Any mainstream studies on New England Megaliths?

The “Oracle Chamber” is one of the most interesting and important structures located at Mystery Hill—or anywhere for that matter. It is significantly larger than any other chamber found at the site and contains unique characteristics found nowhere else in any of the other megalithic sites in New England.

A 4 inch by 6 inch shaft, lined with thin facing stones, runs from the exterior and enters through the interior wall at about chin level. The “Speaking Tube,” as it is called, emerges above ground, yet concealed underneath a sacrificial altar with runnels. It would seem that the speakers within the Oracle Chamber could talk into the tube, their voices warped and amplified, carrying up to the altar above and creating quite an impressive sound to a group of worshippers who might be gathered around the altar—in effect making the altar talk.

Also found across the Mystery Hill site are huge monolithic standing stones (some now fallen) all of which line up to sun, moon or star alignments as seen from a central viewing slab located by one of the earlier researchers at the site. From this slab, monoliths align to the Midwinter solstice sunrise and sunset, the November one sunrise and sunset, the Spring and Fall Equinox sunrises and sunsets, the May one sunrise and sunset, the Midsummer solstice sunrise and sunset, the August one sunrise and sunset and true north (this stone is aligned to the star Thuban, the pole star of 2,000 B.C.). On these days the sun will either rise or set above worked monolith stones. Exact alignments coincide, according to scholars and astronomers, with a date of 2499 B.C. to 1900 B.C.

http://planetvermont.com/pvq/v9n1/megaliths.html

it was carbon dating, carried out under the supervision of respected scientists from Geochron Laboratories in 1971 that supported the disputed claims of researchers who were being ridiculed for insisting that Mystery Hill was a site of extreme antiquity. Carbon tests conducted on charcoal found alongside a stone pick and a hammer stone unearthed at an excavation near one of the underground chambers reveal a date of 2,000 B.C. The artifacts were clearly related to Neolithic pieces of the same era in the British Isles and Iberia. The excavation pit carbon tested had been undisturbed before digging and layers of strata above were perfectly intact.  ....

The dolmen usually was erected to commemorate the death of a chieftain or an historical event of great importance and scriptural incisions usually accompany the dolmen on stone markers. Some experts believe that the dolmen was actually a tomb that was then covered in huge amounts of earth—in effect a tumulous tomb in which the earth has been eroded away. Dolmens are frequently occurring structures in the American northeast. There are in fact over 200 examples of dolmens in New England alone and some very impressive examples can be found in our country as far away as California.

Another frequently occurring megalithic structure familiar to all readers is the stone circle. We know of the great Stonehenge complex in England with its huge stones found there and the many calendrical alignments they delineate. But there are ancient stone circles in New England as well.

Besides containing beehive chambers and petroglyphs, the Gungywamp site has a double circle of stones near its center, just north of two stone chambers. Two concentric circles of large quarried stones large slabs laid end to end—are at the center of the site. Extensive fire burning on some of the slabs is apparent which leads many to believe it was an ancient altar. Nearby there are several large pillar stones and one boulder slab that have been carefully positioned along astronomical site lines.

Visiting the Gungywamp site on the afternoon of September 21st, Dave Barron, the head of the Gungywamp Society, saw a sight that he would never forget. He said, “The setting sun had cast a beam of light through the vent shaft at the back of the chamber. This beam of light slowly moved down the east wall and spotlighted into the small beehive crypt near the entrance. This stone-lined tube was designed precisely to permit the Equinoctical sunset to fully penetrate the chamber’s dark interior on only two days during the year—March 22nd and September 21. The high density of garnet in the stones magnified the intensity of the sunlight entering the chamber. It certainly acts as a predictable calendar. The Gungywamp site has been carbon dated to 600 A.D.”³

Many New England communities have within them dirt-covered stone “mounds,” dug into the earth and meticulously lined and covered with stones; some of the stones that cover the tops weigh tons. ... James E. Vieira, a stonemason, writer and Northeast Antiquities Research Association member, believes there is ample evidence that Ancient America was a melting pot of races from other lands, noting that other parts of the country have ancient stone ruins. He says the mound builders may be behind stone construction in the Northeast because their skeletal remains with anatomical abnormalities are found here just are like the skeletal remains in other earthen mounds.

Mound builders are believed to have been prehistoric inhabitants of North America who, during a 5,000-year period, constructed various styles of earthen mounds for religious, ceremonial, burial and elite residential purposes.

...

Some mounds [in America] have been opened and in them found artifacts of antiquity: tools, pipes, carvings, tablets and jewelry.

[Inside of Goshen Chamber]

http://www.masslive.com/living/index.ssf/2012/08/stonemason_james_e_vieira_of_ashfield_studies_mound_builders_ancient_stonework.html

His presentation included a power point of local sites, including stone chambers, turtle effigies, serpent walls and cairn fields in Franklin and Hampshire counties. ...

In Montville, Conn., there is a 38-foot stone chamber. “I don’t know what it is, but I can tell you what it’s not,” he said, adding that another chamber in Upton, Mass., has a 14-foot tunnel. One 25-by-25-foot mound in Putney, Vt., had carbon-dates remains from 492 A.D. “At the Putney chamber, you have to enter through the roof down seven feet,” Vieira said.

One cairn in Andover contained artifacts like an ax, javelin and hammer that were carbon dated to 2000 B.C., he said.

These “giants” were seven to 12 feet tall, and Vieira has uncovered more than 2,000 accounts of them, what he called “a forgotten race.” Some accounts—from Smithsonian reports, magazines, newspapers and town histories—reveal the skeletal remains had double rows of teeth or other anatomical abnormalities.

... Vieira contends that there were races in New England as well as Native Americans who created ancient stonework. “Native American oral history all around the country clearly speaks of a race of giants that existed in the lands when their tribes arrived,” he said.

http://www.masslive.com/living/index.ssf/2012/08/stonemason_james_e_vieira_of_ashfield_studies_mound_builders_ancient_stonework.html