This is from a short hike I took at the northernmost end of Arctic China State Forest, NY. The map shows a very old road and markers J through M are rock piles that are in this post.
The first line of rock piles run along the north-northeastern side of the road in the vicinity of J. Most piles are not well formed, or damaged. Here is a picture of one of the nicer piles. See that stone to the left of what might be a niche?
Between J and K on the map is an old stone foundation. The next photo was taken in the vicinity of K on the map. There is a long row of rock piles running east/west along the trail, up the hill. At the swamp, the row turns in something like a U shape with a short branch of indistinct rock piles and then a stone row that touches a run in branch to the swamp, and ends there. For now, I am posting photos of the rock piles in the east/west row along the trail.
This picture is of the rock pile to the right in the photo above, and was taken facing southeast, in the general direction of the rock pile at J. Notice that stone in the front? It doesn't appear that it fell off the rock pile, it looks to me like it was placed there. If you compare it to the stone in the first photo, the similarity is uncanny.
The next rock pile picture is L on the map. This one clearly shows 3 "holes" in it, which could have been used as fence rail holders by someone, or at least that's the argument.
Then, this pile, a little further up, but not marked on the map, clearly shows the wood at the bottom of what might be a fence rail holder, or what might be a niche.
On an aside, I didn't find any adjacent rock piles with "rail holes" facing each other. Most of the piles here are damaged, or, arguably vertical faced. The number of piles in the row, including the piles that were more like rubble, I would estimate at around 30. This last photo is M on the map and it shows that the piles are getting smaller and smaller at the top of the hill.
There is more at this site. I'll continue with some of the other features in another post.
4 comments :
The remnants of a fence pole are pretty important evidence. It is hard to imagine a scenario where some piles were built for fencing while others were not. Very strange.
Then, separately, the topo map shows the piles occur in a gully/valley that deepens and becomes a brook. There are some other suggestive such valleys on the topo map.
That is an outrageous amount of work to build a wooden fence.
In responding to something Jim says in a later post, I wrote:
More discussion of her fifth rock pile picture seems warranted. That is the one with what looks like the stub of a fence pole still inserted in the hole. In comments to that post you said building such rock piles was too much work to build a fence. That is not a compelling argument because you have to come up with some reason for that fencepole in there - you cannot ignore it.
For what it is worth, here is a possibility: The fourth rock pile picture described as having "three holes" has what looks like a rock inserted or fallen into the lowest hole. Could we be looking at "corks" or "stoppers"? Maybe the fencepole is just a stopper made out of wood.
Frankly I am not convinced either way.
I found an amazing site near Corning NY that had a triangular area made with 35 bee hive shaped stone piles. I was very excited about this area. When I went back to have a closer look I found barb wire running thru each pile. It was a stone pile and barb wire fence. This was confirmed by the livestock pen found in the center of the triangle.
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