East Bay Rock Walls and Alignments
There are many crude walls throughout the hills surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area. In places, they are up to a meter high and a meter wide and are built without mortar.
The walls run in sections anywhere from a few meters to over a half mile long.
The rocks used to construct the 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 walls 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.
Now known as the “Berkeley Mystery Wall” on the ridge above Tilden Park.
The Stone Corral in Morgan Territory. Park Rangers and many others dismiss this as the work of some old rancher. We don’t think so. We believe this was an important Native American ceremonial site. Because of the year round spring and the multiple bedrock mortars in the immediate area, not to mention the non-western wall building construction and the proximity to the Lower Village, we’re sticking with our thesis.
The Round Valley “Prayer Seat” or Tseksel according to archaeologist Joseph Chartkoff, in the middle of a 300 bedrock mortar village site.
No written documentation exists to identify when they were built, by whom, or why. Some people consider the Ohlone Indians to have been the builders.
Clayton Ranch stacked alignment.
Mount Diablo looming over the Clayton Ranch
As of 2016, archaeologist Jeffrey Fentress has been measuring and mapping the walls to eventually gain protection from development or other destruction. Additional stone walls with unclear origin or purpose occur in other places near the San Francisco Bay, and researchers continue to discover more information about the walls.
Mission Peak and Ed Levin Park feature many extended alignments
The purpose of the walls is unknown. At first sight one might think it was a defense construction of some kind, but there are certain problems with this theory.
The walls are not continuous and are often composed of multiple sections.
In addition, the walls are not usually high enough to have been used as defense mechanisms.
It is also therefore highly unlikely they were used as fences. So, why were they built?
The rectangle on Walpert Ridge is associated with many other alignments and bedrock mortar sites on the ridge. Hard to imagine it corralling sheep, cattle, horses, or goats. But what? Perhaps a ceremonial use, visible across the bay to the Peninsula.
More alignments on Walpert Ridge
The long low one in the middle distance leads to a natural Spring mortar site.
After meandering throughout the Oakland hills, the walls head inland towards Mt. Diablo where we encounter mysterious stone circles, up to 30 feet in diameter.
In one place the walls form a spiral 200 feet wide that circles a large boulder.
Ed Levin Park
Sunol Ridge possible prayer seat.
Sunol Ridge rock alignment leading to a spring source.
Sunol Ridge rock alignment leading to a rock cairn
The Spanish settlers in the area reported that the walls were already there when they arrived, and when they asked the local Ohlone American Indians, they said the same thing. In 1904,
the founder of the Contra Costa Club said the walls were clearly of prehistoric origin and could be evidence that an advanced civilization had once settled in the East Bay.
Sierra Vista Park in San Jose. What possible use was this squigley alignment?
We believe some of this work could have been done by ranchers, Basque shepherds, Chinese laborers, or some unknown others.
Aliens from outer space perhaps? We don’t think so.
If the early Ohlone built some of them they did so for a reason.
Much more scientific interest and research is required.
To view our GoogleEarth map of Bay Area Native American Indian sites