Monroe County, PA; a small site, part one

By GeophileWell, over the weekend we got back up to that site in Monroe County where my camera failed me. My son, Jonas Wisser, is home on fall break from Oberlin and since he had never seen the Railroad Drive cairn site, which is close to the trail head for the other site, we stopped there first. The picture above shows the nicest cairn there, which we've seen on this blog before, but it's always nice to look at. All of these pictures were taken by Jonas. (Training up the next generation!)

Then we went to the trail and made our way to the site. It was a beautiful day for it. One of the features of this site is a large, low rock pile featuring near one corner what I think of as a a rock-on-cairn as shown above. You can see it at the far end in the picture below, which shows the shape of the rock pile better. Notice the flat stone off to the left in the picture above. There were two like that at angles to one another.


There are a couple of short walls, too, incorporating some reddish stones.

And this possible split wedge, although the stone doesn't look wedged so much as placed. Note the low accent wall just behind it. The structure at the corner is the larger wall. There were springs and rock piles there, which I'll post separately.

Wedged Rock- Westborough, MA

Kanape Brook Trail

By Geophile
On our last day in Ulster County, NY a couple of weeks ago, we went for a walk in an area of mixed stone features. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, my camera was on its last expedition, and the quality of the pictures leaves something to be desired. The picture above shows a Conservation Corps spring box we found along the trail We'd heard it was there and we had no trouble identifying it.

Above is an ambiguous feature that could well be colonial or later. I'm not sure what it was, but thought it worth photographing especially because of the metal item laid on top.

The picture above shows one end of a wall that came up a steep bank from the stream. We'd seen some walls that were definitely agricultural in the area, very squared off and somehow unmistakably farmers' walls, but this had a different look and was associated with a spring and some much more freeform structures that didn't photograph well. It's possible this was ceremonial.
Stones on a boulder.

Here another interesting wall ranges uphill.

This very small pile along the path added to the mix of stone features. On a short walk we saw agricultural walls, the CC spring box, this and another very modern pile, and some possible ceremonial structures. The styles were distinct, all using the same material.

A small Westborough Rock Pile Site

A colleague told me about a conservation land with rock piles and I decided to go and try exploring it myself. I didn't find anything until I was trying to get back to the trail, feeling slightly lost and, ironically, stumbled on a small site in a break-out zone, where water was coming out of the hill in a little gully and wetland. I do not think these are the piles my colleague told me about and I did fail to find some nice site he talked about. Anyway, I was walking along feeling lost and saw this:Quite a nice pile. Usually at a rock pile site in a break-out zone like this, the piles are not so substantial, usually I expect just a handful of rocks on a support boulder.

Here is a picture of the slope with a more typical smaller pile. The view here is roughly southeast.
Here is a view of the same slope, facing more southwest:
A closeup of that pile:
(It is nice also to have such good light under the trees along with the color of the leaves. The light is never too good in the woods in summer).

So I walked down the slope, towards the north, following the faint gully that was forming there. Snapping pictures of most of the piles. Walking through the thick barberry bushes, getting a few scratches but, look at this:Worth the wait, in my opinion. Here are a couple more from in there:
A few feet further down hill I hit the trail and, looking back I could see this last pile, clearly visible from the trail about forty feet away. I had passed the site on my way in.

There is not a great deal I can conclude from this site - a small collection of rock piles along a faint gully, forming on the northern side of a hill. The piles are all supported on boulders and seem to be made from the rocks that were lying around on the hillside - some rounded, some sharp edged. No one ever tried to farm this rocky slope. At a glance I would have thought there were only two or three piles in there but poking through the bushes carefully turned up about eight different rock piles.

Couldn't blog

The blogger software/server was not working this evening and I couldn't upload photos.

An embarrassing moment

I got a call from an old acquaintance and we were talking about rock piles when he mentioned there being some on a hill nearby that I explored at least once in the past, without finding anything. How many times have my eyes passed across that same hill on the topo map and discounted it because I had "already explored it." And what about those low areas between the hill and the nearby brook! I discounted them for some other reason. And now to have him tell me about the piles that are in there too is embarrassing.

Bayberry Hill Leominster

Two weekends ago, having failed to find anything during my Sunday morning exploration, I stopped on the way home on Elm Str. and took a trail across the dam of Haynes Reservoir, and then up a hill. The trail passed near a small pre-summit of the larger hill (which I now see is called Bayberry Hill), so I dutifully went to explore its western slope, hoping for rock piles, expecting there to be rock piles, intending for there to be rock piles.

It barely worked but there were the faintest traces of a rock piles site.
Two almost inconsequential piles, each visible in the same way against a near horizon.

Pennsylvania: Interesting Stone Sites on the Net

By Geophile

A few links. The first is to a picture of a rock pile in the area of Pennsylvania where I grew up. The Pinnacle is a spot along the Kittatinny Ridge of the Appalachians where the ridge doubles back on itself. At the end of the kink is a rock outcropping that forms a lookout. It is a tradition among at least some hikers to bring a stone to add to a large rock pile there. Here's a picture with hikers. And here is what the Pinnacle itself looks like, speaking of rock piles. The landscape in the far background there is where I grew up.

Also, my brother Andy sent me a link to pictures of a site in Schuylkill County, called Boxcar Rocks or the Chinese Wall. It's hard to tell in the pictures but at places it is as much as 60 feet high. Some good pictures of it are here and here, and if you use the links in the top box at the right, you can see more. Note the boulder that looks like a standing female figure in the second photo.

Shapes and colors

Speaking of pile-gap-pile...

The pictures don't do this justice but there was a sense that this pile was built in relation to a couple of boulders nearby. You see one in the background of each picture but no good view of the whole group. This seemed to be a solitary pile on a southwestern shoulder of a large hill - the one I have been writing about lately - but I don't trust solitary piles and looked around in all directions carefully. There was one more pile several yards uphill:And another hint of a pile over a ways on the slope. [I did not notice what seems to be in the crack until I got home and looked at the picture. It looks like things jammed in there but I guess it is a quartz vein.]

Then up to a ridge with one more pile,
and climbing to the little summit (not the main one), where there was this at the highest point: Then I rested on that rock you see behind. Took my cellphone out and thought: well if I forget it here, at least I'll know where I lost it and be able to find it. Which is exactly what happened.

The Persistence of the Mound Builder's Culture among Recent Indian Tribes

"Passing now to another form of interment, that of the cairn, we again find conclusive evidence. Indeed the practice continued until within the memory of persons now living. Yarrow speaks of them as having been erected in recent times by “tribes living in the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas.” (Mortuary Customs of North American Indians, p. 48). Cairns were often raised over communal burials. Col. C.W.Jenckes, who was among the Cherokees says: “We have Indians all around us, with traditions extending back for 500 years. In this time they have buried their dead under huge piles of stones. We have at one point the remains of 600 warriors under one pile.” (Poster,Prehistoric Races, p.149). Lafitua states positively that some tribes of the Iriquois raised cairns over single graves. (Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains, vol.II, p.416) and Adair tells us that the Mohawkes were accustomed to honor their dead in this way. (N.American Indians, note to p.85). The tribes of the Muskogian stock certainly raised cairns over the temporary graves of their dead (See Lawson, History of Carolinas, p.22; Bartram, Travels, p.348, and Adair, History of N. American Indians, p.184). The same custom was prevalent among the tribes west of the Mississippi. Hunter says that the Osages “cover the grave with stones, and for years after resort to it.” (Captivity, p. 309). The Osages, if we are to believe his story, also used the so called “stone graves” for, speaking of burial in general, he says: “This ceremony was performed differently, not only by different tribes, but by individuals of the same tribe - - - the body being some times placed on the surface of the ground, between flat stones set edge upward, and then covered over, first by similar stones, and then by earth

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brought a short distance.” (Captivity,p. 355) He also speaks of “elevatio - - - which were formerly and are at present exclusively devoted to burying their dead”, and which “are composed of stones and earth, place in such a manner as to cover the separate one dead body from another.” (Captivity,pp. 307 - 308). These stones graves are found over a large area, and many cases of mounds composed entirely of stone cists and earth have been reported. For instance Dr. Cyrus Thomas says: “It is not unusual to find a mound containing a number of these cists arranged in two, three or more tiers. As a general rule cists not in mounds are near the surface of the ground and in some instances even projecting above it.”(Shawnees in Pre-Columbian Times,American Anthro. Vol. IV, Nos. 2-3). Hunters account and the archaeological finds thus tally fairly well, but there is abundant evidence from other and perhaps more reliable historical sources. Thus Loskiel says of the Delawares: “They buried their dead by digging a grave of the required size and about one or two feet deep; they put flat stones at the bottom and set others at each end and each side, on the edge; then laid the body in, generally on the back, at full length; covered the grave with the same kind of stone, laid as closely together as practicable, without cement, sometimes laying smaller stones over the joints or cracks to keep the earth from falling into the grave. Then they covered the grave with earth, not generally more than two or three feet high.” (Hist. Miss. United Brethren, p.120). The practice continued among the middle western tribes until comparatively recent times, thus Thomas says: “An old lady of Jackson Co. (Illinois) personally known to the writer, informed one of the bureau assistants that she had seen a Kaskaskia Indian burried in a stone grave of the type under consideration, which she pointed out to him (Shawnee in Pre-Columbian Times, p. 47). Dr. Rau also says: “It is a fact well remembered by many persons in this

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neighborhood (Monroe Co. Ill.) that the Indians who inhabited this region during the early part of the present century buried their dead in stone coffins.” (Jones. Antiq.So. Indians, p.220)."

More to report but no energy for it

I still have two small sites from last weekend to report but 9-5 work is hard lately and I am burnt out.

A small wetland site

Behind the hill and before the houses, a number of piles consisting of a handfull of rocks on a support boulders, among the many boulders in a wet area.
Sometimes just one rock on a rock:
Sometimes pairs:
There seemed to be more than one of these pair piles - a feature of the place.

Another small subtle site. It is too bad it could easily disappear before being understood.

A few more elements from near the Ashokan

By GeophileHere's a little rock ring I saw at one point.

Here we see the rock wall running up and down the hill from the wetland to the house.

This is a spring near the wetland with the wall leading to or away from it.

And rocks on a rock. As with the first rock on rock I showed, these stones seem fresh and angular compared to many used in other structures in that site.

More of the site near the Ashokan

By GeophileI thought I'd be able to finish up with this site in one more post, but it will have to be two. The situation of the features is worth describing. Most of them lay in a narrow strip between a sort of rock ledge, consisting of a drop where boulders were exposed as above, and a wetland of mostly grasses.

Above, the wall appears to head for the wetland, but in fact it curls around the rise. You can see a boulder on the rock ledge on the right.

At the spot above, a wall began from the ledge or outcropping.

There was at least one spring in the area between. Here a rock formation of some kind lay along one side of the small stream issuing from the spring.

Another wall headed uphill at a place where the outcropping disappeared. This wall went right up to a section of the house we were staying in and then continued up the hill and across Route 28A. I didn't follow it across the road. The whole area is well-marked: No Trespassing.

I didn't notice when I took this that my shadow was visible. I took it for the larger stones on top of the wall, which I guessed may have been added later than the rest, possibly by recent or current owners. I have a few more pictures of interesting bits of this site and will add them sometime soon.

Name that structure

Any guesses?

Short stretch of stone wall - Hopkinton State Forest

Last Saturday I went back to Hopkinton State Forest to explore beyond the hill where I found a fair sized rock pile site - the one I have been reporting about for the last week. Saturday, I saw this stretch of wall down the western side and then a small rock pile site in the wetland back there behind houses. Then I went on to the true summit, another small site on one shoulder of the larger hill, a couple of minor piles here and there and then that nice rocking stone. It is a pretty nice walk in there. Anyway, I am going to be posting random pictures and site descriptions for then next couple of days. Then we can look at some pictures from a minor site off Elm Rd in Leominster.
I have decided to count short enough stretches of stone wall as a kind of rock pile. This one was isolated from other walls in the area.

Here is another little feature from nearby.
Note the wedge of rock in the crack and the hint of structure in the rocks to the rear.