6,500 Year Old Anchor Stones in FLorida

Originally posted by benevolent tyrant

Originally posted by Byrd

consider the impact that has on a small 20 person ship when a 1 ton weight suddenly is shifted to one side (with the help of, say, 10 men which adds another 1,000 lbs or more) in preparation to tossing it over the side.

Byrd, you make the assumption that the ship using a one ton anchor weight would be a small ship. I don't know, off hand, the size or weight of a ship that would typically use an anchor of that weight but I would hazard a guess that it would be a fairly large vessel.

That was my point... very few ancient ships could carry anchors of that weight.

I didn't want to go into the maths of the length of the ship needed to be stable when a weight of that size was tossed overboard (not to mention hauled up from the ocean) or to bore folks with remarks about tilting points and so forth. But for a one ton anchor, you need a very large vessel -- something capable of carrying cannons.

Originally posted by EdenKaia
Here is the picture yet again:

Now, I've never been to this place, but from the slope of the road in the background it does look to me like the area where this stone is situated is somewhat elevated.

I noticed the same thing.

What are the odds that this stone was used as a pagan ritual marker noting perhaps the Solstices, or maybe even something a bit simpler, like marking certain times of the day as the rays of the sun pass through the holes?

Well, I'd have to say "none" unless you meant modern pagan rituals, and it's unlikely to be calendar related. The sun is pretty much overhead in Florida so you're not going to get much of a lengthy shadow except at dawn and at evening. Can't tell which way the orientation is from the photo, however.

Granted, pagan rituals were not as abundant in the States as they would have been abroad, but were present nonetheless. They can still be observed today in certain sects.

Erm, could we have a definition of "pagan? The native AmerInd religions are sometimes still practiced (often heavily contaminated with Christianity) but they didn't have the elaborate practices of the Maya and Incas. And they're technically not "pagan" unless you mean it under a blanket term of "everything that isn't Christian". If that's the case, it's kinda confusing.

It is not, however, difficult to look back at records of road construction and engineering logs. Was the road already established before modern paving and local dwelling construction? If so, if the stone was already there, one would think someone would have made a note of it as they built around it.

Y'know, those are darn good questions and observations. I realize that one stone isn't his sole find, but they're questions that can be raised about larger stones such as the one shown.

They might be the result of some horizontal boring machines used to run pipe under existing roads. If these were found during some later construction and left around as rip-rap they could be viewed out of context quite easily. Couldn't someone examine the holes and determine what they were cut with? At least to determine if they were cut with modern machinery, that is.

They could have been vertical borings from the engineering tests done before the road was built. The boulder could have been moved and uplifted durring the building process.

We need to bear in mind that the Chinese ships, although they were built out of bamboo and other organics, were still VERY buoyant. If a chip was 400 ft L x 100ft W, then I'm sure that it could have at least two 1-ton anchors on board without any fear of capsizing.

Also, people have questioned the Chinese ability to have transported anything across the oceans in a boat of that size. One must understand that the Chinese were the most advanced civilization in existence on Earth. They even had rocket boats that would lift up out of the water and fire smaller rockets from inside at enemies in battle. Gunpowder would change everything for them. Transportation then becomes a non-issue if you ask me.

TheBorg

Originally posted by TheBorg
We need to bear in mind that the Chinese ships, although they were built out of bamboo and other organics, were still VERY buoyant. If a chip was 400 ft L x 100ft W, then I'm sure that it could have at least two 1-ton anchors on board without any fear of capsizing.
TheBorg

You can find bamboo almost anywhere these days. I would challenge you to take a stick of it and tie even a minutely weighted rock to the shaft and see how much it could hold before being pulled under. You don't have to capsize a ship to make it unseaworthy. You are talking about not one, but two of these stone anchors on a ship like this. I would refer you to those links that I mentioned in my previous posts. There is quite a bit of information there that can state this argument better than I have the time and character space to do.

I still maintain that those holes are the result of modern activities, (most likely road building ). Nevertheless, the following couple of articles with pictures are quite interesting.

www.freep.com.../20060628/NEWS07/606280407/1009

www.chron.com...

Originally posted by EdenKaia
You can find bamboo almost anywhere these days. I would challenge you to take a stick of it and tie even a minutely weighted rock to the shaft and see how much it could hold before being pulled under. You don't have to capsize a ship to make it unseaworthy. You are talking about not one, but two of these stone anchors on a ship like this. I would refer you to those links that I mentioned in my previous posts. There is quite a bit of information there that can state this argument better than I have the time and character space to do.

If you'll reread what I said, I specifically said, "If a ship (EDIT: Spelling) was 400 ft L x 100ft W, then I'm sure that it could have at least two 1-ton anchors on board without any fear of capsizing." I was just saying two 1-ton anchors, not that huge thing there.

What I had assumed by my statement was that if one extrapolated that out a bit, one might come to the natural conclusion that the Chinese may have built even bigger ships, capable of carrying even heavier weights.

And a question, who said that the ships were made out of bamboo ONLY? I never did.

TheBorg

Originally posted by TheBorg
If you'll reread what I said, I specifically said, "If a ship (EDIT: Spelling) was 400 ft L x 100ft W, then I'm sure that it could have at least two 1-ton anchors on board without any fear of capsizing." I was just saying two 1-ton anchors, not that huge thing there.
What I had assumed by my statement was that if one extrapolated that out a bit, one might come to the natural conclusion that the Chinese may have built even bigger ships, capable of carrying even heavier weights.
And a question, who said that the ships were made out of bamboo ONLY? I never did.

TheBorg

You should go back and reference the links that I provided. There is only one major record claiming that the Chinese built ships that were four hundred feet long in the first place, and that record has been considered to be a bit mythical more than literal. The sheer size of a wooden ship like that would require some sort of additional support to keep the ship from breaking itself apart in the rough seas, something like iron strapping along the base of the hull. Nothing like this has ever been found on Chinese Junk ships This is all just for the four hundred foot long ship. The ships that you describe, those that would be "much larger" would surely be impossible. Do you actually realize how long four hundred feet is? And for the record, the stone in Florida probably weighs about a ton. Also, again, Chinese Junk ships did not use stone anchors. Theirs were made of iron.

Originally posted by TheBorg
And a question, who said that the ships were made out of bamboo ONLY? I never did.
TheBorg

You're right, you didn't. You said,

We need to bear in mind that the Chinese ships, although they were built out of bamboo and other organics, were still VERY buoyant.

Alright, so what other organics were you refering to that kept the ships so buoyant? Consider that older Junks were made of softwoods such as pine, cedar, etc, though admittedly teak was later used. They employed things such as lime oil and such as a sort of bitumen, but what organic material made them buoyant besides the bamboo? The wood? If that is what you meant, then I would assume that this was a give-in. They hardly would have fashioned their ships out of iron, or something equally in-organic and hardly seaworthy. Also, bamboo was mostly used in the rigging and the sail structure. It had little to do with the hull itself.

They even had rocket boats that would lift up out of the water and fire smaller rockets from inside at enemies in battle.

One particularly interesting rocket was the Ming dynasty Huolung Chushui or "Fire Dragon Emerging from Water". The Huolung Chushui was a 1.5m length of bamboo, carved to resemble a dragon's head and tail, and powered by four large propulsion rockets. Nearing its target, the four rockets would in turn ignite secondary rockets slotted into the bamboo within the mouth of the dragon, shooting out and dispersing, to spray a deadly hail of smaller incendiary arrows at the enemy. Fired from just above the water surface, this "cruise" missile reportedly could skim 2 or 3 metres above the water surface and had a range of two to three li. This was probably the world's first double-stage rocket and a crude forerunner of the modern naval cruise missile.

Chinese Siege Warfare
This is the only reference I could find to rockets being used in a way such as you described. Do you have any support for these "hovering boats" that you could link to? I am actually quite curious how they would have worked, considering the propulsion needed to lift a ship and crew out of the water using rockets alone. Then there is the issue of doing it again. These early rockets were based on gunpowder. They would have had to replace every single one each time the boat was elevated. And when you have something like that which is described above, why would you need to lift your ship from the water anyway? Other ships were easily dispatched by these surface rockets, and anything on land could be fired from the deck.

Gunpowder would change everything for them. Transportation then becomes a non-issue if you ask me.

I don't see how the invention of gunpowder makes transportation into a non-issue. The subjects are entirely unrelated. An leap on one front does not necessarily correlate to a similar leap on another. Unless, of course, you meant that the Chinese actually used gunpowder fueled propulsion systems on wagons, carts, and ships! If you could prove that one, I would truly be humbled.



[edit on 29-6-2006 by EdenKaia]

Could it have been used to possibly Moor a ship? I thought when he meant anchor the ship it was to tie the ship down when they were in a port. I doubt something that big would have been thrown overboard. If anything they tied the rope from the boat to that huge heavy thing and it was kept next to the docks. Maybe thats why they were found up and down the coastline for the boats to tie up to and possibly thats why it doesn't resemble the actual boat anchors that were in the other pictures.


Pie

Originally posted by ThePieMaN
Could it have been used to possibly Moor a ship? I thought when he meant anchor the ship it was to tie the ship down when they were in a port. I doubt something that big would have been thrown overboard. If anything they tied the rope from the boat to that huge heavy thing and it was kept next to the docks. Maybe thats why they were found up and down the coastline for the boats to tie up to and possibly thats why it doesn't resemble the actual boat anchors that were in the other pictures.

Donato said it clearly was an artificial formation with distinct rope grooves running through both holes and other properties that show it may have been used as an anchor or mooring stone.

(Taken from the original article)
You know, that's got to be one of the most insighful and logical answers I've seen yet. It makes me curious how close this bluff is to the beach?
Here are some images I dug up of some Viking mooring holes that they often cut right into the stone.




The similarities make for a much better argument than the theory of an anchor stone.





[edit on 29-6-2006 by EdenKaia]

Originally posted by EdenKaia
You know, that's got to be one of the most insighful and logical answers I've seen yet. It makes me curious how close this bluff is to the beach?

Since I doubt very much would have changed weather wise, (Possibly water level has changed) I'm thinking hurricanes now, so there must have been hurricanes then. Tying up to a wooden pier would have been fruitless. Tying up to a couple of 2ton stone mooring maybe safer.



Pie

A mooring stone makes perfect sense to me.

Here's the scenario from a relatively old salt (me), even though my seas are the Great Lakes.

If I wanted to explore an area on shore where there is no docking, I would drop my anchor in deep water, so that my boat is safe from hitting shoals or rocks as the wind makes it drift. For further protection I would carry a rope to shore and tie it off there so that the vessel is halfway between the anchor point and the shore tie-off.

nice critical thinking, Pieman

I have been patiently waiting for someone to bring up the mooring stone point. Took longer than I thought. Local trees would have been palms and mangroves. neither are suitable for tying off ships to. Seems like we would still need to identify the nature of the stone to determine if it was pre-existing and cut on site.
Another option might be that the were pully points for a ferry across a canal. Don't know enough about ships or boats to know if this is a viable idea.

I still favor the modern construction idea. If there are any local ATS members that could access public records to research construction permits issued that would be helpful.

Originally posted by ThePieMaN

Originally posted by EdenKaia
You know, that's got to be one of the most insighful and logical answers I've seen yet. It makes me curious how close this bluff is to the beach?

Since I doubt very much would have changed weather wise, (Possibly water level has changed) I'm thinking hurricanes now, so there must have been hurricanes then. Tying up to a wooden pier would have been fruitless. Tying up to a couple of 2ton stone mooring maybe safer.



Pie

It's not next to a beach, It's next to a river.

It's not next to a beach, It's next to a river.

Then the mooring stone concept could still work, as just about every kind of ship from those times would send smaller vessels upriver to explore deeper than the larger ship could go.

The big question is what was the geography like pre-columbian settlement?

Florida has a LONG history of draining, dredging and moving canals, rivers, swamps etc.

It's Saxer.............. the "Einstien of Archaeology" and I wouldn't use the euphanism unless you all had something big to learn from me.
Yes there were giants, Titons of atlantis roamig ancient Florida as the Eden of old. See the evidence and you won't be fooled by the rest of society. the garden of the three Hespreides did exits at the Prseant location of Tarpon Springs, Florida. The world history has been rewriten by the King of archaeology and the world of truth seeking indeviduals.

When I see "stones with holes" and "Florida" mentioned together, My immediate
question is What kind of stone? I see he mentions the one as being limestone.
I have a few pieces of limestone or marl from Florida that my couisin gave me that have similar nice, neat holes in them. The holes, so I'm told, came from the stone forming around tree roots or an old branch, which then rotted away. They're apparently somewhat common down there. Mine are nowhere near as large at that one in the pic but I wonder if it might not be the same sort of thing?