Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Adirondacks

Are the Adirondacks really empty of stone structures? Or are they under reported?
These do not look like easy places to explore but they look like places where there should be plenty of rock piles. I cannot accept the absence of information as information about absence.
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7 comments :

Norman said...

I'd post a notice in something like the Adirondack Mountain Club or perhaps a hunting magazine, asking for information on unusual stone cairns, walls or mounds in the area. A similar notice could be posted in the Appalachian Mountain Club newsletter, or whatever it is called.

2:50 PM
Tim MacSweeney said...

Perhaps this fellow might know something about it; a post on his blog reads: "The rugged and insular geomorphology of the Adirondack Mountains is attributed to their complex tectonic and glacial history. The mountains' geological past promoted a similarly colorful and varied history of human habitation. The word Adirondack is thought to be derived from a derisive Iroquois term toward the Algonquin tribe meaning “bark-eaters.” The phonetic spelling sounded similar to atiru’ taks. On old English maps the region was called “Deer Hunting Country” with “Adirondack” coming into usage around 1837.

Pleistocene deglaciation about 16,000 years ago opened the door to Native American hunting and fishing parties. During the eighteenth century, the Adirondack’s periphery saw the French and English struggle for control of North America. In the nineteenth century, the mountains enticed loggers and iron-miners, guides and hikers, dreamers and artists, and philosophers and poets. In the twentieth century, they witnessed titanium and magnetite-miners, climbers and naturalists, sportsmen and outdoorsmen, forest fires and logging-denudation followed by preservationists, environmentalists and tourists.

Once blighted by logging and industry, the region has undergone a renaissance of woods and waters.” * Today, in the twenty-first century, the Adirondacks lives on as “a remarkable mix of wilderness and small towns in the midst of one of the most heavily developed regions in the world.” **

* Adirondack Park – Forever Wild by Verilyn Klinkenborg, National Geographic
** The Great Experiment in Conservation – Voices from the Adirondack Park by William F. Porter et al, 2009

http://written-in-stone-seen-through-my-lens.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-adirondack-mountains-of-new-york.html

7:49 AM
Tim MacSweeney said...

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fTn1KfY5L-0/T6CfsPoLAmI/AAAAAAAAIjA/AsEicNMDRJc/s1600/Harvey+Mtn+Trail+thru+stone+fence.JPG (looks like two mounds even though it says stone wall gap - with a dog!) from http://upstateearth.blogspot.com/2012/05/harvey-mountain-and-tale-of-lost-gold.html

8:48 AM
Tim MacSweeney said...

Sorry: wrong mountains; it's the Berkshires.

8:50 AM
pwax said...

If the area is a boundary between Iriquoian and Algonquian it might be a "dead zone". But that would leave open the possibility of finding things pre-dating the Iriquois.

7:09 AM
Tim MacSweeney said...

A recent story: http://vcnaa.com/native/content/view/2594/2/

11:07 AM
Curt Hoffman said...

I certainly agree that absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence, and it's POSSIBLE that there are such sites in the heart of the Adirondacks - there are a handful around the margins, to the east, west, and south. But it seems strange to me that there are so many sites reported in the Catskills by comparison.

5:33 PM

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