About This Structure
The Lot 5 Standing Stone is a small upright flat stone set at the center of a circular formation of stones near the middle of Lot 5 on Oak Island. The feature was uncovered in late 2025 by Rick Lagina and Gary Drayton during the Season 13 metal-detection program on the lot, which Rick and Marty Lagina acquired in 2023 from the estate of Robert Young.
The setting carries weight. The standing stone sits in the same central section of Lot 5 where the team had previously recovered three Roman coins, a Roman-era lead barter token later isotope-matched to ore from the Iberian Peninsula or Italy, and a series of iron artifacts whose composition archaeometallurgist Emma Culligan has repeatedly tied to seventeenth-century English manufacture and to material connected with the Sir William Phips theory advanced by Scott Clarke. The lot also contains the deliberately buried circular and rectangular stone foundations that lead archaeologist Laird Niven and his team have been excavating since 2023.
When Lagina and Drayton brought Niven to the new feature, his examination supported two conclusions. The upright flat stone at the center had been placed by hand rather than left in position by glacial action or later surface disturbance. And the stone, in his words, was set to "signify or mark a location." Niven drew a comparison between this small formation and the larger rounded stone feature closer to the Lot 5 shoreline, and recommended that the team clear and bisect the circle to determine its purpose and age.
The discovery first appeared on screen in The Curse of Oak Island Season 13, Episode 4, "The Smoking Gun," which aired November 25, 2025.
Several questions remain open at the time of broadcast. The stone has not been dated. The surrounding circle has not been fully exposed. No artifacts have yet been recovered from beneath or within its immediate footprint. Whether the marker corresponds to a property reference from one of the documented post-1753 occupants of Lot 5, to an earlier survey point, or to the older European deposits already documented on the lot will depend on what the planned bisection produces. The proximity to the Roman coin finds makes it a candidate for further attention even before any of those answers arrive.
Where It Was Found
Found at Lot 5, near the stone structure — Oak Island, Nova Scotia, Canada.
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