They argue that some stones are encased in trees that may have sprouted before the arrival of the first colonists, point to similarities between the ruins and Phoenician architecture, and say that marks on some stones resemble some ancient writing systems of the Old World. The late Barry Fell, a marine biologist from Harvard University, claimed that inscriptions at the site represented markings in Ogham, Phoenician and Iberian Punic scripts. He detailed his finds in his book America B.C.
On the other hand, artifacts found on the site lead many mainstream archaeologists to the conclusion that the stones were assembled for various reasons by local farmers in the 18th and 19th centuries. For example, a much-discussed “sacrifical stone” which contains grooves that some say channeled blood, closely resembles “lye-leaching stones” found on many old farms that were used to extract lye from wood ashes, the first step in the manufacture of soap.