American Stonehenge, or the Time that My Friends Took Me on Holiday to Watch My Head Explode

I’ve lived in England for nearly three years now, and yet I have never been to Stonehenge. I feel like that’s a bit embarrassing as an archaeologist, but I just never made the time for it so far!

That said, I have been to American Stonehenge. Yeah, that’s a thing.

According to the owners of the site, American Stonehenge is exactly like its English counterpart – built thousands of years ago by ancient seafarers who travelled from Europe…or maybe an unknown Native American culture…one of the two. The site is allegedly over 4,000 years old, based on “Phoenician” and “Ogham” writings found carved in stone.

In actuality, American Stonehenge is a site originally known as “Mystery Hill” that has been a roadside attraction for decades. The “mysterious” stone buildings and structures on the site were most likely originally made for farm storage, with additional ones created once it became a tourist site.

So why would I be at such a pseudoarchaeological site?

Well, blame my friends. Apparently they thought it was funny to see how increasingly annoyed their archaeologist friend would get at a fake site – and they were right (there’s a great video somewhere of my face getting more and more angry-looking as we watched a presentation about the prehistoric Europeans that sailed to America to erect their Stonehenge).

But I have to admit, it was a bit fun to walk around and correct the signs posted around the site, as well as teach my friends a bit more about my own field. Although as archaeologists we should be combatting pseudoarchaeology when we can…I think sometimes we can also take a short trip to one of the biggest hoax sites there is and enjoy ourselves a little (and for a great crash course in pseudoarchaeology, check out my friend Stephanie Halmhofer’s new series at Bones, Stones, and Books!).

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