17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally a new look at an old site, February 8, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: America's Stonehenge: The Mystery Hill Story (Paperback)
This is not light reading. This is a historical overview of the physiology, use and research at a site with evidence of inhabitation in 2000 BC. The authors go out of their way to avoid committing to *who* was building an astronomical calendar out of stone in southern NH 4000 years ago. Instead, they concentrate on weaving different threads together to show where current research is and why they pursue that direction.
If you've been there. this is a good follow-up to what you've seen. It is also excellent background material prior to a visit. If you have any books by Salvatore Trento, Barry Fell or David Hatcher Childress, this is probably one for your library.
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10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Goudsward Misses The History, February 25, 2008
This review is from: America's Stonehenge: The Mystery Hill Story (Paperback)
While an interesting review of all the activity that has occurred on Mystery Hill from the time the Pattee family owned it, don't look to this book for any enlightenment whatsoever on the ancient origins of the site itself.
Mr. Goudsward is still too blinded by the bigotry so common in New England scholarship over the centuries. He resurrects a saying so common among 19th Century historians when he writes on page 17, "These cliffs became shelters for wandering Native Americans."
Mr. Goudsward, there was a thriving civilization here with artists, artisans, astronomers, agriculturalists, and more. They developed a lifestyle in harmony with their environment. They moved to winter encampments and then back to summer villages to best take advantage of natural resources. They did not, "wander."
On page 44, in explaining away the Native American origin for the Mystery Hill site, Mr. Goudsward says, "but the theory that natives built the site would actually be more controversial than those suggesting European origin - the current professional dogma is quite adamant the New England Indians did not build in stone."
That is because, Mr. Goudsward, the current professional dogma is filled to the brim with racism and bigotry against Native Americans. There is more than enough proof in the historical records to show that Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands not only built in stone, but did so for spiritual purposes. They often worshiped on hilltops, particularly rocky hilltops with caves, shelters, splits, clefts, holes, seismic activity, and/or quartz, near springs, waterfalls, or swamps. Rain water that collected in rock, for example, was considered to have medicinal qualities and was often important to ritual.
But Mr. Goudsward didn't learn all of that. Because he follows the current professional dogma.
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