Monday, November 23, 2009

Finding what I was looking for in Harvard, MA

Where Rt 2 crosses Rt 111 in Harvard: It is hard to believe that the only time I blogged about location "a" was here. It is such a fine pile that I spent considerable effort exploring behind houses uphill (south on the map) and on the same side of the highway. But I never found anything else significant in that neighborhood. Last weekend, driving west, I realized there was perhaps enough woods on the other side of the highway to explore over in there too. I was hoping to find something similar to the "mound" at "a". That mound is about 15 feet long and oval like, perhaps 5 or six feet high. So I went over in there and gave up after slogging through wet areas, crossing a road, and crossing flat areas with no rocks and just pine saplings. But on the way back, I did find another oval mound, perhaps not as long or as high. It was near a field (at "b" on the map) and I thought perhaps it was a field clearing pile. But concluded it was not for several reasons:
  • it was well made
  • the rocks were uniform sized
  • it was quite tidy
I also noted one piece of quartz in it. It is on the left in the picture above, here is a closeup: But what I found very compelling was two hollows in the pile, visible from the other side: They are a bit hard to make out in the light. I believe these are collapsed ,or dug out, inner chambers. Here is a view from on end:Here is one more look:This large pile seemed to be by itself, but I did find one small auxiliary pile about twenty paces away: (The large pile is in the brush just behind.) In the end, this large stone mound is enough like the one at location "a" that I can believe they are inter-related - just the sort of thing I was hoping to find.

Here is something very similar, another "double chambered mound" from Framingham [Click here and scroll to the last photo]

1 comment :

pwax said...

There is one in Lincoln, and any more to the west of there.