Gungywamp

41.39°N 72.06°W / 41.39; -72.06

Gungywamp stone circle

Gungywamp /ˈɡʌndʒiwɒmp/ is an archaeological site in Groton, Connecticut, United States, consisting of artifacts and the remains of colonial structures. Besides containing the remains of houses and storage structure, 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 – 21 large slabs laid end to end – are at the center of the site.

In 2018 the deed to 270 acres of the original 400-acre parcel was transferred to the State of Connecticut by the YMCA. It was named a State Archaeological Preserve in 2023.^[1]

Overview

The 100-acre (40 ha) site consists of multiple elements covering a broad range of time. There are remains of houses and potential cloth and iron processing sites. There are multiple stone chambers believed to be cold storage facilities, often called root cellars, two of which are completely intact. Says Connecticut State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni, "The thing that's unique at Gungywamp is that there are so many of them".^[2]

A few seconds walk from the structures, there is a stone circle consisting of two circles of stones, one within the other, over ten feet in diameter. The outermost ring is made up of twelve stones worked to be curved. Archaeologists who have studied it consider it to have been a mill.^[2][3] The archaeologist Ken Feder notes that unlike European stone circles the stones are recumbent and not upright and identifies it as a bark mill used to extract tannin for leather making. Walking in a circle animals would pull the mill wheel between the double circle of stones."^[4] Other writers have asserted it is a Native American built structure.^[5]

Native American artifacts include arrowheads, stone flakes and pottery fragments. Colonial artifacts include pottery, china, buttons, coins, bottle and window glass, utensils, tobacco pipes, bricks and animal bones. There have been no artifacts found associated with the stone chambers to give any indication of their purpose.^{[citation needed]}

Stone chambers

The specific function and temporal origin of the stone chambers have yet to be definitively established. Colonial era root cellars constructed by Euro-Americans is currently considered to be the strongest possibility. Other possibilities include construction by slaves in colonial times, or by Native Americans such as the Pequot or Mohegan tribes.^{[citation needed]} It has been suggested that the site could be one of the ceremonial stone landscapes described by USET, United South and Eastern Tribes, Inc., in their resolution on sacred ceremonial stone landscapes.

Fringe views

The site is most known among the general public due to the suggestion, originally made in the 1960s, that the stone chambers share similarities with structures from Medieval Ireland. This has been taken by some to indicate that Irish monks, or Culdees, were involved, and that therefore the site contains evidence of pre-Columbian European settlement of the Americas.^[2]