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Megalithic Site / Petroglyph Beneath Lake Michigan?

blessmycottonsocks

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The situation surrounding this site is as big a component of the story as the details of the site itself.

The boulder suggestive of a mastodon petroglyph is one of a number of stones detected and inspected by divers back in 2007. There's been little or no follow-up research on the site since then. Insofar as the array of stones involved is only 40 feet beneath the surface accessibility is not that big an issue.

The site lies within the Grand Traverse Bay Underwater Preserve - a protected area within which divers are prohibited from disturbing or removing items:

http://www.michiganpreserves.org/grandtraverse.htm
http://www.gtbup.org

Furthermore, Mark Holley (one of the site's discoverers, and still on staff at Northwestern Michigan College) has kept the location of the site secret since its discovery - in part to avoid it being inundated with recreational divers, and in part by apparent agreement with local representatives of the region's indigenous peoples.

Presumably for these (and perhaps other ... ) reasons neither Dr. Holley nor anyone else seems to have performed any follow-up surveys or examinations of the site.

Holley and his co-discoverer Brian Abbott made a presentation about the site at the 2008 International Submerged Lands Conference. They generated a PDF file of their presentation, but it's MIA. The file's online location is defunct, the Wayback Machine didn't archive it, and I can find no other trace of it elsewhere. The original URL for the PDF file was:

http://www.submergedlands2008.com/presentations/Holley_session4ISLMC08.pdf
 
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Here is a photo of Dr. Holley and the purported petroglyph stone I plucked from one of the many blogs that have popularized the find. It affords some context as to the stone's size and to illustrate how prominent the possible petroglyph appears. Some other illustrations or photos found online have enhanced or exaggerated the outlines of the alleged figure. This one would seem to be the most "authentic" in terms of how it actually appears.

Holley&PetroglyphStone.jpg


SOURCE: https://hauntheads.wordpress.com/2017/04/25/michigans-stoned-or-michigans-stonehenge/

NOTE: One account of the discovery claims Holley scraped vegetation residue off the stone to reveal the alleged figure. I'm not sure whether this would be a violation of the Preserve's regulations prohibiting disturbance of items found within its borders.

NOTE: The blog page from which I obtained this photo is dated 2017, but I've located no evidence that Holley has visited the site that recently.
 
Photographic evidence is merely suggestive, and more detailed information about the stone would be needed to determine whether the apparent figure is a natural feature or a human-inscribed petroglyph. Because the stone cannot be removed for closer inspection this raises a big problem for anyone researching the stone.

According to this March 2009 article in the college's daily newspaper:

https://dspace.nmc.edu/bitstream/ha...-16-complete-read2.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

... one of Holley's underwater archeology students named Kurt Jankowski had demonstrated a prototype for, or model of, an underwater laser scanner that could in principle permit detailed data collection on the stone's surface features. As I understand it Jankowski had submitted an application for funding to pursue the development of a scanner that could be used at the underwater site to examine the petroglyph stone.

I can't find any follow-up to this story anywhere. I don't know whether Jankowski was able to build the full-fledged scanner, much less whether laser scanning tech had ever been employed to further examine the stone.
 
Here's the sonar image of the site.

traverse-bay-728x400.jpg

As you can plainly see, the stone array is not arranged in a circle as many of the online accounts make it out to be.
 
Good research, EnolaGaia!

The context photo certainly makes the supposed petroglyph look far less convincing and I'm edging towards pareidolia on that.

Your link above gives a timeline as recent as 6,000 years ago for this comparatively shallow part of the lake last being above water.
That could just conceivably put the "henge" in the same ball-park as other ancient North American earthworks, such as Watson Brake.
I'm not aware though of any comparable megalithic structures in the region, so remain sceptical, pending further investigation.
 
This 2009 Chicago Tribune article mentions some aspects of the story that are overlooked or omitted by most accounts. Here are some excerpts illustrating these rarely-cited tidbits ...
Underwater stones puzzle archeologists

Though the stones could signal an ancient shoreline or a glacial formation, their striking geometric alignment raises the possibility of human involvement. The submerged site was tundra when humans of the hunter-gatherer era roamed it 6,000 to 9,000 years ago. Could the stones have come from a massive fishing weir laid across a long-gone river? Could they mark a ceremonial site?

Adding to the intrigue, one dishwasher-size rock seems to bear an etching of a mastodon.

"The first thing I said when I came out of the water was, 'Oh no, I wish we wouldn't have found this,'" said Holley, whose usual prey is sunken boats. "This is going to invite so much controversy that this is where we're going to be for the next 20 years."

This spring Holley and a student from Northwestern Michigan College hope to make laser scans of the image that will yield a computer model. That will help scientists assess the site, which is otherwise off limits because of American Indian concerns that the area could be sacred. ...

Mastodons were facing extinction when early humans were on the scene, and the few that still existed in North America lived much farther south, evidence shows. ...

Still, Hank Bailey of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians said, "There's a lot that we haven't learned." Moreover, to American Indian eyes, the rocks seem to be arranged with some purpose, he said.

"It could easily be a ceremonial site," said Bailey, who gave underwater photographs of the stones to religious leaders. "The same kind of thing that I see there is the same kind of things we use, so why couldn't it have been connected to our people further back than modern archeologists know?" ...

Humans of that time frequently arranged stones to dam streams -- to trap fish and for other reasons, said Northwestern University archeologist James Brown.

"Until they're investigated archeologically, it's hard to tell," Brown said of the submerged formation. ...

To satisfy Grand Traverse Bay's American Indian community, which wants to minimize the number of visitors to the site, and to preserve his prerogative to research the spot, Holley has kept its exact location a secret.

He said he hopes a computer model of the gouges in the mastodon rock will help experts tell whether the features were a trick of chance cut by glacial forces or were the work of ancient humans. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2009-02-08-0902070444-story.html
 
Finally ... Here's how Dr. Holley summarizes the subject on his own website. The webpage cited here is undated, so I don't know how old or recent these comments may be.
The Truth about the “Stonehenge” in Lake Michigan

This site seems to gain a life in the media about every six months or so. Sadly, much of the information out there is incorrect. For example, there is not a henge associated with the site and the individual stones are relatively small when compared to what most people think of as European standing stones. It should be clearly understood that this is not a megalith site like Stonehenge. This label has been placed on the site by individuals in the press who may have been attempting to generate sensation about the story and have not visited the site. The site in Grand Traverse Bay is best described as a long line of stones which is over a mile in length.

Dr. John O’Shea from University of Michigan has been working on a broadly similar structure over in Lake Huron. He has received a NSF grant to research his site and thinks that it may be a prehistoric drive line for herding caribou. This site is well published and you can find quite a bit of information on it on the internet. It is highly possible that the site in Grand Traverse Bay may have served a similar function to the one found in Lake Huron. It certainly offers the same potential for research. Unfortunately, however, state politics in previous years have meant that we have only been able to obtain limited funding for research and as a result little progress has been made. We have been monitoring the site and a few other archaeologists have looked at it underwater. Recently, a couple of the technicians associated with the initial project back in 2007 have made television appearances, although there is really nothing new to report.

At this point in time we are not disclosing the location of the site due to security concerns. ...

FULL STORY: https://holleyarchaeology.com/wordpress/index.php/the-truth-about-the-stonehenge-in-lake-michigan/
 
Certainly the straight alignment and regular spacing of some stones, with a hint of a curved wall at the end, do hint at some sort of corralling structure, so the "prehistoric drive line for herding caribou" is not implausible.
At 6,000 years+ that would still make it the oldest artificial structure in North America though.
 
Good research, EnolaGaia!
The context photo certainly makes the supposed petroglyph look far less convincing and I'm edging towards pareidolia on that.
Your link above gives a timeline as recent as 6,000 years ago for this comparatively shallow part of the lake last being above water.
That could just conceivably put the "henge" in the same ball-park as other ancient North American earthworks, such as Watson Brake.
I'm not aware though of any comparable megalithic structures in the region, so remain sceptical, pending further investigation.

Thanks ... :hoff:

Some miscellaneous comments ...

As Holley states on his website, there is no "henge" here. The site consists of scattered large stones comprising a rough line extending for a mile or so on the lakebed.

One aspect of the location's being kept secret is that the line of stones' orientation is not described. Grand Traverse Bay consists of two long bays running basically north / south, separated by a long narrow peninsula.

If the line of stones runs across one of these bays I'd suspect the weir theory is likely to be in play.

If the line of stones follows the longitudinal (north / south) orientation of its bay I'd think the stones may represent erratics dropped by glaciers retreating from the stream valleys that become the bays. I haven't seen any account that mentions the possibility of the stone array being such glacial detritus.

One must bear in mind that the bottom of Grand Traverse Bay is littered with all sorts of human debris - especially shipwrecks ranging from small boats to larger commercial vessels. This debris also includes pilings, foundations and other remnants of historical structures like piers and bridges.

Another long-shot explanation might relate to shipping and navigation on the treacherous Great Lakes. If a larger vessel were in trouble (e.g., entering the bay to shelter from a big storm) it's not beyond reason to think it shed ballast to lessen the risk of grounding - thus leaving a long linear trail of stones.
 
Certainly the straight alignment and regular spacing of some stones, with a hint of a curved wall at the end, do hint at some sort of corralling structure, so the "prehistoric drive line for herding caribou" is not implausible.

I'm not sure where along the mile-long line of stones the ones shown on the sonar image were located (e.g., in the middle; at one end). If that's mentioned in any of the accounts I missed it.
 
It would be interesting to find out the Chippewa and Ottawa ancestral and historical knowledge of the area. Forty foot depth is not deep in comparison to other bodies of water. It is quite possible that people lived on that spot and flooding eventually took over the land with the people moving back, but possibly not far from the area.
 
Thought the petroglyph reminded me of something.

It was these markings from la Grotte de Bernifal in France, that some pseudo-science sites described as a Mammoth clashing with a theropod dinosaur!

View attachment 29210
The thing on the left looks more like an elephant seal.
 
Here's the sonar image of the site.


As you can plainly see, the stone array is not arranged in a circle as many of the online accounts make it out to be.
In a Stonehenge thread i commented on how stonehenge from above looks like when you press your boob against the glass shower screen. This looks like the other booby has now come into contention and pressed as well.
 
...stonehenge from above looks like when you press your boob against the glass shower screen.

watermark.php


l’ve seen a blouse bunny or two in my time, but l’m admitting defeat on this one. You’d have to be experiencing severe boobeidolia to get a “Phwoar!” out of that.

maximus otter
 
On the surface level, Stonehenge looks like a bunch of rocks in a weird formation.

But it appears that other countries might have been on the same wavelength as it was discovered that a similar stone structure had been found underneath the waters of Lake Michigan in the US.

resize


You think the British counterpart is old - 5,000 years old to be exact - well, this one found in the US is in fact whopping 5,000 years older than Stonehenge.

This discovery was made some 17 years ago by a team of archaeologists off the coast of Traverse City, Michigan.

While data gathering, Holley's team discovered a series of large stones, all of which were arranged in a circular pattern.

Analysis that followed suggested that the stones were deliberately arranged in a circular pattern by humans….experts [believe] them to be around 10,000 years old.

To analyze the structure of the stones further, Nelson put together photographs to create a modern 3D rendering of the rocks.

Upon closer inspection, he discovered an image of what appears to be a Mastodon.

https://www.unilad.com/news/us-stonehenge-structure-found-bottom-lake-144364-20240206

maximus otter
 
On the surface level, Stonehenge looks like a bunch of rocks in a weird formation.

But it appears that other countries might have been on the same wavelength as it was discovered that a similar stone structure had been found underneath the waters of Lake Michigan in the US.

resize


You think the British counterpart is old - 5,000 years old to be exact - well, this one found in the US is in fact whopping 5,000 years older than Stonehenge.

This discovery was made some 17 years ago by a team of archaeologists off the coast of Traverse City, Michigan.

While data gathering, Holley's team discovered a series of large stones, all of which were arranged in a circular pattern.

Analysis that followed suggested that the stones were deliberately arranged in a circular pattern by humans….experts [believe] them to be around 10,000 years old.

To analyze the structure of the stones further, Nelson put together photographs to create a modern 3D rendering of the rocks.

Upon closer inspection, he discovered an image of what appears to be a Mastodon.

https://www.unilad.com/news/us-stonehenge-structure-found-bottom-lake-144364-20240206

maximus otter
I really need to see the research articles behind this... I'm having huge doubts.
 
Wasn't this first posted here 4 years ago?
Are they still no nearer confirming whether it's a genuinely ancient construction or not?
 
On the surface level, Stonehenge looks like a bunch of rocks in a weird formation.

But it appears that other countries might have been on the same wavelength as it was discovered that a similar stone structure had been found underneath the waters of Lake Michigan in the US.

resize


You think the British counterpart is old - 5,000 years old to be exact - well, this one found in the US is in fact whopping 5,000 years older than Stonehenge.

This discovery was made some 17 years ago by a team of archaeologists off the coast of Traverse City, Michigan.

While data gathering, Holley's team discovered a series of large stones, all of which were arranged in a circular pattern.

Analysis that followed suggested that the stones were deliberately arranged in a circular pattern by humans….experts [believe] them to be around 10,000 years old.

To analyze the structure of the stones further, Nelson put together photographs to create a modern 3D rendering of the rocks.

Upon closer inspection, he discovered an image of what appears to be a Mastodon.

https://www.unilad.com/news/us-stonehenge-structure-found-bottom-lake-144364-20240206

maximus otter
How is the 10,000 year dating arrived at?
 
How is the 10,000 year dating arrived at?
I'd guess that this figure was arrived at from evidence that the site was exposed dry land around then rather than underwater.

Wikipedia suggests that the history of the primeval lake ("Lake Chicago") was a bit complex during the last glaciation. Perhaps that site was available to megalith builders for periods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chicago#Chronology
 
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