Saturday, October 23, 2021

Serpent Stacking (CT)

 Cutting down the summer's screen of iris and fern and phlox, yesterday at the Nonnewaug Watch House, the stone serpents that make up the retaining wall in the front of the house are more easily seen.
If the courses of stones are laid down in a manner that resembles a usually larger snake head and body of stones of diminishing size
 - and sometimes a lighter colored stone for a rattle -
then you probably looking at distinguishing characteristics of Indigenous Stonework.

Call it "Serpent Stacking" in your field notes, if you like...

More Pix & Overlays:

Saturday, October 09, 2021

Columbus didn't discover America?

 [not rock pile related]

Italian sailors knew of America 150 years before Christopher Columbus, new analysis of ancient documents suggests (phys.org)

It seems likely to me, that Basque fishermen knew about America, long before even the above documentation.

Yay for Indigenous People's Day!

Friday, October 08, 2021

Large Stone Tool from the Woods Hole beach

Continuing a series of implausible stone tool types: I see deliberate flaking on rocks, regardless of the size of the rock. Often enough, a large rock has been flaked, presumably because the removed flake was useful. But here are examples of what is called "hinge flaking" that are coordinated with each other, suggesting that, rather than being a source for material, here the entire large rock was a tool.

Now look at the edge:
This is a comparatively soft material. 

This rock was on Devil's Foot island. I have found a couple others like this before, on the stretch of cobbles north of little Gansett beach. It leads to the question of what would large chopping tools be for, when used on a beach?