What The Stones Say

With so many possible theories, let's find out what the stones are able to say about themselves.

FRAMING THE ENIGMA

Medicine Wheels are visually provocative; a compelling puzzle resulting from the unknown plans of their builders.   And we're so good at solving puzzles that we often forget to ask whether our solutions are "correct" - whether they are relevant to those original plans. Medicine Wheels are complex enough to provide apparent evidence for almost any theory (e.g. "They point the way to Dairy Queen restaurants"), so our imaginations need some discipline.

When almost anything can be said about Medicine Wheels, we need to ask first what may be said: how does what is known provide a container for what might have been?  This is "information science", the systematic analysis of the structure, implications and limitations of available information.  In this case there are only two kinds of valid information: 

1. Objective Information:  This includes anything we can observe and quantify about Medicine Wheels, such as features, sizes, orientations, site characteristics, archaeological materials, etc. While this is 'hard' information, we're certain to measure many things that had no meaning to the builders' plans, so there will be lots of 'noise'.  Also, erosion and vandalism create lots of uncertainty in these data.
2. Ethnographic Information: Medicine Wheels are "prehistoric", yet close enough to history that there should be a reasonable basis for them in the known lifeways and beliefs First Nations peoples. The caution here is that ethnographic information can have many interpretations.

BILLIONS OF BOULDERS

Boulders are more abundant on the Great Plains than stars in the night sky, and for thousands of years humans have been using boulders for countless purposes.  This raises the first two simple but deeply important questions about Medicine Wheels:

1. What Makes Them Different?   What distinguishes Medicine Wheels from literally millions of other boulder configurations scattered across the prairie, including tipi rings (rings of boulders that held down the edges of tipi dwellings), cairns, effigies, buffalo runs, etc?  
2. What Makes Them The Same?  How can Medicine Wheels be considered a group when we don't know who built them, or when, or why, etc?  

These questions are critical because many researchers have focused on one or a few sites that seem to support their particular theory.   For example, if a researcher selected the few sites that seem to point toward Dairy Queen restaurants, they could bolster their finding by saying that all remaining sites aren't Medicine Wheels, or aren't 'Dairy Queen Medicine Wheels'.   The faulty logic is obvious: without an independent, objective classification of Medicine Wheels, few reasonable conclusions can be made about them.

FOUR TYPES OF MEDICINE WHEEL

A formal mathematical classification of 97 Medicine Wheels sites based on 21 objective variables has provided a statistically reliable set of four groups (see diagram below) which can be generally described as follows:

1. GROUP 1:   A central cairn and spokes, but no ring.
2. GROUP 2:   A central cairn and large ring, but no spokes.
3. GROUP 3:   A central cairn and large ring, with an entryway or effigy.
4. GROUP 4:   No central cairn, but small ring and spokes.

In this classification no variables concerning site characteristics and feature dimensions rose to the top: the presence or absence of features turned out to be most significant to group discrimination.  This is also important because the presence or absence of features also provides an unambiguous way to distinguish Medicine Wheels from other Plains boulder configurations. Medicine Wheels are clearly distinguished as configurations involving at least two (2) of the following three features:

1. Central Cairn
2. Concentric Ring(s)
3. Radiating Spoke(s)

You can view examples of each Group by browsing the Directory, and view their distribution on the map below.

A FOUNDATION FOR ANALYSIS

This objective classification of Medicine Wheels is a critical starting point for all studies. For example, if a researcher suggests that Medicine Wheels point the way to Dairy Queen restaurants, and they find one that does, then the other members of that Medicine Wheel's Group should also point the way to Dairy Queen restaurants or there is clearly a problem with that researcher's suggestion.   This is just one way, using information science, that Medicine Wheels can start to speak for themselves.

Go to the Medicine Wheel Directory