East Bay Walls

Coordinates: 38°12′20.32″N 122°57′57.67″W / 38.2056444°N 122.9660194°W / 38.2056444; -122.9660194 East Bay Walls are also known as the Berkeley Mystery Walls. These crude, stone walls are located in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. In places, they are up to a meter high and a meter wide; the walls run in sections anywhere from a few meters to over a half mile long. The rocks used to construct the East Bay Walls are a variety of sizes. Some are basketball-sized rocks, while others are large sandstone boulders weighing a ton or more. Parts of the wall seem to be just piles of rocks, but in other places it appears the walls were carefully constructed. The exact age of the walls is unknown, but they have an old appearance. Many of the formations have sunk far into the earth, and are often completely overgrown with different plants.[1]

Purpose

The purpose of these walls is still unknown. Since the wall is not continuous and is composed of multiple sections, they could not have been used as a fence. They are not tall enough to have been used as defense mechanisms.[2] The walls function is unknown as well as the constructors.

Origin

The Ohlone Indians have been considered most likely to be the builders, although they were hunter-gatherers and are not known to have built permanent structures. The Mongolians also have been suggested as the source for the walls; in 1904, UC-Berkeley Professor John Fryer suggested that the walls were made by Chinese who traveled to California before the Europeans. Some specialists have noted that the walls look similar to structures found in rural Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine.[3] No evidence has been found about who built these walls.

Self-proclaimed forensic geologist Scott Wolter has theorized that the wall is only two to three hundred years old, suggested by the thick weathering rind on the limestone rock he was authorized to sample.[4]

Locations

The East Bay Walls are accessible in several area parks, including Ed R. Levin County Park [5] in Santa Clara County and Mission Peak Regional Preserve [6] in Alameda County. The walls are found in the east bay of San Francisco.

References

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