Now, listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.
Most archaeologists don't think the structures at Mystery Hill were built by ancient Europeans. Here's why they aren't convinced.
First, it's true that the stones at Mystery Hill are arranged in the same way as stones at European sites. But here's the problem. The upright standing stones we see at Mystery Hill today are probably no longer in their original positions. You see, the Mystery Hill site belonged to a private owner in the 1930s and historians suspect that the owner moved many of the stones around. In fact, the owner may have been trying to make the site look more like England's famous Stonehenge. By doing that, the owner probably hoped to attract more tourists to the site and make a financial profit.
Second, what about those lines carved into the flat stone? If you're not an expert, a few straight lines might look like a simple writing system, but that's not conclusive evidence. Most archaeologists don't believe that those marks are actually ancient European writing. Those marks are probably just some accidental scratches made by farming equipment, since the area was used for farming for a long time, you know, a metal plow rode over the stone several times and left some scratches behind.
Finally, even though the type of quarrying done at Mystery Hill suggests European work to some people. Archaeologists have found other ancient objects at Mystery Hill that were clearly made by Native Americans. Specifically, they found smaller stone objects such as jewelry that Native Americans wore as declaration. When archaeologists took a closer look, the jewelry had the same type of tool marks as the large stones. This suggests that the same kind of hammering tool was used to work both the large stone structures and the jewelry. This is strong evidence that Native Americans created the smaller objects as well as the large stones.
