These same walls are found all over New England. Farmers when tilling the soil, would move the rocks they dug up. 1. Get rid of them from the area they plan to farm 2. Mark their property lines and 3. To corral cattle. Leave it to humans to romanticize and fantasize about the most mundane things, literally making mountains out of mole hills, or rock walls for this instance.

1840s built by basque sheepherders, you can find miles of then on the other side of the valley footing the Sierra Nevada....

clearly the rivalry between the 510 and 925 goes way back

When I moved to this place there were so many rocks scattered on the landscape which made it difficult to keep mowed for fire safety. I started gathering the rocks little each week and finally had enough to build a BBQ and a small wall. This banker came by to pu his brother and as we were sitting on the porch talking he asked, "Are those real rocks?" He is from Marin County so I suppose fake rocks are all over the place there.

Looks like boundary walls. Maybe to keep cattle in?

I have studied local native American tribes in California, including Ohlone for 50 years. I saw one researcher state, "native Americans in the SF Bay did not have the capacity to build walls". BS. There are fish trap walls on the Bay between Redwood City and San Carlos and another fish trap wall built on the Alameda Estuary. Both can be seen at extreme low king tides and built by the Ohlones. I recently spent numerous hours looking at the south bay walls above Milpitas on Google Earth. The is a strong parallel where sections of these walls are visible at the top of a reintrent at the ridge top. I feel these are game trap walls. There were enormous amounts of Tule Elk living in the Bay marshes for 10,000 years or more. I also know it was difficult for one person with a spear to get close enough to bring down an elk. There is also a long history of Native Americans using fire on the prairies to trap game. My strong feeling, although I don't have proof, is that the Ohlone used fire to funnel elk up into the reintrent and then the game were blocked by these walls. At this junction many people converged on the game from behind the walls with spears and brought them down.

These walls were built before the Gold Rush and before the Spanish settlers of the early 1800s as they had documented their existence upon arrival. The local native tribes have been questioned but even they state that the existence of the walls predated their ancestors. Therefore the earliest known man to the area say the walls were there before they arrived. Nobody knows where they came from. The height of the walls, depth of the walls beneath the earth, length of the walls, patterns of the walls, and size of the stones indicate that they were built a very long time ago, over a very long period of time by a large number of people.

During the Spanish era in California from the 1770's up to the 1840's (yeah, I know about 1821), the horses and cattle free ranged and FLOURISHED (sheep were herded). There were trading ships that annually came around to the West coast for anything of value (Two Years Before the Mast, is a GREAT read), mainly furs and cattle hides. In order to "contain" the livestock to certain regional limits, wooden and stone barriers, in conjunction with natural barriers, were created using the "forced labor" native population, the same as they did over the rest of the "New World". As long as the livestock were kept in a "visible" or "limited" range, they were easy enough to "round up" and harvest. California was a "livestock paradise" in those times and the barriers or fences could be totally crude, as there was no reason for cattle to make an effort to cross any obstacle in its path (just like animal trails in the wilderness aways follow the path of least resistance). These rock walls are located in the more treeless areas, where there were trees and brush, that was employed. This is no "mystery", it's just knowing a little, easy to obtain, interesting history and economics of a region.

That "archaeologist" needs to go back to school and study history. The Presidio was established by the Spanish in 1776 became a Mexican Province in 1821. This was all long before the Gold Rush in 1848. These walls could not have been used as corral or ranching for the simple reason they are not contiguous; they do NOT enclosed an area and are broken up is so many segments it is simply stupid to label them as for ranching purposes.

These and similar walls are all over California and elsewhere. They were sometimes used to delineate property and sometimes to separate fields or pastures but primarily to clear the rocks from fields for agriculture and/or grazing. The lichens look old but many of the stones were already lichen covered when laying on the ground. Yes, there are more rocks in the fields but you can ask any farmer; fields "grow" rocks. The natural freeze/thaw cycle and wet/dry seasons continuously push rock up to the surface from below.

They are at many places in the world. Scotland, Spain, Australia and more.

"I'm Scott Woltors. The history we have been taught is wrong."

The natives put this wall there. Before fences came into play we used rock walls to divide portions of land from one to the next so you know where the lines are drawn to avoid disputes or to prevent your cattle from mixing into the other man's cattle. In Mexico most farm land is still divided this way. People often get hurt when traveling and climbing them to take short cuts. My great aunt fell from climbing over a wall and broke her leg she was alone and had to drag herself for many miles before she was able to find help. Amazing strength she had to be able to do that when I myself had to take many breaks walking through the same area on foot.

I live in Texas and work on a golf course. The course I work on has a rock wall running along the #3 hole and used to run up to #5 tees. The wall is historic, its marks the boundary/property line in one of the old German settlements.

These walls were not corrals or property lines or for livestock... they almost never form enclosures or lines that make sense for this purpose. I have my own theory based on experience. One time a friend and I were hiking off trail in Annadel st. park in Sonoma county (where there are many of these walls) and we saw some deer about 100 yds ahead of us near one of these rock walls that ran from where we were standing roughly in the direction they were. We positioned ourselves on the opposing side of the wall and crept closer and closer to them from behind the wall. We were able to get within 30 or 40 ft of them before we popped up on the other side of the wall and they took off running. We had unintentionally but successfully gotten within close range with a bow and arrow. At this moment I realized these walls, even though dilapidated were still functional. I believe they were built by Native Americans for the purpose of hunting large game. Has anyone postulated this yet? I would have never thought of this if I hadn't discovered it by chance.... from the air and on a map, the walls seem almost haphazard - until you walk among them while you are stoned.

These walls would not stop sheep or goats, and probably cows, from easily climbing over or around them.

I recognized these "walls" as soon as I saw them. Common practice in ranchos throughout all of Mexico which California was part of. There's still whole bunch of these in Mexico to this day.

i walk at Ed Levin county Park all the time, its most def a trip staring at those rocks

But it ends in a stone circle at Mt Diablo and has anyone dug it up to see how deep it's buried?

Simple experiment: Wall going thru a flat plane, determine the count of rocks left in the ground of either side of the wall for 1000 ft moving away from the wall. Determine how many rocks appear for every 1000 sq feet. Move another 1000 ft away from the wall and determine how many rocks appear on the surface. Continue on this route taking count as you move away from the wall on each side. If rocks left on the ground are NOT increasing in number then this is an erroding natural formation traveling deep into the earth. If hand built, then rocks apearing on the ground closest to the wall would be fewer in number. Many such formations of this type exist in California. History channel did such a documentary on anonther formation.

Music by Brian Eno, late 70s.

These walls are 50 miles long and only on one side. Those walls look like they have been there for at least 400 years looking at the lichen on them.

I’m getting extremely curious because I don’t live close to the East Bay I live in Oakdale California but we too have these mysterious rock walls all along the countryside

In azores they do this to separate property if you own alot of acres you would put a wall of rocks around it

These are all over upstate NY. They are from farmers clearing land for plowing the land for livestock feed. The one expert is correct. How do you feed a sudden doubling of a population?

I wish I had watched this before wasting 45 mins of my life on that schlock America Unearthed on History Channel.

The only plausable explanation is that some pranksters built this wall several hundred years ago to bewilder and create controversy among future historians and archaeologists.

This is normal in mexico. They have so much volcanic rock its retry normal walls of rock around homes. Not in the city limits but more rural towns

Background music is from "Fish Rising" by Steve Hillage.

The Spanish said they were there when they made it to that area which is far before settlers hit the region in the gold rush so it obviously can not be from ranching,and that guys a paid archaeologist? 😂😂😂

NATIVE AMERICANS

That's all you see in Mexico so it was just to keep land and cadel nothing crazy

The ranchers prolly lifted the 1200 ton stone at Baalbeck then

never heard of these. where abouts do they start in the berkley hills?

A question I have previously asked ( asked previously ) .. has anyone dug along, underneath these rock walls to check the depth. Are the bottom rocks at or near the surface or do they go down into the earth.. and if so, how far?

I've heard these mundane explanations for the Berkeley hills walls before, and they're believeable , but I'd like to know what the origins of the story that the local "Indians" claimed that the walls were ancient even to them is (or if that's just a made-up tale). I've also heard that there are other walls of this sort in the Pacific Northwest, and further up the California coast, and some people have talked of "stone circles". There are also supposedly a number of "mysterious" walls and structures in New England, so-called dolmens and such. Does anybody know anything about all that? Anybody can pile up rocks, any time, and you can't carbon-date them...

These walls were for cattle? Really? Thousands of miles of wall that twist and turn and make no sense as cattle corrals? That are made from giant megalithic stones, that run up 30 degree hills or steeper? Really dude?

I was just at Ed Levin Park in Milpitas today for a company picnic. It ticked me off that I couldn't see any stone walls from the park even with a spotting scope. But I generally agree with the "expert opinion" except that I think they were built before the Gold Rush, when owners of the huge land grants hires local Indians to build these walls to keep their cattle from going over the mountain.

The Aboriginal indigenous Indians who were here on the land before they were killed off

Right on the money

They have some in Napa they say that Chinese “workers” (or slaves) built them

Difficult to cultivate those beautiful fields with all those huge stones all over them.

Shorter sections of VERY similar stone “wall” remnants exist along the ‘Pine Mountain’ fire access road in West Marin as well. (Just beyond the Woodacre/San Geronimo ridge). And, if its another large handful of far-fetched, unfounded Origin Stories you're after - The 'New Age' day-hiking enthusiasts of Marin County will NOT let you down there either!

These rock fences are very common in northern Mexico… in Mexico they are just cattle fences.

They have these same walls here in Napa Ca they were built by Chinese imigrants that migrated here. Walls are built to seperate properties. Simple explanations

only thing wrong with the explanation the professor and the narrator hold is that to the native indigenous people of the area say the walls are before their time of record keeping and the Spanish questioned their origins as well.

My family is from Mexico specifically the Sierra madre mountain range in durango in the middle of no where and when I went their my family property was fenced by these rock fences

Very interesting. I grew up in the Bay area never even heard of them, gosh I wish I known I'd like to see them.

This is fairly common across farming California, Go anywhere in the Sierra Nevada and you see the same stuff; I don’t know why you wouldn’t just assume some relative recent for of building, it’s not as if the walls would’ve survived hundreds upon hundreds of years without falling apart.

I live in northern California and when driving though places like Jamison Canyon and say when I'm driving towards Rio Vista south bound you can see similar stuff not as long and not so mysteriesuous but pretty clearly was more territory markers and boundary walls for cattle

I heard past generations of Native Americans in the Bay Area had the knowledge of doing large scale controlled burns, as to prevent the natural fires from burning civilization, perhaps these rock walls were made to keep rolling fires from burning over the hillsides into the coastline where people lived

I believe it's a Western extension of the wall at the center of the "fish hook" at the Gettysburg battlefield.

Well, what exact year was the wall constructed?

They are also further north chico Redbluff Lassen.

They look like the desert kites...

This is not a true scholarly explanation. We have the same rock walls along the ridgetop at Taylor mountain park in Santa Rosa. No explanation. No dates. Whoever built them would have left something along the wall.

It looks like somebody from New England moved west and built stone walls, just like they’d done back home, because the stone is readily available, they needed to create borders, and put the stones to good use as a durable fence. This is no different than people now thinking they should have lush, green lawns, like they did back east, except they’re now living in a much more arid region and selfishly have no concept of “misappropriation of water.”. That’s why California has so many earthquakes: to shake all the New Yorkers back east!

Secret sidewalk

Just looks like marking property to me. We have stone walls like this throughout the highlands in the UK. Some of these walls go right up the side of mountains and it does seem like a excessive effort. I dont know a lot about the walls listed her though so I'm open to any theories.

I think ranchers too. Logical explanation 😏😉

Making a mystery where one doesn’t really exist. Walls/fences for early ranching of animals and property border marking. Duh.

OMG people they were used for ranching to keep livestock in. I see pictures of Australia and Portugal why look so far? The hills on silver creek in San Jose have them. In Mexico they are still using this type of fence

Yea like in Rockwall tx it's prehistoric

You'll also find them in the foothills near Knights Ferry, east of Modesto. They look exactly the same as these and go for miles upon miles. I believe they are quite ancient and were part of some long-forgotten religious fetish, because many of the walls make no practical sense. One in particular runs right up to a steep canyon's edge. Nobody would direct their flock to fall off a cliff. Religion has a way of getting men to expend precious energy and resources for seemingly inexplicable reasons.

There is no mystery here at all. My family home's backyard border was established with a piled stone wall built by the previous homeowner. When driving on the Taconic Parkway in New York State, near Fahnestock, you'll see many long, piled stone walls in forests where people seldom walk because it is the landowner's private property. The stone walls in San Jose/Freemont are border walls to establish the landowner's area for their livestock to graze.

Explanation makes no sense European settlers in the 18th Century were the first to make note of the wall and asked the local native tribe about it and they said it’s been there for as long as they know so it couldn’t have been made by a cattle farmer during the golf rush which was in the 19th century

2 reasons for walls. To keep people out Or to keep animals in. This looks like the latter. Possibly just a ranch.

Its fact that alot of Chinese imigrants that came here to California. But no one can sy anything for aure but hes right about the cattle! Nice analogy.

So where exactly are these walls? Can someone point me to the right direction?

I'm on it

That was a long slow walk that went nowhere.

Is it really that hard to understand that it’s a barrier of property for ranchers of that time??

geomancy of the chinese, for outsiders it don't make sense, "it has to override the hill tops/mountain tops, tracing the dragon veins.., dowing on its dorsal vital lines..."

The same style rockwork is all over Kauai Hawaii

Are you familiar with the Montana Sage megalithic stone walls? Or the supposed underground wall of Texas?

Technically, these walls are proof that one person's opinion is just as valid as another person's!

live stock will stop if you hang a thread with tassles on it.... A stone wall however, to our experiance... is a more permenant structure and takes much more effort. So would you build a 300 mile long stone wall to retain live stock ? Just asking...

A mystery vid that is clear, concise, and ends with a plausible theory! Lovely!

Crop cercles

A VERY OLD RANCHER TOLD ME IN THE 60S THE WALLS MILK COW OVER THE HILLS WHERE THEY VERY HARD TO MILK TWICE A DAY HE SAID THEY WERE NAMED THE MASHALS BIG PORTGEZE WELSH CLAN IN BERKELEY ORINDA HILLS YOU COULD FIND MORE THEY HAD RANCH WERE TIDEN PARK IN NOW KNOW MORE OLD THINGS IN AREA IF YOU WANT TO ASK I AM OLD NOW DONT WATE TO LONG

Nearly the same ones in Sweden.

Merino wool Spanish fever.

The human race is used to building walls.

no map of these walls exists?

Wtf is the background musak for? It is insulting.

I thought they were there for livestock. Mainly to keep sheep in.

I think cattle make most sense.

We have hundreds of these "walls" on the south coast of NSW Australia in and around kiama, they are nothing more than padock "separators" or "difiners", just as these walls are, nothing mystical about them.

How can he say they were built to corral livestock, ok my sheep are on this side and yours are on that side.

I was guessing animal fencing too.

Why is this a mystery? Clearing the land of rocks and other debris so it can be used for grazing and planting has been going on around the world for millennia. The vast majority of stone walls were built this way.

They use those back in the gold Rush days to keep the prostitutes in line.

lmao the great wall of Cal-nia couldn't it just be a collective effort from herders/farmers, knowledge brought over from out tea drinking oppressive fore fathers in jolly ol England where such waist high stone walls are commonplace for those that raise sheep and cattle, sure the scale described is impressive (if it is a continuous stretch of wall, {as it sounded to me.}) don't know why there would be so much debate around it, but hey who doesn't love a good mystery amirite?

Guess we are still trying to explain their existence and purpose. Given the area they protect, it would take a lot of sheep or cows to justify their existence. How come none of the gold rush research or histories of California seems to mention them? They remind me of Southern Ireland but are only similar in purpose. The history of the US before Columbus is pretty sketchy and needs more research.

It was actually built by the Romans.

Funny how all the speculation seems to leave out the native Americans that were right there.

I blame Hadrian et al.

Yep, built by Spanish ranchero's was my first thought as the most likely source.

lol....you explained nothing!.... are you unfamiliar with land deeds and titles??...’probably ranchers’ isnt history....its a foolish guess

Who paid for this wall?