Stiles Hill Boylston, MA

I was at a curious site this weekend on a hill with a tall radio tower that you can see to the north as you drive on Rt 290 between Northborough and Boylston on the way to Worcester. I could not figure out if the site was ceremonial or random rock disposal; or when it had come about as a site. At first I walked up the gradual western slope below the radio tower and I saw what looked like loose dumped lines of rocks:There was also what looked like a terrace or a road bed. Then, as I continued to try to dismiss the material I came to one rock pile that did look kind of deliberate. Notice the white item towards the center of the pile. Here is a detail: This is the neck portion of a porcelain vase with a raised pattern of blue on a white background. The word "Victorian" comes to mind but, of course, I have no idea when it was from or when it was used in a rock pile. It seems deliberate to me and, if it is, then the pile is at least as young as the pot. As I looked around for more piles, there were a few indistinct traces: And some other, quite distinctly well built piles, at least this one: And then another similar curved elongated rock pile, that looked like it might have somehow been dumped, like the piles I saw at first (left side of the first picture above). But this one looked slightly more compact and more like a pile: Still, I could not convince myself this was a ceremonial site. I started to think it was a mixture of different things. Then I came across the footings to the radio tower: And then the radio tower itself, towering so high over head I had to look straight up to see it. There was a good deal of soil disturbance and loose rocks on the surface along the sides of the path of the tower's cables. All of the loose rocks I had been seeing could be accounted for the result of the tower construction. But somehow I felt that the better piles I was seeing would have been older than the tower. Then I saw this pile with a recent (beer?) bottle inserted into it This was close the the path of the tower cables and I imagined a workman taking a picnic break here and, for some reason interacting with an existing rock pile. But then also the radio tower by itself makes this a special location. Was the tower here before the rock piles? Hard to say and all with that bit of broken vase. I try to put this all together but a simple answer eludes me.

The "Rock Pile" driving range

On the way back home from last weekend:

Bye Bye to that hillside

I can't resist this final photo:

Revisiting the site in Norfolk CT one more time

I went back the next day to explore more thoroughly. I followed the side of the gully north and west and the number of rock piles tapered off. Rock piles with one or more light cobbles continued to predominate. I followed a wall for a while that had deliberately placed light cobbles (bigger than in the piles) every 10 paces for a while until the number of light cobbles increased and they became too numerous to suggest any pattern to me.

Here are some of the piles from this next visit:
Nice in the morning, under the laurels. I used my laurel dodging skill acquired in Leominster.
It is natural to wonder what this white quartzite in the piles is about. I do not think these are burials but what are they? It would be interesting to survey the site because I continue to think the role of this lighter rock might be part of connecting together the different piles. So it would be good to see them in overviedw.

I came to a wall which also seemed to be using some kind of quartz(ite) placement principles. Hare are three nearby sections of stone wall. The lighter rocks were not too evenly spaced, about 10 paces apart.
Then I continued exploring north and west, now almost 1/4 mile from the original road and the edges of the site from that side. I came to a gradual slope that turned into a steeper slope and I was reluctant to go down there and loose the elevation. But I was rewarded quickly anyway with one last rock pile, sentinel on that side of things and still with the lighter colored rocks.
Faint traces of old cart tracks, which imagine being made by the charcoal cutters, criss-crossed the hill undefoot.

Bill Dan's archive contains some nice pictures of cairns from around the world.

The good, the bad, and the contrived. Some beauties nonetheless. [Click here]

NATHPO

National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers article "Interior to Protect sacred Indian lands" [Click here]

"Cairns" - a blog (not rock pile related)

Seems that rock piles are somehow in people's conscious/sub-conscious. The author of this blog decided to use the "cairn" as a metaphor. [Click here]

"The Cairn represents democracy in action. Unknown climbers take the time to stop and mark trails Using the tools of stones and twigs. They create these monuments for the members of the community of hikers. Even though they do not know who will follow "

Hi-Tor Stone Monuments - a new blog

Reader Stonepilewhisper invites us to to visit his new blog [Click here]. Looking forward to seeing more articles. Check out the links at the bottom. It has been a while since we last saw those pictures from the first link.

Some Western Archeology including cairns, medicine wheel, bison jumps

[Click here]

More about "Charcoal Burners"

Found this little quote at [Legends of Mt.Riga ]

"Even before the collapse of the region's iron industry, the proper people of Salisbury began to take notice of a strange, dark breed of short people who inhabited tiny farms and isolated shacks scattered through the many little glens on the lower slopes of Mt. Riga. No one really knows where they came from -- or when -- but because they were said to speak a gutteral-sounding language and live in ways alien to the native Yankees, the belief was widely held that they were Hessian deserters from the British army, stragglers from Lafayette's forces or York State Dutchman (or a blending of all three ancestries)."

Certainly makes one want to know more about these Charcoal Burners. It is a pretty interesting little article and I recommend clicking through the link above. Find out about the Raggies and the Giant Kingfiser, and the tale of how west coast sockeye Salmon appeared mysteriously in the lakes of northwestern CT. The Raggies sure sound like Indians.

The ceremonial landscape as it is today - more from Norfolk CT

As we drove up the road after visiting the first site, we saw rock piles at four other places. After the first, we saw several piles from the road on a slope facing northwest and leading down into the ferns.

Sorry for the blurry picture. Note the pile in the foreground has the tell-tale cream/white cobble. More details of some piles closer to the ferns:(The same light colored quartzite is visible just left of center.)

Continuing the drive we passed a solitary rock pile next to a small gully, but under the hemlocks it was too dark to get a good picture.

At another place there were three structures lined up somewhat parallel to the road but 10 yards back from the road.Although it was a pretty spot in the woods, I wonder if this line of three structures might have marked an earlier path?

Here was a solitary rock pile somewhere else in there:So there are lots of rock piles. One question is: are there more piles along the road than in the woods at random?

More rock piles in the Norfolk woods - videos

Here, on the theme of quartz in a pile:

Here, I am probably being naive about the age of the woods:

Rock Piles from Norfolk CT

Visiting friends in northwestern CT, we had occasion to go back and see some rock piles on their relative's land. Several years ago I had proposed looking for rock piles at a particular spot, which I saw on a topo map, along a forest road in there, south of Mt. Canaan. That time we saw rock piles on the way to the proposed spot as well as at the proposed spot - which I thought was a good demonstration of the idea that rock pile sites could be predicted by topography.

This time when we visited I had my digital camera and was determined to get some pictures of the rock piles. So we went back out and drove along the same road. In the end we saw rock piles at five or six points along about 1 mile of road. The first site remains the most substantial.

I remembered a turtle-shaped pile from there with white quartz an its back. Here it is, with a head-like larger rock sticking out to the right:
And here is a view of the "quartz" which actually turns out to be light cream-colored quartzite cobble - a very common type of rock in these woods and in this soil. (Note the light-colored rock at the center of the closest edge of the pile.)

Nearby there were other piles with strategically placed quartzite. Often the cobbles seemed worked. In this picture the "turtle" pile is in the background and in the foreground the pile has several noticeable pieces of quartz:
Here is a closeup:
As I continued to explore the site, I kept seening more piles with noticeable cream-colored quartzite cobbles:
There were many low piles in the hay-scented ferns:Most still exhibited the light colored cobble:
There were a surprising number of piles, big and small, hidden in there under the laurels. The owners of this land have no idea anything like this is here.
Why is this site here? It is on a steep slope next to the forest road, with a bit of a wet spot heading off southeast. I imagine this may be a spot with an interesting view over water in that southeasterly direction. The next day I went back and explored this site more carefully (this first time I had friends and family along who were not comfortable traipsing into the laurel). There is a gully which passes this high point as it turns to the southeast. There are rock piles along the southern side of the gully and occasional ones further back, continuing for 1/4 mile. The majority had a white or cream-colored blaze. Here is a view of the gully:
I have to wonder what does that white rock or rocks mean? These piles do not seem to be burials as many are built upon small boulders. Also the view to the southeast is suggestive of something else. (Actually the site spans a watershed divide so there are also views to the northwest. I saw more of that the second day.)

Norfolk CT was an early industrial town that produced iron before and during the revolutionary war (and up to the civil war?). This had to do with the bog iron present in the ponds, the fast flowing water, and the availability of forests for wood to make charcoal. On one of my first visits to Norfolk, I heard about the charcoal burners who were gypsies that had lived in the woods burning charcoal. One picture of them in a Coalbrook periodical shows a group of dark-skinned, dark-haired people, who I guess might be American Indians. They were living comfortably in these woods. Today I could see what looked like numerous old roads crisscrossing the area I was exploring. I don't see why not guess it was the coal burners who made the rock piles. But I also have to wonder about the quartzite "blaze" in most of the piles. What is its purpose? What is the function of most of these piles?

The Silver Lake Indian Rock Cairns

Don't know how I missed seeing this before. These are small rock piles in the California desert [Click here]

Turkeys in Norfolk CT

[Not rock pile related]
We were driving through the woods on dirt roads (looking for rock piles) and came to a flock of turkeys with two or three adults and five chicks.

At first one (or two?) adults moved quickly into the grass, leaving the rest behind.They were a bit confused.
I drove right up to them and to our surprise the chicks promptly took off to land in branches of nearby trees, while the remaining adult had the most trouble getting off of the ground.
I was sort of pushing the camera button while driving so it is lucky I got this picture.

Native American Stone Enclosure - video by Greatmuin

[Click here]
This is from Nova Scotia - a very curious foundation outline. From "Rock Piles - Stone Walls of Nova Scotia" - see link to the right.

Appetizer - Norfolk CT

The ball court at Wupatki

Wupatki was a free standing pueblo about 1100. It is northeast of Flagstaff AZ. Another pretty place in AZ. The ball court at Wupatki is said to be similar to ones in central America.
Here is another picture of it:

Norman Biggart talks about the Westford Knight

This is being forwarded by NEARA coordinator Brenda Toomey:

As you may be aware, the Westford Historical Society and the Westford Knight Committee have sent the Boat Stone, an artifact that may be related to the Westford Knight, out for analysis and study under laboratory conditions to Scott F. Wolter of American Petrographic Services, Inc. of St. Paul, Minnesota.

I thought the Massachusetts NEARA members might be interested in an upcoming event featuring the following:
1. Scottish Clansman Norman Biggart will give a presentation summarizing his decades of research on the subject of the Westford Knight.
2. The Westford Knight Committee will to discuss the preliminary results of Mr. Wolter’s work on the Boat Stone.

This event will be held on Sunday, July 29 at 3:00 at the Westford Museum, 2-4 Boston Road, Westford. Parking is available behind the J.V. Fletcher Library, across the town common from the Museum. Thanks, and I hope all is well.

Great Ponds area Lakeville MA

Bruce McAleer suggesting going down to explore around the Great Ponds in Lakeville, knowing that Lakeville is a town with lots of rock piles and other structures. Unfortunately immediately around the ponds and nearby there is a lot of sandy territory without enough rocks to encourage rock pile building. I almost never find rock piles in sandy areas. Only at the third placed we stopped were there any rocks and ultimately we found only one rock pile. This was on the eastern shore of the easternmost of the large ponds in Lakeville. Here are two views of the pile we found. There was a second smaller pile to the side of and slightly merged with this first large one. Since there was what seemed like an amount of nearby random rock disposal, I was suspicious of this pile. Some reasons for thinking it was not just a rock dump are that it was immediately adjacent to a wet spot and also it had what looked like some kind of deliberately constructed hole in it: That is a bit unusual.

Oak Hill, Littleton MA

There is a small rock pile site on the northwest facing slope of Oak Hill within the conservation land. This is not too far from the highest point in Littleton but down the opposite side of the hill. Oak Hill is given prominent mention in Manitou (by Mavor and Dix) and this is at the northern end of the hill a mile or so from some of the chambers they discuss in the book. Well I have heard rumors of a really big rock pile somewhere over there "off trail from Tophet chasm" and I have tried a couple times to find it. Instead I found this site once before and again last weekend. Walking along and then there is a low pile in the leaves:
And then another and another. The first one is the best preserved.

Many of the piles seem to have been built on a support boulder but most are not fallen over to the side:One part of the hill has more stone walls than the other parts. Here, in the busiest section, there is a quadrangle of stone walls with this site on the interior. The piles are as old looking as any I have seen. They are mostly broken down off of their support and are well covered with leaves. This part of the hill is dry but would provide a nice view to the northwest if the trees were not in the way.

I do not know what to make of this site. It doesn't seem to be a burial ground because of the support boulders and the lack of quartz. But it is hard to make a case for it as a marker pile site. So I don't know. Perhaps a couple of videos will at least give a feel of the place.

Three locations in CT from reader Brent C.

Brent writes:

The Redding photo is the backside of the cairn forwarded last week. Forgot I took that angle.

The Kent, CT photo is new. I've asked around about it and everyone thinks it's a beehive oven but it looks like a cairn to me. Collapsed in the middle like the Redding one and on a hillside overlooking a stream. Stone walls in the area.

The Sharon pile is new too. There are 3 of them, one to the left of this pile and one higher up the hill. This location is on a western facing slope near a swamp, stone walls in the area.

Oral Tradition and the Scientific Method

I have been wanting to write about oral tradition versus scientific method for some time and had started an essay on the topic which never got finished. Now I have a few other things to say and am too lazy to organize it into good prose, so I am going to cut-and-paste from my essay as well as add a few new comments. Here is what I had to say about a month ago:

"Different people have very different approaches to studying rock piles. At one extreme are those trying to follow the, so called, Scientific Method. At the other extreme are people who rely on the authority of Oral Tradition. Aside from the fundamental differences in these approaches we all have some things in common:
1) a desire to protect the rock piles from destruction
2) a desire to understand rock piles; because understanding increases their value to us and potentially helps spread these ideas to the public or to other people who can help with (1).

Another commonality, which I feel very strongly about, is
3) the need to be sincere and honest in our communicating and, in particular, to honestly report where an idea came from. This should be true whether we are trying to be Scientific or passing along knowledge from Oral Tradition.

Discussions of the scientific method describe the need for observation, hypothesis, test, and conclusion. Often un-mentioned is the community which supports these things and provides a means of communication in addition to an, occasionally burdensome, consensus. The editor of a scientific publication is not supposed to be picking and choosing what is published based on their inner feelings but rather based on the thoughts of the community which they represent. It is this editor's job to ensure that proper credit is given to the source of ideas that are elaborated in publication, whether from observations or from other verbal sources. No-one claims that the ideas by themselves are all important; but their proper sourcing is - at least to me.

I am not a practisioner of Oral Tradition, so I am not sure I understand its conventions but I think the same must be true. You don't just say "this is true". Instead you should say "my grandfather told..." or "according to the tradition of...". In both Science and Oral Tradition the reader or student is presented ideas in context.

Whatever the approach, I am critical of ideas without context and this leads to being dis-respectful at times. It is not the intention of this blog to stifle anyone's thinking or to force certain conclusions or methods down anyone's throats. "

I could have continued saying: it is this blog's job to ensure ideas are given with their proper context. So for example we started the W.VA discussion with some of them expressing their certitudes about the nature of rock piles. Pushed, prodded, and poked at, eventually the context emerged that someone had heard something from a farmer. Others never told where they got their information but it certainly did not amount to observation, description, hypothesis, test, and confirmation/ rejection. So I am guessing it actually was more oral than scientific. But it was being presented as if it was a scientific approach and that is basically dishonest.

I keep being reminded of and surprised by how many of the people I interact with are following an oral tradition rather than a scientific one. I start out to have a scientific discussion and discover part way through that I am speaking to someone whose knowledge and beliefs are based on something they heard from someone they consider an authority. Throwing around concept of observation and hypothesis testing in these situations is pretty much a waste of time. So, for example, this exchange between me and Norman on one side, and some people in W. VA (contract and academic archeologists) seemed, in the end to devolve into a dispute of scientific method (me and Norman observing) and oral traditionalists (BJ reporting what he heard from a farmer). It is surprising to discover that it is me and Norman, the amateurs, who are upholding the methods of scientists against professional archeologists who are essentially tied up in what they heard from someone else.

I should not be trying to put down adherents of oral tradition. For example if we were to be able to speak in a straightforward way with Indians, they might be expected to refer to their traditions, what they learned from their elders, and this is something which I respect. I find that if I respect the source of the tradition, the speaker in the oral tradition, then I respect the information they discuss. It gets much more awkward though when I either do not respect the source or else am not expecting Europeans, who ostensibly work in a European context, to actually be working from an oral tradition. It is also very disconcerting to hear discussion of rock piles which appear to be scientific but which actually are being informed by oral tradition. This seems basically not fair. In the context of one recent discussion, research directions were mentioned that would substantiate the claims of rock pile enthusiasts'. But a basis in oral tradition existed for those specific proposals and this was never mentioned.

Pretending to be scientists apparently includes pretending there is no oral tradition. This seem wrong to me, even though I can understand the need to fool some of the people who would prevent the research if they new it was based on oral tradition alone.

Finally, in oral tradition the source of the oral tradition must be respected. I think it is common in this context to attach added weight to the information if it comes from someone with more authority. For me, a knowledgeable Indian is a respected source of ideas but since I practice the scientific method, I have to follow up what is said with my own observations. For example, I heard some ideas about quartz from an Indian, and I have tried to use them to form hypotheses which can be tested. I respect the source of the information but it is not the final word. In oral tradition it appears to be. Whatever is said, if it comes from the right authority, is believed. Within European cultures, and in the periphery of science, the same is true: if you have a Ph.D you carry more weight than a B.A. and, if you went to Harvard, that can make you intellectually invincible - at least among followers of the methods of oral tradition. In real science the credential is irrelevant but contextualizing ideas and saying where they came from is crucial, just as in oral tradition.

So in the end, one reason for mentioning all of this is so we can communicate better with each other. There are a lot of people following oral tradition. I challenge you to say where the ideas came from. In other words, answer the question: "Who told you that?" For those following the scientific tradition I challenge you to say where the ideas came from (whether observation or oral sources) and say what you have done to test those ideas. Either way, oral or scientific, the ideas communicate best in context. That is the trust that we hold onto and share.

More re W.VA email exchange

Here is one more email from a colleague of Norman's.

I would have to agree with M. Niquette, who stated in a response below, " When these prehistoric rock mounds are encountered it has been my experience that they occur on promontories with commanding views, high ridge fingers, and generally on mountain tops." And I will add that prehistoric cairns, almost without exception, are built above running water. The farmer stone piles that I have seen look nothing like prehistoric cairns to the trained eye. Farmer piles look like stones that have been dumped out of a wagon. They are usually low and strung out instead of neatly set with a "mound" shape. If one studies the context of the site, farmer piles are never found on top of the ridge but low on the hillside. It is usually noticeable that the surrounding land was once cleared for farming. I have never seen field clearing stones piled into neat stacks that resemble prehistoric cairns. I certainly have never seen filled circles or squares or heard about children doing this work. In this part of the state (Ozarks) I have not seen any low stone walls near an area cleared for farming. Farmers did not have the time to fool around with setting stones, you are right, it makes no sense. I cannot speak for the northern part of the state which has the majority of the farm land.

West VA saga continues

See updates below.

Faint traces (at best) on Forest Hill in Dunstable

Intrigued by a lone hill in conservation land, I drove to Dunstable to check out Forest Hill. Well this was not a good way to use up the Saturday exploration time-slot. There was no clear entrance to the conservation area so I had to sneak behind some houses and along the edge of a swamp to get in and the hill was covered with poison ivy and and it looked like it had been farmed and all the soil washed away. What was left was pretty scrappy and there were few if any signs that Indians might have come back to restore the place. But down in the swamps at the foot of the hill I saw rock-on-rock in a couple of traditional settings.
On the southern side of the hilltop were a number of tumbled down piles. If they had all been near the top I would have guessed each "pile" was one cartload of dumped rocks from, yes, field clearing. But they appeared all the way down the slope and, around midway down, it seemed like a peculiar place to drive a cart. So there is a faint chance these are Indian piles.
If you did not know any better this would seem to be a bonifide ceremonial rock pile. Given the shape the hill was in, I doubt it.I have to keep reminding myself to not expect much from Dunstable. I have been there before and it is a mostly sandy place. But this Forest Hill has enough rocks that one could not make that objection. So I wonder what is different about Dunstable? The place was harshly and quite recently used. A lot like Andover. Someday we can hope to put together a history of post contact Indian activity on a town-by-town basis. My sense is that the Indians are long gone from places like Dunstable and Andover. That they were still around pretty recently in places like Acton, and even more recently in Stow, Harvard, and Bolton; and that they are probably still around in places like Holliston.

Emails between me and Norman and West Viginia archeologists.

[Updated below]
Norman M started this off. After this blog posted some photos from W.VA he was trying to put the photographer in touch with someone from W.VA. Then an email exchange occurred between people in the "West VA Council of Archeology", and their Yahoo Group "CWVA Yahoo Group" at one end and, I think, me and Norman at the other. At first the West Virginians seemed somewhat open-minded. But as the exchange continues we get someone postulating rock piles formed 1/2 down hill by random rocks rolling into position [i.e. rather obvious nonsense]; as well as someone else with first hand experience (of hearsay) about Farmers making stone piles (except they were actually stone walls not piles). An interesting difference emerges between the field observations, made in some cases by non-archeologists, and the arm-chair philosophers who already know it all. Last weekend, walking in the woods I was having an imaginary conversation in my head to the affect that: "Lots of conventional wisdom and hearsay combined with an un-willingess to go out and look at data is not a recipe for science but a recipe for hot air". To be fair, the people who do not leave their arm-chairs and come up with ideas about what the aerial photograph "should" show (without looking at the aerials) have not seen the data Norman and I have. But to be fair in the other direction, they have no business pretending knowledge about things they have never seen.

Here are some of the emails exchanged:

HL:
The pattern of smaller rocks stacked upon a large rock base is occasionally seen in eastern WV. Guess I'm still skeptical about the Native American origin of these features. I remember seeing a feature of this sort that I know had been very recently made... However, I'm not claiming that they are all the result of historic clearing activity. For another rock site of interest, check out p.114 of September Blood: The Battle of Carnifex Ferry (WV) by Terry Lowry, 1985, ISBN 0-933126-59-X, Pictorial Histories Publishing Co. 4103 Virginia Avenue, Charleston, WV 25304. Mr. Lowry is an historian w the WV Div of Culture & History.

Me:
Could I add that Indians still exist today and that evidence of modernity is not by itself evidence that something is non-Indian. In other words "recent" and "Indian" are not mutually exclusive.

DF:
Those are not prehistoric cairns....
...The possibility that seems most likely to me that they are part of ahistoric fence line along a property boundary.

The 1945 aerial photographs from our region should show the fence linedelineating cattle pastures.

Another possibility is that the fence line relates to 1862 Battle of Carnifex Ferry, which is really a misnomer, since the "battle" occurred in the uplands closer to Kesler's Crossing rather than at the ferry crossing, which is at the confluence of Meadow River and Gauley River.
One other even less likely possibility is that the rock mounds may relate to early 20th century logging in the Gauley River, which transported logs down to railroad cars via overhead cables.

BJ:
While not precisely the same (rocks piled on top of a sandstone slab), these, particularly image #3, are reminiscent of rock piles that I encountered in my first couple of months at Baker in Buchanan County, Virginia. We were conducting several surveys for coal methane gasification pipelines. One of our wetland biologists ran into them on an upland bench, flagged them, and contacted me. My crew and I dug a couple of shovel probes immediately around the edge of the rock piles. First, the small bench had been plowed, second, the plow zone ran up to and apparently under the rock piles. So much for the Indian burial mounds.
In any event, I ultimately recorded several clusters of these in Buchanan County before we had to leave. They were essentially always on upland (mountain side) benches and often were associated with linear runs of rock walls. The piles seemed to be field clearing and the walls more for water run off control. I ran into a reference to them in a CRM report (I think by CRAI) in Kentucky. I think the author of that survey report tracked down an old lady in her 90s who remembered building some. In reply to why they had been built so symmetrically particularly for field throw, she replied that her daddy would have hit her upside the head if they hadn't been. Chuck may be able to help you with this.
I also ran across an article in Maryland Archeology (I think) at a place called Polish Mountain. They were in Garrett or Allegany counties. Also ran across a reference to some in one or another New England state archaeological society journal. Actually, somewhere at home, I have a file on info on the rock mound phenomenon. Let me know if you need more info.

Me: [sent off essentially same email about "Indian" and "recent" not being mutually exclusive].

DF:
I agree that cairn is a generic term. Cairn, however, is not the word archeologists in West Virginia and surrounding states use to describe what you showed me. I also refer you to the West Virginia State Site Record Form, which does not use the term, cairn, to describe these rock mounds. The term also obfuscates the fact that there is a complex of prehistoric rock mounds in the Gauley River drainage that contain Late Woodland burials.

In short, cairn is the wrong term to describe these historic structures, especially given that they are better described as historic rock mounds.

HL: [a long quote from book on Neolithic Wales re mound burial]

BJ:
I guess I was a little cryptic in my response. Sorry for that. I just wanted to take the point that there is nothing wrong with using the term "cairn" but that is has several different uses. Both David and Norman are correct. We simply need to be more precise in OUR meaning of the term. There are cairns, field clearing piles, throughout Appalachia that over time have been misinterpreted as prehistoric burial tumuli. That said, the latter also exist but with far less regularity. When these prehistoric rock mounds are encountered it has been my experience that the occur on promontories with commanding views, high ridge fingers, and generally on mountain tops.
Field clearing piles occur more frequently on mountain sides, especially on benches. When the ground was plowed in the 19th century, stones would becomedislodged, roll down hill, and come to rest at the first fairly level spot.As more and more stones ended up on benches they became a nuisance to farmers. The solution was simply to gather them up into piles and plow around them.

NM:
Here in the Northeast, field clearing consisted of gathering stones in a sled or stone boat, transporting them to the edge of a field and dumping them. Piling them in neat piles didn't make sense, with all the other important activities farmers had to do.

Me:
Since I am getting CC'ed on these emails I guess I'll weigh in. There is a pretty limited set of observations being discussed here and an even more limited set of hypotheses. There is evidence (which you are welcome to question) of rock piles being used for a wide variety of ceremonial purposes and sometime in conjuction with field clearing (imagine an Indian day laborer clearing a field and doing ceremonies in the process). Here is a list of a few possibilities you might consider:
- Field clearing
- Staging areas for selling rock
- Memorials (to the dead or to events)
- Burial mounds
- Trail markers
- Vision quests locations
- Blessing of water (at a spring)
- Archeo-astronomy position markers
- Shadow making piles (like "light daggers")
- Effigies
- Piles which seem to be designed to channel "energy"
In New England, most of the piles are recent as if there was an increase in pile building after European contact. Out West, piles were also used for buffalodrive lines in hunting, as well as for archeo-astronomy. In Georgia there have been several rock pile excavations which turned up nothing other than quartz, deer bones, and Middle Woodland dates. In Mass. a rock pile excavated by amateurs contained several pounds of hematite - a pile called a "field clearing" pile by the local archeologist. With all these possibilities, it is hard to imaging that W.VA is so much more limited.

BJ:
I don't think the possibilities in West Virginia are more limited, but I do think the photographed examples fit most neatly, clearly and consistently with known examples of field clearing.

Me: [Writing to Norman that I was surprised the West Virginians were still responding to his and my pinpricks.]

Norman (to BJ):
I'm curious to know how carefully constructed stone piles in the Mid-Atlantic states came to be called field clearing piles. Are there written records of this practice? In the Northeast, as I mentioned earlier, farmers simply dumped unwanted stone at the edges of fields and didn't bother to carefully stack them. This was the usual practice, but there may be the occasional exception.Farmers simply had too much to do to bother with careful stacking, which took time away from more important work. I had a waller from Scotland estimate how much time it would take to construct one of the mammoth flat topped cairns in Vermont (measuring something like 28' long, 15' wide and 7' high on the downside -- it was constructed on a fairly steep slope), and he concluded it would take a single worker a good part of three to four months to complete it, which included gathering the stone. And this time period was calculated by estimating that the worker focused on the cairn to the exclusion of everything else.

BJ:
I'm from Missouri where it is not at all uncommon for field clearing stones to be stacked, sometimes in low walls, sometimes in filled circles or squares. Children often did this at their father's direction. No one should lose sight of the many possibilities and discount an explanation simply because it does not fit their prior experience. After all, I don't think anyone alive today could speak with certainty about any activities of prehistoric peoples or Euroamericans living here a hundred years ago but we like to believe that we can figure out what they were doing, how they did it and why. Happy interpreting.

BJ:
As a young man in the early 1960s, I talked with farmers in the Missouri hill country. Several told me of their first-hand experiences stacking stone as children. I lived for several years next to one whose farm looked like a park with mixed hardwood forest overstory and native grasses lined with thousands of yards of low stone walls along the slopes. Stones were stacked not to open areas for cultivation but to allow more grasses for grazing.

Norman:
I have no problem with stacking stone for walls. This is an understandable practice in Missouri and elsewhere. My question below focused on the tradition of constructing stone mounds for field clearing, and whether this was documented somewhere.

[Norman has more patience than I do. What are you supposed to say to someone who "talked to a farmer"? It is ironic that such a conversation should be determining of what is believed in West VA archeology. But in the end all that you can say is: go out and look at these piles, then we'll talk. Also a clear recommendation to us all: try not to give opinions about sites you have not visited or at least wait to see some pictures and descriptions. Otherwise we will start sounding like old-school arm-chair philosophers ourselves].

Update (a couple more):
Me:
Hi again:I have to say that we are operating under a different paradigm from you. For us, a rock pile is a mystery until we know more. We are focused on observing not on interpreting and we flatly reject "farmers clearing fields" unless it is well ubstantiated. Up in New England it is often very poorly substantiated indeed. We have been told, even as children, that the Indians do not exist; but curiously, some exist today! When we show them rock piles, many of them know don't know anything. But a small group of traditional Indians do know something. If you can accept that not all Indians are trying to build casinos then you could take a look at some of the recent USET resolutions (Resolution 2007:037) to see just how serious these things are to the Indians.
Back in the field you may find observing and documenting these things to be rewarding. Frankly, studying piles of rock looks to be something that will revive the somewhat tired field of New England archeology.

Best wishes: Peter Waksman

BJ:
I think all who are interested in these phenomena wish to understand more about them. I don't know how observing something will provide knowledge absent interpretation. Everything we think we know is based on interpretations, from who's your daddy to the color of your car. Flatly rejecting alternatives that are not well substantiated seems a curious means to arrive at knowledge. I noticed that field clearing was on your list of possibilities in an earlier post. Have any of the other possibilities on that list been well substantiated? I believe that there must be multiple "correct" answers to the origins of stone piles for people do things for different reasons that result in similar products. Is it a projectile point or a knife? Context and consideration of alternatives are always important in sorting through our observations. I think that sorting is interpretation.

Happy observing.

[Me thinking]
I will not respond: Happy sitting around.