tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-210102612024-03-15T21:10:14.149-04:00Rock PilesThis is about rock piles and stone mound sites in New England. A balance is needed between keeping them secret and making them public. Also arrowheads, stone tools and other surface archaeology.pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.comBlogger6485125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-73673621349304915412024-03-08T06:40:00.004-05:002024-03-08T06:40:30.975-05:00Some possibility it is an arrowheadpwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-13704282924243819922024-02-24T17:28:00.003-05:002024-02-24T17:29:01.351-05:00On a hilltop south of Sloan Canyon, NV Note various signs of ceremonialism in the foreground.pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-52115804854636637252024-02-11T17:03:00.006-05:002024-02-11T17:25:42.294-05:00A good day arrowhead huntingSometimes on a good day you find more than one arrowhead. The ensemble takes on a particular life of its own: the life of that day in the field. Each time you go out you have the focus that you bring to the moment and you have the conditions that are there anyway. Out of this and mother luck come a find or two, a deep sense of accomplishment and a frame captured by the arrowheads. I love the pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-52964175267495998422024-02-01T10:08:00.007-05:002024-02-02T10:02:54.548-05:00Nevada ColorsI have to imagine there is some turquoise rock in there:(north west end of the Spring Mountains)pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-45109709157863810322024-01-26T08:34:00.004-05:002024-01-26T08:42:56.630-05:00What is wrong with 100K years ago for the "First American"?According to the internet (I have been curious about bighorn sheep):The ancestors of bighorn sheep
resided in the mountain and desert regions of Eurasia from early
Pleistocene. Crossing the Bering land bridge during the late Pleistocene
(100,000 years ago), they spread to mountains of Europe, North Africa, Asia and North America. True goats (Capra) are closest relatives. May 16, 2023Sincepwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-75117872801305151082024-01-22T12:21:00.008-05:002024-01-27T12:54:16.473-05:00Is that a petroglyph of a hunting site "bullseye"?I have been collecting pictures of what I call "funnels". The vocabulary hasn't stabilized yet but I am talking about a "bullseye" pattern of: bald spot, surrounded by light ring of lithic debris, surrounded by a heavier ring of lithic debris, surrounded by a one or more concentric rings of fence post holes. Like this:And like this:You see this bullseye pattern over and over in the hills around pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-70573574474223189622024-01-21T10:40:00.003-05:002024-01-21T10:40:34.011-05:00Guidelines for visiting ceremonial stone landscape (CSL) sitesThe Friends of Nashobah and the Friends of Pinehawk are discussing guidelines for public use of CSL's in the Littleton and surrounding Middlesex area. In response to one iteration of proposed guidelines, I wrote:I am afraid I do not agree with the "broad strokes" of these guidelines. In particular, the religious overtones seem wrong and not in the public's interest. I am against the pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-67571906742079578272024-01-14T16:42:00.008-05:002024-01-18T07:39:18.402-05:00Mystery Dots in the Desert -Coyote Spring, NVIf I told you these white "dots" are man-made, would you believe me? They look like a source of infinite, interesting speculation. [Click in to magnify] Those dots are found everywhere in Nevada, especially associated to hunting (in my opinion). But probably serving in other roles as well. They are very clearly defined here. One notes the variety of sizes. One notes they are missing from thepwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-10013952860945919842024-01-09T08:18:00.004-05:002024-01-09T13:57:44.693-05:00Animal Head Boulder[Jeff from RI writes:] I know of many sites that are not mentioned anywhere else. Wanted to share this photo with you, its uncanny resemblance to some kind of animal is undeniable. I won't disclose it just yet, but this is found in an area with rich native American history (Nipmuc probably). It's not a secret, but it gets overlooked. Let me know if you'd like more info!pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-40684111064243631802024-01-07T11:35:00.005-05:002024-01-09T13:58:52.187-05:00Circular Ditch-and-Mound in the land of Nashoba [Dan Boudillion writes:]Do you recall the earthen circles Mavor-Dix reported at the Boxborough esker?I found something like that a few miles away using Lidar and confirmed it on the ground. For refence, here are the esker circles on Lidar:And here is what I noticed on Lidar a few miles away:These are in a heavily wooded area, in a swale. They are about 30 feet across, and pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-66727655644750985262024-01-06T11:47:00.012-05:002024-01-07T06:46:07.374-05:00Pattern recognition till I am blue in the faceLooking at satellite views of the desert on Google Earth is addictive behavior and turns up one puzzling pattern after another. I am going to tell you that the white funnel you see here:...is a very typical hunting site in the southern Nevada and northwestern AZ....On top of a low mesa...a lighter bowl with a darker ring. The black ring at the edge of the mesa is geology but the dark ring around pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-92205724387837525752024-01-06T09:38:00.006-05:002024-01-07T09:30:06.486-05:00Colors of Nevada Good lord this place is colorful! [Beaver Peak]Here is another (Fire Mountain, AZ).What a place.pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-73503187408778928612024-01-04T16:56:00.003-05:002024-01-04T17:00:10.983-05:00Discovering hunting sites in southern NevadaFrustrated to be stuck at home, I have taken to exploring via Google Earth, and leveraging the fact that debris from stone tool making ("debitage", "lithic debris", ..., "black gold") is visible from satellite views of the Nevada desert. There are places at the edges of an ancient river or lake where humans have left a "bathtub ring" of lithic debris you can see from the air. Southern Nevada is pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-83331950023133634732024-01-02T06:55:00.004-05:002024-01-02T06:55:54.857-05:00Producing YouTube videos.I have been making videos (mostly about Nevada archaeology) on my YouTube channel:Peter Waksman - YouTubeOne of my videos got 14K views and now I am hooked.pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-12746292328372923312024-01-01T09:29:00.009-05:002024-01-01T15:54:44.724-05:00Small stone circles with standing stone center[Norman Muller writes about this post] I saw the video clip you posted of "Mysterious Rock Structures in Great Smoky Mts. NP" and the circular structure posted reminded me of a photo of a similar structure I had saved on my computer, which was presumably found in Cades Cove in TN. (see attached). Larry Harrop photographed a similar feature somewhere in RI (see second image below).[Now,pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-11121556358353679692023-12-31T14:39:00.000-05:002023-12-31T14:39:31.999-05:00Best arrowhead finds 2023It's the last day of the year, a time for me to look back. These are my favorite arrowhead finds from this year. I found these at 8 different sites in 6 towns in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. These are typical local materials: mostly quartz, with rhyolite, felsite and quartzite. They span thousands of years of time. The triangular and small stemmed forms are typical finds in the areas I Chris Pittmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16471037186411393740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-30189632047077817022023-12-29T17:40:00.004-05:002023-12-29T21:29:47.333-05:00Mysterious Rock Structures found Hidden in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park!Mysterious Rock Structures found Hidden in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park! (youtube.com)pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-39050622717967701962023-12-23T06:03:00.001-05:002023-12-23T06:03:46.335-05:00Diamond and Horns"Diamond" and Horns(?) on Big Snake head, Peck Hill in Woodbridge CT??From Tim MacSweeney[PWAX says: Tim may be thinking this represents Unktena (various spellings) the Water Spirit with a pearl (or diamond) on its head. Quartz is not common in Woodbridge CT.]pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-31838066263131478282023-12-09T05:32:00.005-05:002023-12-09T05:34:28.581-05:00The Stones We Carry - O'Riordan PhD Thesis DefenceFor a PhD Dissertation at University of Connecticut. This compares approaches to studying Ceremonial Stone Structures (or ignoring them).CLICK HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbC2vPabNHopwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-41993917090185906202023-12-07T07:34:00.006-05:002023-12-31T18:42:33.526-05:00[Corrected] Surveying the stone tool making debris in the neighborhood of a little Nevada Hill This is an addendum to the overview posted here.pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-54029066797704832042023-12-03T11:23:00.000-05:002023-12-03T11:23:01.332-05:00Small Children , Small Stone Prayers, Small Turtle Effigies (Nonnewaug CT) “Historically, archaeologists have devoted few resources to
understanding the social roles and activities of children...Lucy (2005)
attributes part of the problem to the unwillingness of many archaeologists to
include children in their interpretations unless there is direct evidence,
usually mortuary, of a child's presence…"
From: "Playing with method: testing one approach towards
Tim MacSweeneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15517237193572593390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-80629220587070145972023-11-26T08:24:00.002-05:002023-12-06T14:29:29.772-05:00Revisiting a little hill in the Nevada Desert pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-64273540885400156172023-11-20T15:01:00.003-05:002023-11-20T15:01:32.868-05:00Scottish Rock Pile They don't mess around.pwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-56774135424630364312023-11-16T17:08:00.007-05:002023-12-05T11:18:51.665-05:00Closing out a year of arrowhead hunting.It has been several month since I found anything. After walking and walking, hour after hour, it is always a bit of a shock when the piece of the universe you happen to be looking at happens to contain the thing you are looking for. From coastal RI. Update: I spent long hours yesterday looking at parts of the universe that did not contain arrowheads. You don't really look for arrowheadspwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21010261.post-1390466465767506822023-11-10T20:34:00.001-05:002023-11-11T05:37:43.878-05:00Covering historic signs Concord officials look to cover up Massachusetts historic signs due to their 'offensive' nature (bostonherald.com)This upsets me. I am from Concord and have deep respect for that spot on the Milldam where the sign appears. I was reminded in several different ways over the last week that Concord has nothing to be ashamed of with respect to the Native Americans. The town tried hard to protectpwaxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16647940752050937588noreply@blogger.com3