Fenton Rd - extending knowledge of the sites in Leominster State Forest

Last year I blogged and publicized the locations of some rock pile sites along Fenton Rd in Leominster State Forest, corresponding to locations B and C in the map fragment below [click here and look down the page a ways]. This account it about sites at A and a more extensive site on the hillside between B and C at D.

I was thinking all winter about going back out to the end of Fenton road and trying to explore more in the northerly direction. In the end, I got over to the landfill area where the woods are full of blown in plastic bags, before turning back to the eastern side of the slope and ending up exploring downhill from where I was before. I turns out that what I thought was a minor site near a foundation hole (C) is actually a quite extensive site with multiple acres of rock piles in little clusters. At times it seemed to be a marker pile site, and at other times it seemed more like an effigy site. There were some of the intimate groupings of rock-on-rocks that I associate with brookside sites. Maybe one pile in ten has some of its original structure. The rest apparently are knocked down. Water is coming out of the hill everywhere on this slope between two streams flowing east (D).To get to this site you walk in from Elm Rd on Parmenter - it is maybe 1/2 mile to the foot of Fenton and then 1/2 mile or so to the end of Fenton. Right at the beginning, you pass the outflow from Rocky Pond and then start up a little slope. I was thinking how much it was like a spot on the way up Horse Hill in Groton and was thinking that at Horse hill there are rock piles on the left - so I looked to the left and, sure enough, there was what looked like a rock pile. There were actually several piles and at a casual glance they looked to be the result of a roadside dirt disturbance. But I went over for a closer look and discovered there were several other rock piles on the slope (A) all overlooking Rock Pond to the southwest in an eminently suitable location. So that is quite a lot of rock piles sites along Fenton Rd.

Here are some of the piles I found at (A).
And here is a view to the southwest towards the pond:I felt like I had already accomplished something finding this site, which I walked right past several times without seeing before.

Then I continued slogging up the road and eventually passed the brook at (B) and continued along the trail that begins where the road ends. I followed that right along through several patches of dense mountain laurel, taking digressions where I could. I passed the site at (A) and took one picture and then continued along the trail till I got to a sign "DEAD END" indicating that I had come all the way through to the edge of the landfill. Everywhere you look in there there are bits of plastic bag that have blown in from the landfill; and it starts to smell a bit funky too. I had hoped to explore to the north and then circle back around to the east below (A) but actually the mountain laurel prevented exploration to the north. However when I got back around to the east I started finding rock piles at the edges of the laurels and I poked around happily for a half hour or so, taking pictures of the piles in there. Some of them look like marker piles:There were also numerous rock-on-rock groupings - suggesting either lines of sight or else a sense of containement and grouping:I cannot resist a nice rock-on-rock picture:
Lonesome colors.

In a couple of spots that seems like clusters of marker piles, I tried to locate a high point from which to view down the lines of piles. But there were numerous different clusters and a much too complicated situation for me to resolve.

I also noticed some little groupings of piles, so intimate as to suggest a concetration of effort at a single spot. Here is one group and a couple of details.
(By the way, this steep sided pile, badly damaged as it is, was the least damaged pile I saw. Given the notion of "rock pile 1/2-life", this makes this one of the older sites I have seen.)

Some of these rocks looks selected for by shape. This one, with its bird-like symmetry, suggests and effigy.I conclude it is an extended, multi-purpose site.

As I video blogged a couple of days ago, there were also the beginnings of stone walls (or "rows" for Tim M) starting in some of the gullies and heading off downhill into the impenetrable haze so typical of Leominster State Forest.I am deliberately making these sites on Fenton Rd public, so you can go to Leominster State Forest and see what I mean. It is a fascinating place. Also, although I do not think Fenton Rd is a random cross-section, look at how many sites are along just this one road. It makes me believe there is still a lot more to be found hidden in this forest of laurels