like a better-studied, 9,000-year-old stone arrangement in Lake Huron, which would have been dry when the lane was marked out.
Lake Michigan was dry until about 15,000 years ago. By some estimations, then, the stones could have been in place for much longer than those in Lake Huron, and Stonehenge.
This article is an answer to the question (asked by John MacPherson, Ripon) 'Are there any other Stonehenges?'
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