Tuesday, November 28, 2006

A Hill in Wayland, MA - the rock piles

... I went across and followed the path a few twenty yards around to the north of the hill and then I angled up the slope through the saplings to discover rock piles all over the northern side of the hill. They were mostly non-descript oval ground piles, with some occasional signs of stacking, hints of piles with lighter rocks or redder rocks but nothing obvious.Here some of the piles seemed to incorporate quartz but only as one of several geologically interesting stones. In the first picture above, look at the veins in the central rock of the pile. Consider also these:Some other piles:
Near the upper limit of the site was a wall running down hill to the north. At the higher end was a separate "comma" of extension to the wall. I'll write about this in the next post.

Most of these piles were on the northwestern and northern slope. There were also a few piles on the northeastern slope:
Here we are in Wayland in a heavily suburbanified area and here are these neat remnants of Native American ceremonialism. It is just un-believable. On the other hand, there was something dream-like and timeless about the moment this morning where I was pushing my way uphill through the saplings and started to see rock piles.

1 comment :

pwax said...

I hate coming back and reading these articles and not remembering where the site was. Shoot! I found it then lost it! So before I forget, I believe this hill is across from one of their conservation lands is it "Hazen"?