Saturday, May 20, 2006

Flat faced piles

by pwaxCompare this with the "Canonchet" pile posted by JimP. Both piles have one clean, nearly vertical, face (the left side in the one above). It has been observed already that such piles have other sides that are not so well constructed and not anywhere near a flat. The thought is that the purpose of the pile is to create that flat face, which puts no requirements on the other sides of the pile. So what is such a flat face for? This pile above is from the same site in Westford as the pile-space-pile examples I showed earlier, along with an aperture pile. With the latter type of piles, two possibilities are suggested: one is that you look at something through the aperture; the other is that some light shines through the aperature. I believe that aperture piles, the pile-space-piles (I probably should have called it pile-gap-pile) and flat-faced piles all have similar or inter-related functions. I also think we are narrowing in slowly on what that function could be.

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