Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Interesting Feature seen in aerial view

In Littleton between Harvard Rd and Bennetts Brook:

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

October 22 stone symposium at opus40

From Matt Bua [see http://www.opus40.org/]:

I'm organizing the 4th year of an event called the stone symposium which will take place this year at Opus 40 in Saugerties onSaturday October 22.

It will be an outdoor daytime event where a range of speakers will be presenting through out the day. I wanted to invite anyone from the rockpiles blog to take part. So far we have glenn kreisberg, evan pritchard. Linda Zimmerman,  teresa bierce, and myself
The site will be within a large quarried amphitheatre. This will allow for participants to display printed material throughout the day, science fair style.
Let me know if you have any questions.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

The NEARA Logo

Consider the NEARA logo:
It comes from a petroglyph, which I think was found in southern New England, on the grounds of a Monastery. 
Quick question: how many other petroglyphs in New England represent a female?
Followup question: how many petroglyphs in New England represent a person?
My answer to both is: none, or almost none. So the NEARA logo is quite unique. 

Going back through this blog (see "petroglyph"), which presents a sample of what is being found, there are very few petroglyphs of any kind. There are several types of marked rock, several "faces" (a circle containing three dots) found underwater in CT, what looks like a bow and arrow, and some things that look geological to me. I have seen pictures elsewhere of some smaller "amulet" rocks with decorative images of corn, birds, and perhaps a stick figure. That's it. 

The conclusion is that whoever made the NEARA petroglyph was expressing something that did not happen often in these woods. Which argues against it being Native American. Who do we think carved this petroglyph? and When? Was it part of a stone chamber?

Monday, August 01, 2016

NEARA on the job

I was interested to see the NEARA "In the News" included an article about "Hopkinton" which starts:

"HOPKINTON — Researchers from the New England Antiquities Research Association are describing a Hopkinton Land Trust property that includes hundreds of rock croppings as one of the most significant sites they’ve ever found.....". The article goes on to describe how these efforts have resulted in protection for the site. 

That is in Rhode Island. I hope the same forces are at work at Hopkinton in Massachusetts. Word has gotten around about that threat.