The New England Antiquities Research Association (NEARA) is a non-profit organization which, according to its website: "is dedicated to a better understanding of our historic and prehistoric past through the study and preservation of New England's stone sites in their cultural context. Founded, 1964."[1] The current president of NEARA is Suzanne Carlson.
Some NEARA members are concerned with what they consider to be controversial archeological sites in and around New England. In particular, sites containing items such as stone cairns and underground chambers are often written about in their affiliated publication, The NEARA Journal. Some of these are the same sites said to fall under the category of ceremonial stone landscapes by United South and Eastern Tribes, Inc.[2] in their recent resolution on the topic. NEARA members' interests include study of large controversial sites such as America's Stonehenge, as well as archeoastronomy of sites. All members are interested in the preservation of the diversity of stone structures in the woods of New England.
NEARA lacks scientifically qualified members and is regarded as historical revisionist organization by trained archaeolgoists and anthropologists. Despite the total lack of any artifacts of European origin at NEARA sites, or any sites in Northeastern USA other than a handful of dated Viking items from Newfoundland, NEARA amateurs insist that their supposed man-made structures are European-made. NEARA's claims have been discredited by a number of trained archaeologists and geologists who point out many of these sites are not man-made at all, and the rest are consistent with Northeastern Native American culture as cultural descendants of the Hopewell and Moundbuilder cultures, both of which made similar structures to the ones touted by NEARA as European.
One observer has noted that "NEARA is also a hotbed of 'Revisionist' thought, the belief that the Americas were widely visited by European and Asiatic cultures before Columbus." [3] (See also Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact.)