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A POSSIBLE MEDIEVAL SCONCE IN MINNESOTA (Or, a Possible Defensive Lookout Shelter)

Towards the end of summer in 2015, I found myself exploring the region several miles south of Glenwood, Minnesota, which offers a beautiful wonderland created by the final retreat of the last ice age about 10,000 years ago.  The area is a glacial paradise, offering a distinctive hill and lake appearance.  Here, one can expect to see one of the finest examples of "kame and kettle" glacial topography in the Upper Midwest.

 I was out enjoying the day, looking for reported medieval Scandinavian stoneholes carved into rocks--like those along rocky coastlines in Scandinavia and like those dozen or so stoneholes hand chiseled into rocks encircling the Kensington Runestone (at Runestone Hill), which I believe is a genuine medieval runic stone document self-dated to 1362.  Many people consider the runestone--discovered in 1898--to be authentic, while many other naysayers believe it is an elaborate hoax.  Unlike the typical hidebound "professionals" in Minnesota, I believe wholeheartedly that Scandinavians preceeded Frenchmen into this region--by hundreds of years!

 So, while driving along a peaceful gravel road, I came upon a young man tending some horses close to the edge of the road.  I decided to stop and chitchat with him, hoping he might be helpful in finding some stonehole rocks in the area.  He turned out to be from Germany, and in a conversion with him about the Kensington Runestone and the possibility of finding oddities such as stoneholes in the area, he apparently became confused by our language differences, and he pointed to a nearby knoll and declared "there's a runestone!"  I was taken aback by his answer, and in the due course of getting permission from his rancher boss to explore the high rocky knoll, I discovered the below-pictured "sconce," or what I took to be a defensive lookout shelter.

 Before long, I came to realize that the sconce is located about an actual day's travel down the Chippewa River from the Runestone Hill area, and then I realized further that it is also a few miles east of the Chippewa River...just as the Kensington Runestone is, too.  
















After giving the situation a lot of thought, I decided that the sconce site and the KRS finding site--Runestone Hill-- were both likely defensive sites, possibly having been established along the Chippewa river as pre-planned camping spots--and possibly even well before the KRS was deposited at Runestone Hill.  It appears to me that Runestone Hill is situated on a moat-like peninsula-island (as described in the runestone's message) at the end of a long ridge coming in from the west--the direction of the Chippewa River.  So it seemed likely that any attack would likely be initiated from the ridgeline, making the site easier to guard and defend.

 The sconce site also seems to have been highly protectable, being perched on the highest knoll in the vicinity.  It seems to fit the description of a defensive lookout shelter.  For instance, look at the photo showing what looks like literal stumbling blocks placed behind the main wall.  Surely the line of small rocks was placed there to trip up any potential nighttime intruders.

 Alice Beck-Kehoe, the preeminent American Anthropologist who believes the KRS is likely authentic, told me in an email that she doesn't think the sconce was made by Native Americans.

 I should mention that one of the rocks pictured above appears to have been worked with a chisel, as though possibly cut to provide a platform or footing for a shelter extention beam...and I am also left to wonder whether the large pyramid-shaped center stone was purposely placed in its seemingly prominent spot, and if so, why?  Obviously, this defensive lookout shelter not far from the Chippewa River warrants a closer inspection--such as with a deep penetrating, ferrous-only metal detector.

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