Chocolate in Ohio again shows idea of "Mayans in Georgia" not so ridiculous

See here: Ancient DNA reveals cacao was consumed in present-day Georgia 1,000 years ago

[Note: the article is about the Etowah Mounds in Ohio. Not clear why the title says "Georgia".]

For reference, Trap Rock Gap researcher Thornton was being attacked for this proposal. See here for previous discussion: Rock Piles: Search results for Mayans

South End of the Big Lake (CT)

 

I caught a glimpse of a gap in some stonework as I turned onto the highway north,

 by the south end of the Big Lake.

An interesting segment of stacked stones:

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2024/05/big-snakes-up-by-south-end-of-big-lake.html

The Stones We Carry: Avocational Science, Epistemics, and Identity in New England’s Cultural Stone Features Debate

Kitty -O'Riordan from UConn, is defending her PhD Thesis on the debate about Ceremonial Stone Landscapes. It should be of great general interest. Please note the date and the Zoom link.

Doctoral Dissertation Oral Defense of Kitty O’Riordan

The Stones We Carry: Avocational Science, Epistemics, and Identity in 

New England’s Cultural Stone Features Debate 

Friday, November 10th, 2023

2-4 PM

McHugh Hall Room 301 or streamed online via Zoom:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89235321183

The debate over the purpose and provenance of particularly unusual and enigmatic built stone features, traditionally labeled as remnants of 18th and 19th century agricultural activity, has intensified in the decades since avocationalists and Indigenous groups identified them as Ceremonial Stone Landscapes (CSLs). While avocational archaeologists have been creating knowledge about these features in New England for more than a century, their methods, values, social organization, and motivations as a unique social world are severely understudied and often misrepresented. This dissertation applies insights from science and technology studies (STS) and the sociology of amateurism to address this gap and to identify the major stakeholders, themes, and issues within this debate. 

Using data from 16 in-depth interviews, an extensive survey of the professional and avocational literature, and participant observation at public talks, conferences, and research excursions, I investigate three interrelated categories: 1) the dynamics between professional and avocational researchers and the structure and character of the avocational community; 2) the methodological practices, epistemic challenges, and processes for evaluating knowledge that emerge from this area of study; and 3) the motivations, worldviews, and identities that inform avocational researchers’ dedication to what they understand as vital contours of a complex and shared heritage. This is considered alongside the history of this debate, relational and posthuman archaeologies, Indigenous and non-Native relations, and growing environmental anxieties. 

In contrast to portrayals of this community as homogenous, unscientific, and motivated exclusively by political goals, I argue that avocational researchers conduct meaningful work on the local level that unites a diverse group of stakeholders to achieve common goals. They cultivate broad networks through efficient communication and strong values; develop creative methodologies to overcome epistemic uncertainty; reflect deeply on their ethical and ideological motivations and relationships with others; and seek out collaborative opportunities to protect these landscapes and the alternative ways of being in the world they contain. A clearer understanding of the avocational community and this debate more broadly may facilitate more effective, community-based, democratic, and ontologically plural approaches to heritage preservation in an entangled and postcolonial New England. 

Hunting for Archeology near Boulder CO, Day 2 - The Ron Steward Preserve on Rabbit Mountain

Another one of the types of places in CO that seemed worth exploring for arrowheads were a few spots marked "spring" on my topo map. I picked the furthest east foothill of the Rockies I could find. I figured that, in an arid environment, a spring would be a likely place to find signs of man. Sadly most of the "nature" around Boulder is fenced off to protect it from a bike-crazed culture. 

[A brief digression for social commentary: Boulder area is overrun with physical fitness enthusiasts. For them, nature is an extension of the gym - a place for vigorous exercise. Sadly they have no idea what to do outdoors. The rivers did not even have boat launches! It makes me contemplate trying some kind of outreach, to teach them about identifying flowers, birdwatching, archeology hunting, butterflies and moths.....the list goes on. One senses that a large number of New Yorkers relocated to this area, for the rock climbing and the overall hipness of the place. On the other hand, it has the least expensive and most excellent food I have had, anywhere in America.]

Driving up to the Ron Stewart Preserve, I started to notice stone walls:

The first spring we went to on Rabbit Mountain was public land, fenced off from the public. We got lucky and found some un-fenced public trails on the western side of Rabbit Mountain. 

Everywhere, there were suggestive bits of wall, propped rocks, and outlines on the ground. Was it purely ceremonial? I doubt it. This is the traditional homeland of the Arapahoe, who where a [displaced eastern?] Algonquian speaking tribe. One imagines them sharing some stone placing traditions with the New England tribes. But we were looking for arrowheads and thinking about hunters. All the walls I got to look at carefully were designed as funnels running up the sides of slopes.

We walked up the path a bit:

I kept noticing rock-on-rock, and little hints of stone wall. After thinking about it, I conclude that animals would prefer to not step on rocks, so even a sketchy wall is enough to encourage an animal to make a choice. In this last photo there is a bit of wall along the side of the path. You could suppose they tossed rocks over there while making the path. Or you could assume the wall caused the animals to walk along that side of the wall - creating a game trail which, today, is a human one.

We left the path at an outlook, heading down over slippery rocks to get a better look at a wall. It was rainy so what is apparently a very rattlesnake-y place was safe to scramble around. There was a big wall cutting across the slope:

The wall passes a pine tree, right of center. Just left of there, is a bare place on the hill with a scatter of rocks. That is a structure. Up close: 

It turns out that just below the pine tree, there is a gap in the wall and a short stretch just below that, blocking the gap - as I'll show in a moment. I wanted to believe this 'structure' was where the hunters waited. So the arrowheads and flaking debris would be under ground here. We should have stopped and looked more carefully. We should have climbed further up hill and examined the "pass". I was over-pre-occupied with the stone wall.

Here is the pine tree, the gap is below it.

Just below the gap was a short stretch of stone wall:

At the near end:

That looks like a path. I conclude, the walls are there for animal flow control. Look closely at this. There are little hints:

We did not see a single flaked rock. I was too busy looking at arranged rocks.

Last time in Tiverton (for now)

Having struck out at Wildcat Hill, I thought I would go back to the Pocasett Highlands nearby. It was even worse there - blueberries and empty swamps. Lots of rocks and.. nothing. Kinda strange.

Rather than throwing good hours after bad, I cut my losses after an hour, got back to the car, and drove back over to the Longplex area (per previous) because I thought I missed some of the area. At first I went down through the woods following the same path as before. Before coming to the place where I saw the mound(s) earlier, I noticed another one; very much hidden in the bushes, maybe fifty yards from the previous find.

Here is a rearview:

As I commented, there is internal structure if you look at it for a while.

It was interesting that this mound was built against a large split rock. It reminded me of two other "gap" related structures I noticed here the first time: the mound next to the wall (here) and this wall end (here).

Track Rock Gap Vandalized

Norman Muller writes:

Depressing news about an important petroglyph site in NW Georgia. I've been there, and I assume that Jannie Loubser will be involved in analyzing the damage, since he wrote an important article about the site.

Ancient Native American Site Is Defaced in Georgia Forest

Minor tributaries of Threemile River - Westville, Taunton

I thought it would be fun to go a bit further afield, to Taunton. My center of gravity is southern Rt 495 and it was only about 20 minutes from the highway. Instead of walking north from where I parked I saw an inviting "corridor" down into a wetland to south [see here], and I followed it.I followed it until I got to a funny little stretch of stone wall and started seeing rock piles after that, as I continued down the wetland [lowest blue outline].

These piles were not much to look at:

Perhaps the nicest one:

These piles are not of a style I recognize. I did not see any even spacing. I did see a few "gap" piles, like these:

Also this seemed to be a place with many short stretches of wall:

 And fainter:

I could have continued down the wetland because there seemed to be a continuation of the things I was seeing. Again, these are not a familiar style: they are not marker piles, they are not mounds. A few piles were small and circular, like fire rings without charring. There were piles right within the wetland and the "gap" piles suggest a place of movement and pathways. 

Instead of continuing downhill, I cut east and found some more traces on a high outcrop looking east. Here the ridge was modified:

Eventually, I turned north, crossed the dirt portion of Rocky Woods Street, and went down along the north side of the land, south of Fall Brook, heading back west. Eventually I came upon some really old mounds [upper blue outline]. I doubt very much whether anyone would see these, or agree that they are man made mounds. But they are.

 [Here is something very unusual: quartz used to wedge a split rock. My thought is that you would rarely want to amplify the spirit of a split rock.]

 Here is another of those invisible mounds.

and others:

The general observation is that these seem to have two or more large rocks at their periphery and, otherwise, are completely broken down - nth stage decrepit. All of which makes this place, at the very highest headwaters of Fall Brook, seem quite old.

North Cumberland RI - Ash Swamp Brook

I took a walk in a substantial, open, woods behind a high school. I found the inevitable rock piles; about where they were supposed to be. There were no obvious stylistic differences between these piles in Rhode Island and others a few miles to the north in places like Upton.

What can never be learned entirely is where to expect rock piles, given a map like the one above. Clearly in a swamp like that, surrounded by hills with feeder brooks, and with relatively undisturbed woods, rock piles are almost guaranteed. In fact I turned back after finding one site and I have no doubt there are other things in similar settings all around that swamp.

How do you find these things? You pin down the rock piles between the water and the hill, either by sweeping the hill or by sweeping the water. It is very typical to follow a stream uphill and it is pretty straightforward to come down a hill, stopping at every water source. So in this case, I swept the hill: crossing it with one eye downhill towards the swamp and with expectations of finding marker piles on the slope or something interesting along the brooks (which you can see entering the valley from the left). Strange, it has been a couple weeks since I found this site and I am already confusing the details with what I found yesterday - because the configuration of swamp and brooks (from the west/left) was the same, and the exploration technique was the same, and the site location, with respect to water, was pretty much the same. Let's look at some pictures and, at least, record the site.

This looks like a "gap" piles that create a space between a pile and a boulder or another pile. There were several:

It sure looks like there is a path between these two piles:

and

and

Also a number of lovely little things, in their snow covered 'aspect':

This site was at a flat place where a brook goes around a big bend.

A little further along (north) and down the hill was another two or three piles, enclosed by outcrops and little bits of wall.

On my way back to the car, I note that the first site is along an ATV trail and looks like this upon entering from below:

You can see a boulder in the background. Note the wedge:

This site is only about half way up the brook, so there is probably more to see.

Best of 2019 from Joshua H in RI

Reader Joshua H. writes:

here is a photo of all the most important artifacts from my first year collecting in RI. The top left greenish yellow stones are made from serpentine rock

there is a resharpened smoky quartz hardaway side notch with fluting and terminal hinge fracture, a black argillite serrated point that's similar to atlantic phase, a green argillite guilford round base,

an ancient rhyolite biface blade that's serrated, a red rhyolite cobbs triangular round base, a broken red rhyolite spearpoint that may be Kirk stemmed or Wapanucket (I think) but also looks similar to a benton,

a marblehead rhyolite hell gap point with quartz phenocrysts, red rhyolite short kirk serrated I think, a small quartzite point that looks similar to a RI and CT clovis point types

and a green argillite koens-crispin point as well as a few other broken points including a peachy colored quartzite spearpoint that looks early archaic/late paleo.

I had an amazing first year collecting to say the least. All artifacts were collected from the beach or the edge of Point Judith pond.

[Update]
I misidentified this as a union side notch but it's a Dalton-greenbriar, greenbriar or Hardaway-Dalton I think