The truth is out there

TUXEDO — Local author Linda Zimmermann says she hopes that people will take notice to mysterious stone structures which are spread throughout the Hudson Valley and surrounding areas, which she believes could be the ruins of sacred structures built by early natives.
On Wednesday at the Tuxedo Park Library, Zimmermann talked about her latest book, "Mysterious Stone Sites: In the Hudson Valley of New York and northern New Jersey, " in which she describes numerous stone structures throughout the area whose origins she disputes.
Many of the structures are boulders balanced precariously on smaller rocks, massive stone walls and stone chambers whose origins have been attributed to the work of colonial farmers or the random result of erosion.
Yet Zimmermann points out in her book that these sites have unusual characteristics which have been overlooked. She argues that many of them show signs of being astrological calendars belonging to early civilizations.
“Cultures did this around the world,” Zimmermann said. She also said it could be possible that such civilizations could have existed in the continental United States by using the Cahokia site as an example.
Cahokia, which resides just outside of St. Louis, Missouri, is a series of large earthen mounds which are believed to be remains of a native city larger than London and proves that there were large pre-Columbian societies on the North American continent.
According to Zimmermann, it doesn’t take much of a stretch to wonder if there could have been similar early Americans living in what is today the East Coast of the United States.
Besides acting as calendars, these sites were considered to be sacred grounds and the structures were often made with an eye toward design and would feature other nearby structures, she said.

Examples

Among those sites, she said, were:
• Gungywamp Connecticut, where a stone chamber resides in the side of a hill and has been claimed to be a sheep pen built by early colonial Americans, but Zimmermann pointed out that the one hole that chamber has allows for sunset to shine through during the spring and fall equinox.
In addition, a letter written in 1675 from John Pynchon to John Winthrop Jr. mentions the “odd stone structures” found near the site. That suggests, she said, that if the structures were of colonial make, they should not have been a mystery to men living in that time period.
• Other structures that Zimmermann mentioned were in the Hudson River where scientists found two stone walls at the bottom of the river when scientists took, which could have only been placed there when the water level was low enough 3,000 years ago.
• Another site is in Indian Hill in Monroe where massive stone walls 24-feet thick and 270-feet long were believed to be built by farmers to mark the boundaries of their property.
However, Zimmermann said that a person standing on the wall would be able to see sunset during the summer solstice.
“I can’t imagine," she said, "how much labor went into that."