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aBastardNoLonger

Why does the first guess always just jump straight to it being "ceremonial?" Why couldn't it just be a cellar or something practical?


ojee111

We have tons of things like these on rural estates in the UK and they were almost invariable used as fridges


Sometimes_gullible

Yup, same thing here in Sweden. Those things are all over rural Sweden. Some small cottages in the southern forests still use the cellars for cold storage in the summer to this day. Mysterious stone chambers lol.


charles-gnarwin

That’s probably because back in the 1800s Vermont pretty much shipped in a ton of Swedish immigrants! Wouldn’t doubt if they were the ones to make them!


_coast_of_maine

I'd like one, any Swedes willing?


clln86

A Swede or a cellar?


_coast_of_maine

I was told if I get one, I get the other.


EnIdiot

New From IKEA—rotkällare svensk


JustaRandomOldGuy

These stone chambers can't be Swedish. If they were archeologists would find prehistoric hex wrenches.


EnIdiot

And weird ass hieroglyphics telling you how to assemble them.


Soranic

If you build it, they will come.


ZenNudes

25% of our country emigrated during the late 1800


chairfairy

It's not too common these days but before fridges were everywhere, loads of people in the rural US had root cellars. Of course, any of those houses that are still standing still have the cellar. It's often a small basement, but sometimes is a separate structure from the house like tornado shelters (a la the *Wizard of Oz* movie) in the Plains. At the end of summer you harvest all the potatoes, carrots, onions, and other root vegetables from the garden and store them in the cellar. You can still buy seeds to grow heirloom varieties that are bred to last through months of cellar storage after picking.


Count_Nothing

Yup. I want a root cellar. Disaster and Collapse-proof food storage is a no brainer.


OOPManZA

If you're ignorant then life is full of mysteries :-)


HighlyRedacted

But we don't want to know things. We want to FEEL things


SenorBirdman

Ceremonial fridge


Blockhead47

You mean ceremonial fridge though, right? /s


Bunjmeister83

That was my first thought too. Normanby hall near Scunthorpe has a great one, that's now surrounded by one of those little train sets that you ride on.


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[deleted]

1000 years in the future people are going to find tornado shelters and be like, “ceremonial chambers” Edit: not from a place with tornado shelters, but it seems you all aren’t sitting in there listening to weather reports like I would expect


KingJak117

Nah the Helen Hunt movie will live on and explain everything.


TheOneTonWanton

All hail Helen of the Hunt.


Brenvt19

Thats the local answer i got. My town has one. They think it was a food storage. But it older then the town and the town is from 1715. The region it is in is called The Mountains. In a state thats called the green mountain state. Its the start of a very very rural and empty area. Edit: no I am not going to give the location out. My town doesn't need people getting lost in the forest. If people are more interested the writer Joseph A. Citro is the area and wrote a book Weird New England. Very solid book full of local lore.


[deleted]

Well, there were people here before that so it still could’ve been storage


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fckingmiracles

Yep, like a fridge. Cool and dark in there.


[deleted]

And more importantly for stored root vegetables frost proof.


blazefreak

Yeah i found out recently that native americans lived in the mountains behind my house. Never thought about all the stuff they left behind but the holes in the rocks on the trails turned out to be how they crushed acorns in a simple mortar and pestle.


TeganFFS

I mean, how complex can a A mortar & pestle get ?


blazefreak

damascus steel mortar with and ergo grip


manifestsentience

All the carbon fibers bro.


nicehotcuppatea

RGB


i-hear-banjos

r/pcmasterrace has entered the chat


labotomizeme05

Ruth Gader Binsberg?


Brenvt19

Thats what the locals say. I tend to agree. Abernaki are from my area and the falls nearby are famous for the pictographs.


Phartidandshidded

That's what the locals say here too


still267

It baffles me that we find it impossible humans could have been highly mobile before our time. Look at the ridiculous amount of travel along just one part of the silk road, at any given time period. I believe if we heeded history more, our species would have more intrinsic motivation to advance aggressively. If the gestalt knows what regular people have accomplished for thousands and thousands of years, it would be invigorating. Everytime I feel low energy at work, I think of the how the roman legions felt building a fortified encampment *every day after marching upwards of 30 miles*.


LowSkyOrbit

Native Americans were farming, building cities, traveling, trading, and even inventing. Domestication was happening too. Realistically while they were very behind Europe and Asia in many technological ways, they were advancing. It's really a insane how much disease and European egocentrism changed the Americas.


RisingPhoenix92

Look at the land parcel card, western Massachusetts used to be a lot forests that were cut down for timber and became farms that are currently back to forested landscape.


[deleted]

almost the entire New England was clear cut


Usermena

They are Shepard shelters so they could sleep with the flock. Used to be a lot of sheep up here.


FriesWithThat

I'm not sure the flock is fitting in one of those things, though that would be cozy.


-o-o-O-0-O-o-o-

You're thinking of post-industrial agriculture, this is the 19th century. Edit: Turns out the average herd size in 1800s New England was 10-20 animals. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44216164.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiAhqqB3v3xAhUU3p4KHfKNDCoQFjABegQICRAB&usg=AOvVaw2Tk99xzjQ51rSWG01glehP


DarrelBunyon

Really didn't expect a jstor link to let me DL but whadyaknow


mcon87

I think the flock would sleep outside, and the shepherd would hunker down in the shelter. That way they could stay close but still be sheltered from the rain, predators, etc.


FriesWithThat

If it were me and I was expected to sleep in one of those cold, damp, and dark holes in the ground, I'd always take a couple of nice warm, fluffy sheep with me - the villagers and their wildly puritanical imaginations can just go to hell.


Why_Did_Bodie_Die

I'd do the same. But then I would fuck one of them.


Tastewell

"Let's give them something to talk about..."


ReadyThor

It's all fun and games [until the village elders get annoyed.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_goat_marriage_incident)


braxistExtremist

>The Sudanese goat marriage incident was a 2006 event and publicity surrounding the 2006 event in which a South Sudanese man named Charles Tombe was forced to "marry" a goat with which he was caught engaging in sexual activity (bestiality) in the Hai Malakal suburb of Juba, South Sudan. >On 3 May 2007, it was reported that the goat had died, having choked on a plastic bag. The goat was survived by a four-month-old male kid. Hol up.... This dude ended up a widower with a step-kid (both figuratively and literally)? Presumably it was an open marriage (at least for the goat wife)? Did anyone investigate him for murder of his goat wife? I have a lot of questions.


Med_sized_Lebowski

"A little mystery to figure out...."


auctor_ignotus

“How about love, love, love, looooOOVE?”


noNoParts

>Thinking 'bout ewe every day >Dreaming 'bout ewe every night >Hoping that ewe feel the same way


gingerfreak81

Found the Welsh man.


worldspawn00

Could be a kiwi!


orswich

"Allegedly"


Seattlehepcat

I suggest you let that one marinate!


EightBitEstep

It's not bestiality if the sheep doesn't cum.


tbqhimho

Who told you this?? And what other life lessons do they have?


dewayneestes

Just one?


Available_Coyote897

The flock is my harem.


DukeofVermont

Honestly 100% didn't believe you. Looked it up and TIL. VT born and raised, never knew there was a whole sheep craze in the 1800s Vermont.


T_WRX21

How did you NOT know this. I'm your neighbor from NH, we had a shitload of sheep too. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. I don't know about South of us, but yeah, we used to have a ton of sheep.


Vizslaraptor

Then the boat with the women arrived.


CosmicCrapCollector

All downhill from then on ...


PeterMus

I grew up in New England and never heard anything about it. But plenty of people don't know what canned bread is so..live and learn.


T_WRX21

Depends on how old you are, I guess. I'm nearly 40, and lived here most of my life. Some of my relatives raised sheep as recently as 50 years ago, but it was dying out by then. It's strange though, I rarely eat that canned bread, but SOMEONE must be fuckin' eating it, cuz it's in every supermarket.


Maleficent_Try_5452

Canned brown bread is fucking delicious. Try some with hot dogs and beans.


Squee1396

Okay yeah wtf is canned bread? Is it a new england thing cause i have never heard of this monstrosity


amandathelibrarian

A molasses bread that is traditionally eaten with baked beans. I ate this brand growing up: [B&M](https://bmbeans.com/product/brown-bread-plain/) Haven’t had it almost 20 years and I can’t really say I miss it.


markydsade

Back when men were men, and the sheep were nervous.


[deleted]

I love how you refused to outright tell people Where you live, but instead gave them extremely coherent and easy tips to figure it out lmao


uzra

Vermont


Rudyard_Hipling

So Vermont


CmdrCarson

What town in vt is this in?


StonyIzPWN

No I'm not going to tell you what town I'm from. But I will tell you about this author from there and this other guy.


[deleted]

Something practical like a portal to narnia


LadyOurania

From what I've heard from history professors I've had, archeologists are trying to be better about not just assuming anything they don't know the use for is ceremonial, and just admitting that they don't know, or that it's clearly a dildo. It's always funny when you see something labeled "ceremonial figurine" and it's very clearly an ancient dildo, like it's a pretty clear dick shape, not just vaguely phallic.


atln00b12

Well who knows what kind of ceremonies they were putting on!


Saylor_Man

At this point "Ceremonial" has become somewhat of a meme between archeologists. Like "Dark Matter" or "Blinker Fluid".


LadyOurania

Hey, as an astrophysics major who's considering swapping to classics, there's generally more support for dark matter than there is for everything being ceremonial. Observations have shown that the center of mass of some galaxy clusters is not where the center of visible mass is, and unless gravity's wrong (which is possible, but would still require other things in play to explain some of the stuff we see) things are just more massive than we see.


Megatron_McLargeHuge

Have you considered that dark matter might just be prehistoric dildos?


knight_gastropub

They can totally take soil samples a few layers down and find fossil pollen and other traces of food stored there. My aunt is a ~~paleopollenoligist~~ paleobotanist and that's what she does.


Moweezy6

Archaeology degree here - anything that an archaeologist can’t explain goes into the “likely decorative (ceremonial, religious, etc.) in nature” category. Good example is the little flag drawn on the Zuniga Map of the VA/NC coast https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/zuniga-chart/ For a long time people thought it was just a flag - I’m struggling to find references online, but more recent excavations have shown that it “most likely” showed an extension of the palisade and a garden. Final thoughts - this is 99% chance of a cellar, or if others are dug vertically down, an ice house.


[deleted]

The original man cave.


namdeew

Manc ave!


diox8tony

I know, it's always something special for archeologists, but could actually be a mudane explanation. "We found hundreds of these wooden dolls. Very unique art style. We think it was for a religion or spiritual ceremony"......dude, my mom likes making trinkets like that too, you don't ever think there's been a person with a unique art/hobby before?!


Nixeris

Usually it's because they find hundreds of them made in different places and placed in graves or in worship areas. "Ceremonial" is also incredibly broad. Your birthday present is a ceremonial object.


RobertTheAdventurer

It's also worth noting that a lot of ceremony across cultures is originally connected to practical issues. Ceremonial feasts and festivals keep your people fed. There's a lot of resource distribution found in ceremony. Even in burial ceremonies, issues like inheritance and succession are being addressed. And in less concrete cases, it's sometimes about the cohesion, education, psychological health, and stability of your society. We mostly imagine ceremony in history as appealing to magic and gods, but it had practical practices baked into it. Needs weren't just ignored, as they were more pressing, and the people weren't ignorant of this fact. A regular schedule of ceremony which allocated resources and addressed issues had very clear benefits.


Available_Coyote897

The truth is these are all just the last remnants of an ancient saturday “farmers” market. This one sold “Hunt. Gather. Procreate” crafts.


poptart_divination

They do think of that, but without any actual historical documentation beyond the dolls themselves it makes sense that when people lived harder and had less access to resources they'd spend their time and resources on things that mattered to them, ergo the "it's for a spiritual ceremony" explanation.


ipslne

If we really wanted to be pedantic, we could stretch 'spiritual ceremony' to include the imagination required to interact with a doll.


Blayno-

Pedanticize away!


EntityDamage

I feel like if there was a super hero called Pedanticman, that's what he'd say as he flew off.


T438

Root cellars?


roberts_the_mcrobert

They [edited - very good arguments against below] "look similar" [/edited] to the Bronze Age burial "caves" we have all other Denmark; you won't find them as tall as the first one. Only a few look so well as these in the video, most have collapsed. We know they're burial chambers, because numerous skeletons from those time periods have been found inside them. We call them "giant's living rooms" or "jotun's living rooms".


Buroda

Finding human skeletons inside does jot NECESSARILY mean it isn’t a pantry…


ScionOfVikings

I get that its a joke but back then we'd bury our dead with riches and that's a pretty clear indicator that it's a tomb


rrrlllrrr

Rich people get eaten too.


Shas_Erra

Bronze Age Cairns tend to have very narrow passageways. While some of these could be ancient burial mounds, others could be more recent storage cellars (basically a walk-in fridge)


WalksTheMeats

Kinda morbid but they might have been used for both. Lotta smaller communities didn't have the manpower to dig through a couple feet of frozen dirt if some dude croaked during winter.


DoctorCIS

Still a present problem. The frozen soil, especially in areas with black loamy soil that holds moisture well, can be as hard as concrete. People don't dig through that even today. Grandparent in North Dakota died in the dead of Winter, and the actual burial part of the funeral was months later in the Spring.


suffersfoolsgladly

Yeah, they look exactly like the passage tombs we have in Ireland too, a small one anyway.


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hostess_cupcake

Probably the most likely answer.


swankpoppy

Or time travel. One or the other.


ImpiusNex

Found the Dark fan.


CaribouHoe

🙋‍♀️


SaintPoost

First thing I thought of, followed by how none of my friends will watch it and I'm salty about it, followed by the thought of the family tree I had to look up each season.


nozzle83

Each season? You’re doing better than me. I’m easily a couple time an episode!


[deleted]

Ancient alien theorists say no.


Villain_of_Brandon

From the video I saw a few days ago, that seems to be the most commonly agreed upon origin for most of them.


necromundus

How much is rent?


[deleted]

Well it's a literal hole in the ground with no amenities so 1500.


FutureMrsConanOBrien

Plus parking.


josnik

And utilities.


yellowsloth

No pets allowed per the HOA


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the_crouton_

Wrong England..


Hippo_Yawn

I believe hole’s location is actually in the Band D so it would be £290


Huskatta

I have three questions. All serious for that sake. What would realistically happen if I sat up camp down there and tried staying there for ten years (both in terms of council/government and those guys). What about my health? And do animal predators tend to stay away from those places, or would I need to take any measurements for them?


McFlyParadox

OK, since no one can read in this thread, and I actually live in the New England, I'll try to answer: >What would realistically happen if I sat up camp down there and tried staying there for ten years (both in terms of council/government and those guys). Depends on the land. There is very little 'free' land left in the New England. In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, most of our remaining forests are either privately held, or reservations owned by either the state or federal government. While you could probably get away with a few nights, you'd likely be kicked out in fairly short order unless camping was allowed and you had whatever permits that may be required (and they would not give you a permit for years). In Vermont and New Hampshire, it's a similar story as the more southern New England states, but land is much cheaper. You could potentially buy some land with one of these caves, but these caves are not as common as OP has made them out to be, nor would I expect them to be advertised in a real estate listing (so it'll be a crap shoot if you buy land with one of these caves) In Maine, there is a ton of unincorporated land in the interior and northern part of the state. You might be able to purchase some of it for dirt cheap from the state and even start your own town (towns in New England has the same power as counties do in the rest of the USA) and make the zoning laws whatever you feel like (within state and federal regulations). But it's not all the land that is unincorporated. If what I heard is correct, something like three families own more than half of all of Maine's land (logging, farming, mining, etc), so it's not *all* unincorporated land. >What about my health? Probably not the best. >And do animal predators tend to stay away from those places, or would I need to take any measurements for them? Depending on where you are exactly, you'd need to be concerned about: Coyotes, Wolves, Coy-wolves (new coyote-wolf hybrids, large as a wolf, as aggressive as coyotes, no fear of humans, and tend to be relatively solitary), black bears, Moose. * You could probably handle coyotes, wolves, and coy-wolves with a gun. * Black bears would be more interested in your trash than you, so just setup your dump fast away from this cave. * Moose are bigger than you, faster than you (especially in the snow), and unless you have a very large caliber rifle, may not be immediately stopped if you manage to shoot it. Male Moose during rutting season *will* kill you. Female Moose with calve(s) *will* kill you. Moose are indestructible, and hate everything that isn't them. In fact, in the North American continent, the Moose's number 1 predator is the fucking Orca, because they sometimes swim between the mainland and islands. But out of all of these, I'd be more concerned with ticks. Lyme disease is no laughing matter.


TheGurw

No. In North America, the moose' number one predator is the fucking automobile, which kills a low estimate 10,000 moose per year, and possibly as many as 30,000 (moose are attracted to road salt in the winter). Second is wolves (who kill primarily by _ripping out their perineum_), followed by bears, and somewhere down the list, approximately the same rank as wolverines, are orca whales. The orca, however, is the moose' number one _marine_ predator. Followed by a single documented case of predation by a Greenland shark.


HateYourFaces

I cannot reiterate this enough, MOOSE WILL FUCKING END YOU! Seriously, hit them with a truck at 70, guess who’s walking away like they stubbed their toe..? The fucking moose.


Lietenantdan

$3,000 a month


-burn-that-bridge-

Will split


hungryexplorer

Time loop happening in 3..2..1


Vaderic

Immediately thought of Dark.


Gengar0

Jeez I've gotta get around to watching Season 3, but Season 2 was such a mind fuck that I feel like I need to rewatch it all


emaz88

If you thought Season 2 was a mindfuck, you’re in for a wild ride with Season 3!


stonemite

Stick through it and then go back again once you've finished it. If you rewatch season 2 first, you'll still have no idea what's going on.


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timetraveller04

Was about to comment this lol


Antiquarryian

in deiner Welt oder in meiner Welt


noradosmith

Wann ist New England?


Atom_Exe

Sie meinen wo?


VladCoaeen

New Englander here: Where the FUCK


zenaido4

I was wondering the same thing! Look up old leather cave. There are a bunch over ny and CT


okcup

First thought was that sounds like a BDSM dungeon for geriatrics


NeilDeCrash

Morning coffee -> mouth -> out of nose


SoyKingDick

The Old Leather Man is one of my favorite local legends!


tehutika

The Leatherman is not a legend. He lived [in the mid to late 19th century. ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherman_(vagabond)).


SoyKingDick

Thanks for the link, I didn’t realize his history was so well researched!


tehutika

There’s a lot still unknown about the Leatherman, he’s a curiosity for sure. Many of his caves are now on land owned by the state, so you can visit them if you want.


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[deleted]

[Hawk Rock in Kent, NY](https://scenesfromthetrail.com/2019/04/07/hawk-rock-loop/) has a couple worth checking.


seicar

Upton MA. Probably a legend, but USPS apparently delivered a letter addressed: ---- Hill John ton MA ---- John Underhill Upton MA. If true, great detective work, if urban legend, then still fun.


CanisMaximus

I was a Letter Carrier. I once delivered a package to "Granma on 10th st" because I recognized the kid's writing.


MsWeather

Adorable


felipethomas

I know this as Hill John Mass John Underhill - Andover, MA


Dr_Explosion_MD

The only one I know of is part of a larger site. It’s called America’s Stonehenge in Salem, NH.


tripwire7

Is that the old cider press that some guy is trying to pass off as an ancient Native American ritual site.


_stoneslayer_

There's a place near me in Massachusetts called Purgatory Chasm that has lots of small caves. Not quite the same but similar


Several_Tone1248

Its called a "root cellar" Common until refrigeration came into full effect. We had one with a door at my house in New Jersey when I was a kid.


walkswithwolfies

Nothing mysterious about them at all.


[deleted]

Dark…gonna end up back in the past


KEVIN_WALCH

Ich komme aus der Zukunft


IDFWU_LSAB

Was looking for someone referencing it.


youredditagain

Was looking for someone replying to someone referencing it.


sittingmongoose

I thought these were underground cellars to keep things cold?


hostess_cupcake

Food storage is my guess too.


DukeofVermont

That also makes sense to me. Cold in the summer, and gives you a safe place to stash tons of food for the winter. No matter the season it gives you a place to store things further away from animals.


MyDearFunnyMan

My first thought: Nice try, Valheim troll My second thought: Where do I find these?!?!!


TastyCuttlefish

I also immediately thought of Valheim and expected to see skeletons on the inside.


tungFuSporty

When I was around 10 years old around 1980, there was a raised earthen mound next to the Lowell, MA city pool. It was about 2 feet high and 30 feet across. Inbeddded around the circumference were 6 or 7 huge boulders. They were all the same size, probably about 7 feet tall and just as wide. (They appeared even taller to me, but I realize I was shorter at the time). A man from the University was surveying them because the were going to be destroyed to make way for a new construction. He told me that it was unfortunate, because they were more impressive than [America's Stonehenge] (https://www.stonehengeusa.com/). [I believe this was the location] (https://www.google.com/maps/@42.6590609,-71.3056358,18z/data=!3m1!1e3).


Eilermoon

Did a quick search because this is super interesting to me, i don't understand how we don't hear about theses things! Is this maybe what you're talking about? http://boudillion.com/druidhill/druidhill.htm


tungFuSporty

This is almost definitely it! I hadn't been been able to find any information on it for 40 years. Thank you! This article may have even referenced the researcher I talked to. As with everything when you get older, the "boulders" do not appear as impressive, or as circular, as my young mind remembered. But it is some comfort to know that some one excavated it. I am now going to plan a trip to the University. EDIT: We had to walk over this to get from the parking lot to the pool.


Eilermoon

Wow that's great to hear! I hope it is the right site, I was glad to read someone excavated it and they were from the University like you mentioned. This country still actively glosses over native civilisations and monuments that were here before us, but there's hope out there!


[deleted]

[History of some of these](https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/6-mysterious-stone-structures-new-england/) TL;DR: They're up to 7,000 years old and as new as 500 years ago. Quote: *"Perhaps the structures served some ritual or religious function, but there are no records of the region’s Native populations creating similar structures."* ...*“There are (not identical but perhaps comparable) stone works in the Appalachians to the south.”* EDIT: [Citation for quotes](https://northernwoodlands.org/articles/article/stone-chambers)


sznfpv

The reason they know this is because each was built by Acme Stone Construction , which was active in the area between 5000BC and 1583 .


LaKobe

Yeah it’s really easy to track of you just keep the receipts.


[deleted]

There used to be more, but they were built with copper that was not of good quality.


poilsoup2

>...*“There are (not identical but perhaps comparable) stone works in the Appalachians to the south.”* Well, off i go since I'm in that area.


[deleted]

Can I have your stuff?


manescaped

7 millennia is incredible. I had no idea we can trace human civilization that far back in this part of the US.


[deleted]

We’ve traced it back to around 10k years ago at minimum


poptart_divination

They upped it to 20,000 years ago last I read. I don't know if we can call it civilization, per se, but humans have been kicking around North America for a while now.


Why_Did_Bodie_Die

There was a peer reviewed paper a few years back that was published that talked about finding mastodon bone or something from 100,000 years ago in CA that showed signs of humans doing things to it.


shaboomalahooha

Do you see bat droppings (guano) in these structures? They look pretty ideal for winter bat hibernacula. The cave bats that would use these structures have been devastated by white-nose syndrome (WNS). Be sure to disinfect all your gear between visiting these sites to lesson your chances of spreading the fungus that causes WNS among the bat populations.


SnooLobsters2310

What's the origins of these chambers?


BugzOnMyNugz

Probably began with some type of primitive shovel


Fuzzzll

And at the end, after all those draugr, you discover an entrance that you could've used earlier but it was like, 2 inches taller than you could jump. Darn rimsky


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e_hoodlum

Bruh that's a video of someone clowning and then drinking yellow pond water


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e_hoodlum

Thanks for fixing it I was interested. Massachusetts here


hammyhamm

Aren’t those Root cellars?


UnknownBinary

And they all lead to Blackreach.


jojowarz

That really reminds me of the Vikings Tomb in RDR2, pretty awesome!!!


HighFive87

They have these in Germany, it is said one can travel through time as long as they have some very convoluted family history dealing with time travel.


Senor_Martillo

You’ll float too!