Wednesday, June 25, 2008

CHill (in a town nearby to the west of here) part 1

I went to explore the fringes of a hilltop site first shown to me by Bruce McAleer. Let's call it CHill. This site is one of the holiest-of-holies, the largest and most diverse rock pile site in the "sacred corridor" that follows Rt 495 down the valley of Beaver Brook and Elizabeth Brook. Most of the southern half of the hill is still not completely explored so there was a good chance of seeing something new.

I did find a small site in a dip along the southeastern facing edge of the hill with maybe ten rock piles in lines, and a couple of unusual features. Here is a sketch.
This shows an idealized topography with a hill to the right and a rather steep slope to the left. The upper left of the picture shows a higher ridge ending with a slight dip and then a levelling off towards the bottom of the picture. Within the dip is a cluster of rock piles, seemingly formed in lines pointing outward and also an interesting feature of a circular "seat" with a view down a short low stone wall. The most prominent pile in this cluster is a sort of double pile (I'll show it later). I had the feeling that joining two piles was a way of getting two different alignments out of a single structure, except it is not quite right - a fudge factor.

Anyway, a second cluster of rock piles occurs downhill near a ramp-like structure which leads partway up the ridge and stops. Two rock piles visible down here are not visible from the upper site.

So first we can watch a little video of the lower "ramp" site and look at a few pictures. I'll report on the upper site separately.


Here is a static photo of the ramp:Off to the left was the edge of the steepest drop-off. Right along that edge were two rock piles. Here is one, with the view outward to the left. The other:As I look at these two piles, each of them seems to be a small curved "U" structure facing outwards. The first one had an additional feature: a small standing stone behind it:
Here is a last look up the ramp, with a piece of quartz at the center:So here is a site that has completely undisturbed structure, though the piles are falling apart. I'll show the upper site in the next post.

1 comment :

pwax said...

That would be Codman Hill.