North Salem Dolmen

North Salem, New York


Photos by Carol A. Hanny


The North Salem Dolmen is located near the post office along the main road through the town. (see below for more details) It is hard to miss. There is a sign erected nearby that states that it is a glacial or balanced boulder. I question a glacier dropping the capstone on 5 pieces of limestone. My verdict is still out on this one. I just don't know. If anyone has any more information on this, I would be happy to hear from you. If anyone knows if there is more limestone in the area, if is it abundant around those parts, I would like to hear from you. I have also read or heard rumors that there are earthworks (ones not mentioned in the sources below) visible from the air in some of the fields nearby and that there are also inscriptions in the area.
The North Salem Dolmen

-Quote from "America B. C." by Barry Fell, 1976

"... the largest Celtiberian dolmen yet discovered in North America, located at North Salem, New York. The 90-ton capstone is supported on the apexes of five erect peg-stones. Probably the memorial of a Celtiberian king, the North Salem dolmen most closely parallels a similar monument near Dublin. At Danbury, Connecticut, just across the state line, occur six Celtiberian megalithic chambers, some underground, associated with Ogm and Iberian dedications to the sun god Bel"


-Quote from "Manitou" by James W. Mavor, Jr. and Byron E. Dix, 1989

"Pedestaled boulders supported by quarried pedestals, clearly erected by man, have been identified in New England. It is most likely that they were erected by historic or prehistoric Native Americans for ritual use, but we cannot eliminate an intercontinental influence of several thousand years antiquity. Even if some pedestaled boulders are glacial creations, which could be the case if they are supported entirely by natural boulders, they could have figured in ancient ritual among prehistoric people. In fact, if they are entirely natural, they were present when the first post-glacial people arrived in New England and could have been part of ritual from that time.

A particularly spectacular specimen of pedestaled boulder is a massive boulder of ninety tones supported by five standing stones, located by the roadside in North Salem, New York. It is not on a hilltop but beside a stream in a valley....

....In North Salem, New York, in the southern reaches of the Mahican territory, there is a monstrous pedestalled boulder of 90 tons, supported on the points of five standing stones set deep into the soil. It is clearly similar to many structures, usually called dolmens, found all over the world, which are thought to have been places of ceremony and sometimes burial of ancient people. That this boulder could be solely the result of glacial forces is a notion with extremely low probability, ...."



The peg-stones

If anyone has any other info, I would love to hear about it! Thanks!
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