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9k-Year-Old Stonehenge-Like Structure Found Under Lake Michigan
- gotem 6y agoCrazy. Have there been any details revealed yet on how it was transported? Stonehenge is thousands of miles from Michigan
- nick_kline 6y agoThis is a separate site that doesn't have rocks from the famous UK stonehenge. The idea is it might be independently created, as a natural thing people might make to track things like the sun or other astronomical movements (like the movement of the sun at the solstices). And if the age is about 9,000 years old, a little older than the uk stonehenge.
- rsynnott 6y agoI do like the implication that there was some sort of stone-age Ikea that everyone got their standing stones from, though.
- JohnJamesRambo 6y agoKen M?
- blakesterz 6y agoIt was found a few years ago, and the guy that found it has some stuff on his own site: https://holleyarchaeology.com/wordpress/index.php/the-truth-about-the-stonehenge-in-lake-michigan/ https://holleyarchaeology.com/wordpress/index.php/the-truth-...
- cholmon 6y agoGreat context. From that site: > Sadly, much of the information out there is incorrect. For example, there is not a henge associated with the site and the individual stones are relatively small when compared to what most people think of as European standing stones. It should be clearly understood that this is not a megalith site like Stonehenge.
- ChuckMcM 6y agoYes, this is a better reference. That said, I can imagine that to a paleolithic hunter/gatherer it would be beneficial to use an arrangement of stones to "capture" a particular date. Dates of interest might be 'migration', 'planting', or 'harvesting' dates. Setting up stones to cast a specific, and unique, shadow on a particular date is easy to do on that date. And I've done it on hiking trails for things like solstice dates for other hikers to discover later. Since the transformation of the shadow is predictable with motion of the Sun, I've also used it on trails where I experienced good conditions, so that when I come back to that trail, I can look at my 'date ducks' and they will tell me if it was earlier or later in the season when I set them up (assuming they haven't been moved of course).
- whiddershins 6y agoWhat a fascinating comment. I hadn’t thought of any of that at all.
- ChuckMcM 6y agoIt is a fun surprise for people. The easiest one you can do is a pointed rock on top of the duck, and then a "signpost" rock at the shadow tip. If you're hiking trails in northern California and see a stack of rocks, and off to the side where the shadow is you see another rock that is distinctly different (in shade or composition) sitting in the arc that the shadow traces, that could very well be one of my "date ducks."
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> I can imagine that to a paleolithic hunter/gatherer it would be beneficial to use an arrangement of stones to "capture" a particular date. Dates of interest might be 'migration', 'planting', or 'harvesting' dates. This is almost always done by observing the behavior of local plants and animals. For example, you might say that spring starts after the cherry trees have bloomed -- an event which is obvious -- and start your planting then. The precise date will wander around the year, from an astronomical point of view, but it will generally be better chosen each year than any fixed astronomical date would be.
- tigger0jk 6y agoHe notes that there has been more investigation done on a similar site in Lake Huron, here's a research article on that: https://www.pnas.org/content/111/19/6911 https://www.pnas.org/content/111/19/6911
- intricatedetail 6y agoHow do you think in 9000 years people will discover what we have been up to today? Most of our culture will be a weird looking silicon rocks.
- maxerickson 6y agoOne thing that jumps to mind is that there's a thin layer of lead and radioactive stuff on everything.
- whatshisface 6y ago"Are all the accomplishments of humanity fated to be nothing more than a layer of broken plastic shards thinly strewn across a fossil bed, sandwiched between the Burgess shale and an eon's worth of mud?" - Dr. Breen, Half Life 2
- throwaway9980 6y agoAnd chicken bones. So many chicken bones. So many chicken bones that they may think chickens were the dominant species, wiped out by some cataclysm.
- danparsonson 6y ago> ...chickens were the dominant species, wiped out by some cataclysm... I think that describes chicken farming pretty well actually...
- pengaru 6y agoThey'll hunt for silicon chips as we do arrowheads?
- permo-w 6y agoGravestones will probably be our main lasting record
- edgarvaldes 6y agoAs a non American we learn (just a little) about ancient civilizacions from all around the globe but nothing about North American ones, as if they never existed.
- cmckn 6y agoI grew up in the southern US, and we didn’t learn a lot either beyond a couple chapters about local native populations. I learned much more in some classes in college — the American Southwest has been home to several very advanced civilizations and the archaeological record is astounding.
- chapium 6y agoPart of what makes this difficult is a lack of written language for many of these. Also, humans existing in north america is a lot more recent than other ancient civilizations.
- freehunter 6y agoFor the most part we don’t learn about them because we don’t know a lot about them. Many of the pre-Colombian civilizations either didn’t build permanent structures or built them from wood that’s long since rotted away. With a few exceptions they also didn’t congregate in large stationary cities where we can dig to find hundreds/thousands of years of artifacts in the same place . Again with a few exceptions, they also didn’t write down their history for us to read it. As an American we only learn fairly superficial details about the people who were here before us, because we know they existed but there’s just not a lot of historical record. Look up Cahokia, which was a massive city (at Cahokia’s peak it likely had more residents than London did at the same time). And yet all that remains is some piles of dirt.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- derbOac 6y agoMany remains of the mound building civilizations in the present-day US were plowed away, as they were in prime farming geography. You're right that many of the structures were made of wood and dirt that are less lasting than stone, but there were a large number of them that were lost through field preparation. The reasons for this are complex, including a disregard for Native American structures, but in many cases people just didn't know what they were. The mound building civilizations of North America are fascinating to me, not the least of which is because of the pyramidal-mound structures of Central America.
- phkahler 6y agoThis seems as likely to be a prank as real. The great lakes were formed when the glaciers melted. Prior to that the area was under kilometers of ice. Nothing in the geological record seems to allow for humans walking about in that location at any time. But we shall see...
- maxerickson 6y agoThe video discusses the lake level dropping for a period of several thousand years. So there maybe is something in the geological record that allows for humans to be walking about there?
- kkoncevicius 6y ago> The site in Grand Traverse Bay is best described as a long line of stones which is over a mile in length. Hard to imagine someone dedicated to pulling off a prank like that.
- jacquesm 6y agoEspecially under water.
- nix23 6y agoHard to imagine a painting/carving of a elephant/mammoth can survive that long under water so near the ground. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9d/aa/27/9daa2784a29d6e6ce75505f4f23b8b4b.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9d/aa/27/9daa2784a29d6e6ce755... https://www.underwatersculpture.com/wp-content/galleries/homepage/Silent-Evolution_Mexico_clean_diver_Jason-deCaires-Taylor_Sculpture.jpg https://www.underwatersculpture.com/wp-content/galleries/hom... https://theoutline.com/post/872/can-you-touch-the-statues-at-this-underwater-museum?zd=1&zi=5qssk7ee https://theoutline.com/post/872/can-you-touch-the-statues-at...
- kkoncevicius 6y agoI think those elephant lines were supper-imposed on the image to highlight the possible outline of an elephant sculpture. Not the actual picture on the rock.
- aerovistae 6y agoDoes it say anywhere at what depth they found this? Just wondering how it will ever be shared with people.
- colanderman 6y agoFrom the sidebar: "SHOCK CLAIM: Crystal Pyramids ‘found beneath Bermuda Triangle’" … I'm not sure this site is a reputable source.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- reaperducer 6y agoIt doesn't look like it. No contact information. No authors listed for the articles. The only links in the article go to the biography of a small town TV reporter, and Wikipedia. No links to the original source material. Looks like a content farm to me.
- reillyse 6y agoIs the crystal pyramid causing the Triangle phenomena? though....
- Technically 6y agoWhat does this have to do with the content in question? I don't believe every article the NyTimes puts out despite agreeing with other, particular articles they publish. Overall I'd rank 'line of underwater rocks' pretty low amongst the sensational claims that can't be backed up with evidence. Surely this is more worth questioning directly rather than beating through the bush of questioning the publisher's reputation? After all, if the article is valid it would boost the other article's validity. At least, by your reasoning of looking to institutional trust rather than the to the substance of the article itself. Personally, that seems silly and not worth the effort.
- mikewarot 6y agoWhat actually CAN be found there are Methane Clathrates, which might actually be responsible for the loss of boats and planes in the region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate
- technothrasher 6y ago
- dukeofdoom 6y agoThe photo in the article looks very murky. But Lake Michigan can look really Blue in the summer, and has places with great sand beaches. It feels almost tropical in the summer. Probably the zebra mussels filtering the lake have cleared it up.
- EvanAnderson 6y agoThe zebra mussels are what I always heard the clearing attributed to. I spent a lot of summers in the Grand Traverse Bay area in the 80s and 90s. The water got a lot clearer in the later 90s. It's spooky-clear now. (Beautiful area-- I wish there was work there to support my family. I'd move in a heartbeat...)
- dukeofdoom 6y agoI've been to Traverse City two times, each time had a great time. So many fun things to do. And its a little less humid in the summer than Detroit, and has fresher air. But the water is still warm. You can just walk out on the sandy beach and go for a swim, like you're in the Bahamas or something. I used to live in Vancouver, and the local lakes were never warm enough to swim in in the Summer.
- reaperducer 6y agoThere's an event every year called the "whiting" of Lake Michigan. Then the Spring sun warms the water, it reacts with the limestone at the bottom and causes large white swirls through the water. I've seen pictures on it on local TV newscasts taken from helicopters.
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- mgraczyk 6y agoThe photo of the stonehenge-like structure underwater is unrelated to the contents of the article. The actual structure is roughly a line of stones, not a circle.
- dukeofdoom 6y agoIn tropical places they create monuments or statues and sink them to make it more interesting to go dive on. I'm not sure if its been done on the great lakes too. I know Tobermory in Ontario is a famous dive spot for a near surface tanker ship that sank there. Its something I miss about Europe. So many interesting artifacts to look at.
- dmix 6y agoThis is not a Stonehenge-all like at all (the slightly more interesting bit is a possible mastodon 'painting'). IF it's anything it's most likely a small native American driving trail used for hunting game as the video mentions. Where lining up small rocks is sufficient in a V like shape into a 'kill zone'. Stonehenge on the otherhand is an amazing human achievement for the era it was made.
- ncmncm 6y agoMastodons disappeared from North America ~12,800 years ago, 10,800 BCE, coincident with extinction of 31 other large-animal genera, basically everything except bear, bison, and moose. (A bear much larger than the grizzly disappeared too.) Unless you believe in people maintaining memories of mastodons for 1800 years, or pareidolia finding an image not really there, we are talking about a structure much older than 9000 years.
- BuzzwordBingo 6y agoNothing screams credibility like running your content next to pictures of ear boogers and diet products.