The Claim
There’s a 9000 year old mini Stonehenge at the bottom of Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the largest freshwater lakes in north America and home to one of the strangest discoveries. Under the surface of Lake Michigan lies a small arrangement of standing stones laid out in a rough circle, with numerous other standing stones placed round the outside in a seemingly random pattern.
The two strangest things out this monument is that first of all its thought to be 9000 years old since its almost 40 feet underwater, which would have required an age of at least 9000 years for the land to be above water level, and the second thing is that native Americans didn’t build such things in north America, and especially not that long ago.
The monument or “Stonehenge of Lake Michigan” as its come to be known was discovered by Marc Holly, the professor of underwater archaeology at the Northwestern University of Michigan and his colleague Brian Abbott in 2007.
The circle is estimated to be around 9000 years old but there are various drawings on some of the stones and one is of a mastodon, a large elephant type animal that died out over 10,000 years ago.
Native American tribes typically didn’t build things out of large single pieces of stone, and the layout is familiar with stone circles found across Europe, though non of them match the age of this one, with England’s stone henge thought to be no more than 5000 years old.
Carbon dating stone man-made objects can be very difficult as the stone is likely already millions of years before it was even touched, and since there’s no bones or tools at the site its difficult to get a definite date for when it was built. But two things stand out when it comes to dating, and that its location and the mastodon drawing.
The ice age ended just after 10,000 bce and during this time sea levels were much lower than today. It would have to be at least 9000 years old in order for them to have built it on dry land in the first place, and unless someone finds some native American scuba artifacts it seems that it wasn’t constructed when the area was underwater.
Also the Mastodon drawing is questionable as they died out in north America around 10,000 bce meaning who ever made this monument would have been alive around that time.
There is one major factor about the Stonehenge of Lake Michigan’s authenticity, and that’s confirmation on its existence. You would think that since it isn’t going anywhere, people could dive down in mass and take as many pictures and samples as they like, but the area of the lake that it’s in belongs to a Native American reservation and they have requested its location to be kept secret to preserve it and avoid a tourist boom in the area.
The pictures and person who discovered it seem reasonably credible, but there are those out there who think the whole thing is set up, and it very well could be. Since the location is a secret and the owners don’t want people visiting the monument, it seems this one is going to sit on the back burners for a while until either someone gets permission to visit it, or someone scans the entire bed of Lake Michigan.
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