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In the Spring of 2005, Canadian divers conducting a project in MacDonald Lake at the Haliburton Forest and Wild Life Reserve, came upon an ancient stone structure - 40 feet below the present lake level. Initially the structure was considered to have been ferried by glaciers created during the last ice age, thousands of years ago and dumped where they happened to melt at the end of one of the more recent cold-freezes.

There’s been several ice ages in the history of the Earth. What’s commonly called ‘the ice age,’ is actually the most recent one, which began about two million years ago, and was characterized by cold, and relatively warm phases. Out of that, there have been four major continental glaciations recorded in North America. The last began about 70,000 years ago, and ended about 8,000 BC. At the peak of the last glaciation, approximately 97% of Canada was covered by ice.

We’re currently in an interglacial phase that could last for another 10,000 or more years.

The discovery of this mystery rock formation (an assembly of now seven rocks) were thought to be compound perched erratics (found in northern North America), where 2 or even 3 rocks happened to land on top of each other, leaving behind a natural structure. However, when geologists and archaeologists saw images of the object - a 1,000 pound, elongated and south pointing rock sitting on baseball-sized stones at each end, which in turn, were resting on a massive, several thousand pound slab on top of the ledge, they expressed doubts about its natural origin.

Foremost, the straight edges and lack of roundness, as would characterize rocks scoured by glaciers, prompted them to discard the erratic theory. But could the structure be of human origin? If so, how could that be established?

Subsequent dives closely examined the structure for any signs of the use of tools, decorative images or other irregularities, to no avail. The thick layer of silt covering the vertical surfaces suggests that certainly within living memory no human has ever touched the structure.

Geologists have now pointed to a dramatic drought, which gripped Eastern North America between 9000 and 7000 BCE. Conditions were so dry during that time that lake levels in the Great Lakes were up to 50 meters lower and inland lakes, like McDonald Lake, which were still fed by spring melt and summer rain water, were assumed several dozen feet lower than their present water levels.

Many questions remain about the site, but knowing that this structure is possibly 11,000 years old, will it go overlooked?

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