More from that Monroe County site

By Geophile
There were three good-sized rock piles there, none of them in great shape. They're right up against a train track embankment, so there may once have been more. On the other side of the embankment a long wall comes down the hill on a slant directly toward the piles which are built in an area that contains 3 springs, all within 10 to 12 yards of one another.

Above, the rock piles with the embankment behind them.

Above: one of the springs.

Then there was this--a rock whatsit. The boulder has that small flat propped rock on top and that curious structure of flat and round rocks to one side.

A close-up of the side structure.

This isn't man made, but at the time it was just so pleasing that we all stopped to look at it: an old grape vine curling gracefully over a boulder--Composition with Boulder, Vine, and Autumn Leaves. We also saw many nice native plants like hepatica and striped pipsissewa, along with mosses and lichens whose names I don't know.

We took a path from the site further downhill, and found several natural terraces, each with a small stream of its own, large enough to host a small village or hunting camp. One had a stone covered with small crystals in the middle of it. It may have been the weather and the aesthetically pleasing form of the land, but together we imagined people living in bark homes, growing small fields of maize and squash and tobacco, hunting the abundant game. Hard as that life might be at times, there must have been days like these warm days in fall when in that place, or in places like it, life seemed pretty good.