Американың Стоунхенджі: Жұмбақтар мен тарихы

Tourist attraction in New Hampshirethe archaeological site in New Hampshire

America's Stonehenge is a privately owned tourist attraction and archaeological site consisting of a number of large rocks and stone structures scattered around roughly within the town of Salem, New Hampshire, in the United States. It is open to the public for a fee as part of a recreational area which includes snowshoe trails and an alpaca farm. A number of hypotheses exist as to the origin and purpose of the structures. One viewpoint is a mixture of land use practices of local farmers in the 18th and 19th centuries and construction of structures by owner William Goodwin, an insurance executive who purchased the area in 1937. Some claim that the site has a pre Columbian European origin, but this is regarded as pseudoarchaeological. Archaeologist David Starbuck has said: "It is widely believed that Goodwin may have 'created' much of what is visible at the site today." The site was first dubbed Mystery Hill by William Goodwin. This was the official name of the site until 1982, when it was renamed "America's Stonehenge", a term coined in a news article in the early 1960s. The rebranding was an effort to separate it from roadside oddity sites and to reinforce the idea that it is an ancient archaeological site. The area is named after Stonehenge in England, although there is no evidence of cultural or historical connection between the two. It is mentioned, as Mystery Hill, on New Hampshire Historical Marker No. 72.

Archaeologists radio carbon analysis of charcoal on the site shows that there were humans occupying the area 4,000 years ago. The remains of a Native American wigwam have been found in the area and a replica can be seen next to the trail. Associated with it were two fire pits that date back to 2,000 years ago. A canoe about 300 years ago can be seen in the museum. The site first appears in print in the 1907 History of Salem, N. H.:

text=Jonathan Pattee's Cave. He had a house in these woods 70 years ago; took town paupers before the town farm was bought. This is a wild but beautiful spot, among rough boulders and soft pines, about which the most weird and fantastic tale might be woven. There are several caves still intact, which the owner used for storage purposes. Many believe that Pattee built the site in the nineteenth century, and no unequivocal pre Columbian European artifacts have been found there. The site's history is muddled partly because of the activities of William Goodwin, who became convinced that the location was proof that Irish monks (the Culdees) had lived there long before the time of Christopher Columbus, and he sought to publicize the concept. He held a strong belief that the site was built by Irish monks, and because of this he rearranged many stones to fit his theory. The site has been altered by stone quarrying, and also by Goodwin and others who wanted to move the stones to what they considered to be their original locations; Goodwin might have been responsible for much of what can now be seen. In 2019, the site was vandalized with power tools, with police saying the person may have been trying to re enact a scene from a fictional work. On March 4, 2021, NH State Police arrested a member of the online group "QAnon" and charged him with criminal mischief.

There is a so called "sacrificial stone" which contains grooves on site that some say channeled blood, but it 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. The "sacrificial stone" could have also been a cider press bed stone, a common tool among colonial farmers in New England, the grooves in the table serving to collect the cider.