A Stone Dell (and more Shape-shifting)

...and the answer to Where's the Turtle!

Here he is up close:

I'll keep the big prize and offer this up as a consolation prize:

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-stone-dell-and-more-shape-shifting.html

Is There a Possible Stone Turtle Here?

What kind of Turtle?

Shape-shifting Turtle

A story for about a shape-shifting Turtle

and more:

including a possible stone pile turtle:

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-shape-shifting-turtle-and-wogey.html

- and all the photos here, tagged as High Place ...

Stone roofed enclosure - West Side of Rocky Hill, Leominster

This is a bit unusual:

 an outlier:

 more views:

 In the wall at the back of the enclosure:

Arrowhead hunting in Concord: flakes... maybe a hammer stone... and a plausible blade reconstruction

Chris's posts often make me go out arrowhead hunting, in shame I have not spent more time looking. With the new plowing and rain it definitely was time to go have a look. I found flakes, most of which were not too interesting after I picked them up:

 (quartz)

 (brown slate-like)

(blue argillite)

Chris commented that he had probably picked up and discarded several hammer stones. Here is a pretty good candidate from this same field- where there are no naturally occurring rocks.

If that is a hammer stone, maybe it was attached to a handle.

I went back the next weekend after more rain. Found more flakes:

 (a type of black rhyolite)

[When I picked up this little rock, it was the broken end of a larger piece. It would have been something long and thin. And in this same spot I have picked up other long thin pieces of black rhyolite, that I keep at home. Would there be a match???]

 (another type of black rhyolite)

I am told one kind of black rhyolite comes from Saugus and another from Westwood (it probably is not so simple). But this is clearly different material from the previous.

Here is most of some kind of scraper. Don't know the material but I have one complete Stark point made from it.

And here is a plausible blade reconstruction from when I got home.The tip on the right was sitting in a basket at home.

The flaking, edge work, material, and dimensions all match.

Older Than Stonehenge

I've been hearing about a Virginia site with "Stones, little stone bears and circles of stones, plus older news about some human hand petroglyphs at the same site."

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2014/05/older.html

N.A. Salt Industry In Tennessee

From Sydney Blackwell:

http://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/05/07/artifacts-delay-work-sulphur-dell-ballpark/8780441/  

Enclosure by a boulder - west side of South Manoosnoc

I found this a few weeks ago when there was still some snow. Here it is without the snow:

G.D. Loggers

I mean "god damned". The Leominster Historical Commission was alerted to the threat and, apparently, did nothing. The water department, I think supervising the logging at the south end of Mt Elam Rd, had no clue about historic protection. Finally the equipment gets larger and larger - capable of greater and greater damage. This time, they drove over stone walls, collapsed old water culverts, and erased details of the inner structure of several larger rectangular mounds. Burial disturbances, that's right! On the plus side, these rock piles are pretty robust and the site is still plain to see. On the other hand, details I could make out three years ago are gone today. Really!? Do they have to be such slobs?

This blog is not an organization, and I am not much of an activist. I cannot muster the weight of an organized membership. But why don't archeological societies and hiking groups pay a little attention to the need to communicate with the logging industry?
If you are in such an organization, please comment.

Big City Turtle

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2014/05/santa-maria-road-turtle.html

Juniper

Rhode Island Signal Rocks (by JimP)

by JimP

In Rhode Island one occasionally finds propped boulders just like these at the top of high outcroppings. Locals at one time called these, "Signal Rocks," and mention of them can still be found in some town records. With the weight of two persons on one side, the heavier side can be lifted and dropped to create a booming sound. The stone underneath acts as a fulcrum.

"All over New England there were bounding rocks. With these the Indians sent messages, by a code, for miles." (Red Wing 1972:354)

RED WING, Princess. 1972. Indian Communications. In College Composition and Communication, Vol. 23, No. 5. (Dec., 1972), pp. 350-356. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Great Falls Massacre - day of rememberance

[speaking of Norumbega...]
Join the Nolumbeka Project at the Great Falls Discovery Center, 2 Ave. A in Turners Falls,  on Sunday, May 18, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., for the annual Day of Remembrance of the infamous Great Falls Massacre on May 19, 1676. The program will include a ceremony, video presentation, and conversation. Soups and other refreshments will be on sale. Following the event, there will be a walking tour of the Wissatinnewag property in Greenfield. Please dress appropriately. For more information go to nolumbekaproject.org or phone 413-773-9818

Researcher studying Norumbega

[From a reader]

Hi, I am researching an area in Maine that Norumbega is shown on the maps, especially Champlain's 1607 map.  I have come across an area covered with stone walls and have been trying to reach out to the professionals to ascertain if they are colonial or Native American.  I have been in contact with Mr. Gage who said there was a good possibility that they were Native American.  If I can get confirmation it might help establish that a Native fortification exists where Norumbega is thought to have existed.  I have started a facebook page called Save Norumbega that exhibits several examples of the stonewalls I refer to.  I will include 1 just as an attention getter.  I would be interested in your opinion and my goal is to get this area recognized and preserved before the stonewall harvesters get to the area to remove the stones and build new ones at their own places of residence.
 T
[Also this video]

North Carolina Cherokees to evict Lumbee widow from her home

[From The People of One Fire - note comments about mound building.]

Native American Brain Food

May 5, 2014

 

North Carolina Cherokees to evict Lumbee widow from her home

 

In blatant contradiction to the long tradition of the Cherokees in accepting other peoples into their communities, the EBC Tribal Council is attempting to banish a Native American archaeologist from their reservation.  The real reason is that she knows too much. A mockery is being made of the NAGPRA program in the Southern Appalachians.

 

 

Let me say first that early in my career, I was an architectural consultant to the Qualla Cherokee Housing Authority in North Carolina.  I know what the reservation used to be like.  I remember the sincere, warm hospitality of the Cherokees there.  That time is gone with the wind.  The folks that I worked with are now elders.  They weep when they see what has become of their people.

 

Lora-Kay Oxindine Taylor is one of those rare birds known as a Native American archaeologist. She grew up in eastern North Carolina and is a member of the Lumbee Tribe.  The Lumbees are the largest Native American tribe, east of the Mississippi River.  They are almost as large as the Muscogee-Creek Nation of Oklahoma.  On paper, they should be the “heavy-weight champion” among tribes still located in the Southeast. Politically, they are not.

 

Unfortunately, the Lumbee Tribe has a strange legal relationship with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They are only partially recognized by the Federal Government. Repeated efforts to obtain full recognition by their tribal leaders and congressmen in eastern North Carolina are thwarted by Machiavellian interventions from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the Eastern Band of Cherokees in North Carolina.  Vast sums have been spent to pay various university professors to come up with reasons why the Lumbees are not eligible for recognition.  With card-carrying Cherokees averaging only 1 ½% Native American DNA, the efforts are rather hypocritical.  Heck, my herd dogs have more Asiatic DNA than that!

 

It seems that the federally recognized Cherokees are afraid that a Lumbee gambling casino 300 miles away on the North Carolina coast will hurt the business of the Cherokee casinos in the mountains.  It is the same evil greed that is corrupting and tearing the souls out of many federally recognized tribes.

 

Lora-Kay is an expert on Southern Siouan and East Tennessee Muskogean cultures. She was formerly employed by the Tribal Cultural Preservation Office in Cherokee, NC.  She was the only Eastern Band of Cherokee bureaucrat, who would help me while I was doing research for the former director of the National Park Service, Roger Kennedy.  I lost contact with her for a couple of years afterward until she saw my LinkedIn profile.  By then, she was a widow and unemployed.

 

At the time, I advised her that she needed to quickly find a job in another part of the Southeast. With endemic conjuring of demons,  bipolar behavior and organized crime going on at the Qualla Cherokee Reservation, her physical and mental health would be ruined by staying there.  She has tried, but the economy has caused the archaeology profession to have an even higher rate of unemployment than architects.  No agency wants to hire her.  She is in her 50s and her former employer is giving her bad references, so the only possible jobs are menial ones, offered by Lumbee friends back home in Lumberton, NC. She can’t afford to live in a decent house on minimum wages.

 

Lora’s attorneys have not sent me the paperwork yet on her eviction case, so I can only report what she told me. Legally, I am telling you hearsay.  Her late husband was a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokees. She was his second wife. His will gave the house to her.  Anywhere outside a federally recognized reservation, that would be the end of the story.

 

On federal reservations, the land is held in trust by the Department of Interior, so a home owner does not own the land under the house.  That is how the EBC tribal council got involved.  Her late husband’s children from the first marriage have gone through political channels on the Qualla Reservation to have her banished from the reservation on the grounds that she was not a member of the EBC and therefore cannot live there alone.  The EBC Tribal Council has the legal right on the reservation to determine the validity of her husband’s will. Is it any coincidence that her house is on Peggy Bigwitch Road?

 

The population of the Qualla Reservation has dropped by over 40% in recent years.  There is no housing shortage. Nevertheless, asking the EBC tribal council to interpret federal and state civil laws is the equivalent of asking the council of a small town in North Carolina to do the same. However, it is the role of the North Carolina attorneys to determine the legality of the eviction, whether or not the eviction is morally right.  It is a complex issue that pits tribal laws versus state and federal laws.

 

NAGPRA issues are another matter

 

It was a Snowbird Cherokee, who told me about the out-of-state land speculators bull-dozing Muskogean mounds in the Andrews Valley in advance of the second Cherokee casino. Since I first publicized this issue, several other North Carolinians of Cherokee ancestry have complained to me about desecration of Native American archaeological sites in their mountains.   Lora confirmed their stories.  The EBC Tribal Historic Preservation Office believes that they can only use persuasion to prevent destruction of Muskogean mounds and mound sites . . . which means that they typically get destroyed. At least, this is what EBC Cultural Preservation Officer, Russell Townsend, told the “Cherokee Scout” a newspaper in nearby Murphy, NC. 

 

Well, no . . . that’s caca de toro, Mr. Townsend.  I double-checked the issue with a friend in the National Park Service in Washington, DC.  The Woodland Period mounds contain the cremated remains of indigenous humans. Around 800-900 AD, the Itza Maya refugees in the Southern Appalachians introduced to us Muskogeans, the custom of burying the remains of commoners in the floors of houses and the remains of the elite in either stone box graves in the village plazas or in mounds.  So i is not a Cherokee "thing" and neither are those mounds in the Andrews Valley.   However, the United States government is paying most of your salary and by law you are obligated to protect our Muskogean burial sites.

 

The laws of the United States and North Carolina, governing this matter, apply equally to African, European and Native American burials.  All Muskogean villages contained human burials from end to end.  Any soil disturbance in a Muskogean village is disturbance of a cemetery. Any land owner in North Carolina, who arbitrarily destroys a Muskogean village site, is violating North Carolina and federal laws relating to human burials.  They can immediately be arrested by local law enforcement.

 

Seminole heritage

 

During the two years that I was either living in a tent or in the office of an abandoned chicken house, I was also doing important research, funded by Roger Kennedy. I proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the people, who built the ceremonial mounds and large town sites in western North Carolina, were the direct ancestors of the Seminoles. The only Muskogean province in Western North Carolina that did not head due south was the Tvskeke (Tuskegee).   They spoke a dialect of Muskogee and moved to east-central Alabama to become part of the Creek Confederacy.  Their cousins in present day eastern Cherokee County, NC, who spoke Itsate (Hitchiti), were called the Tvskete (Tusquitee).

 

The Talasee, Chiaha, Oconee, Tamatli, Tamauli, Euchee, Tokasi, Nokosee, Tusketee, Etowa, Shawnee and Echetee in Florida originated in the region of North Carolina, west of Asheville.  They were forced out of the region in the early 1700s by the new Cherokee alliance. Do these words sound familiar to our Seminole friends in Florida?  Bet they do!  

 

The Tamatli in the Andrews Valley, near Tomatla and Murphy, NC were a colony of the Tamatli in the famous province of Tama in southeast Georgia.  Their descendants in the mountains look very different even today than the ethnic Cherokees in the Qualla Reservation.  Their women are small-boned and gracile with small noses and no ear lobes. Their physiques are like Carrie Underwood’s. Sorry, I always liked going to the Murphy, NC Ingles Supermarket to gawk at the good looking Tamatli women, who resembled my female cousins.  LOL

 

Many Cherokees, in Cherokee and Clay Counties, NC, plus Towns and Union Counties, GA share a common heritage with the Seminoles.  This has been demonstrated by the DNA studies.  Those Cherokees with Muskogean-Maya-South American DNA profiles are, indeed, the descendants of the people, who built the Track Rock terrace Complex, Peachtree Mound, Murphy Mound and Talulah Mound in Graham County, NC.  Their genetic profiles are very different from most Cherokees living 45 miles away on the reservation, but there are some Snowbird Cherokees with Muskogean-Maya profiles.

 

NAGPRA improprieties

 

Lora-Kay Oxindine sent me documents awhile back that are very damning of the current cultural preservation program on the Qualla Cherokee Reservation.  This office is substantially funded by federal grants, so I have forwarded the documents to the appropriate investigative offices in Washington, DC and some senators on an oversight committee.  The EBC sends funds to archaeologists, professors, museums, Chamber of Commerce Visitors Centers, and rightwing politicians in a 300 mile multi-state radius, which protects them from regional agencies, but that won’t help them in DC.

 

I have known for some time that a large five-sided Oconee-Creek mound and town site in the Birdtown section of the Qualla Reservation was bulldozed in the late 1980s for real estate development and a sewage treatment plant.  The etymology of the Oconaluftee River on the reservation is “Oconee People – cut off (isolated.) “   It would have been quite embarrassing if an especially knowledgeable tourist asked what a five-sided Creek mound like the one at Etowah, was doing on a reservation where the Cherokees had lived 10,000 years.

 

Lora-Kay informed me about two other mounds on the reservation, one Mississippian and the other Swift Creek, which were bulldozed long after NAGPRA laws came into effect.   The crimes that these two mounds committed were that they contained artifacts (Swift Creek Complicated Stamp and Etowah Complicated Stamp) identical to those found in Georgia, which North Carolina archaeologists couldn’t possibly claim were proto-Cherokee Pisgah Phase artifacts. 

 

This is why about six years ago North Carolina Cherokee artisans suddenly began going around the country, claiming that the Cherokees “invented” Swift Creek pottery.  If you don’t believe me, look at this website sponsored by the Cherokee National Museum:  Cherokee Pottery Exhibit. 

Not only did the planners in North Carolina of the "Cherokee Pottery: People of One Fire," steal our organization’s name, but the traveling exhibit tells museum visitors that the Cherokees created the oldest pottery in North America, “Stallings Island - 2500 BC.”  Stallngs Island ceramics were first found near Augusta, GA. No Cherokee village was ever located there.  The exhibit also shows copies of two jars on display at Ocmulgee National Monument and labels them “Cherokee jars from around 900-1000 AD.”  Actually, the exhibit shows artifacts and reproductions from throughout the Southeast and Mississippi Basin, but labels them all “Cherokee Art.”

 

Where Lora-Kay first came into conflict with the EBC members in the Cultural Preservation Office was in Tennessee.  She was forced to label human remains and artifacts as being “Cherokee” that were found at locations and/or were of styles that the McClung Museum in Knoxville has labeled Muskogean, Proto-Creek or Proto-Koasati.   This was done so that the THPO’s of the Muscogee-Creek Nation, Poarch Creek Tribe and Seminole Tribe of Florida, would not become involved.  

 

Personally, the most shocking information provided me by Lora-Kay is that casino revenue at the Qualla Reservation has financed a million dollar a year slush fund to purchase privately owned Creek and Koasati archaeological sites in Georgia and Tennessee.  Superficially, to tree-huggers from other parts of the nation, it looks like a wonderful program to protect archaeological sites.  However, these sites are being labeled “Sacred Cherokee Heritage Sites.”  They are used to re-write history.

 

Only those archaeologists, who say what the EBC wants them to say, are allowed to examine Cherokee Sacred Sites.  Well, up to the time that Lora-Kay was fired, all of the sites were kept a secret.  

The archaeological study of the Track Rock Terrace Complex was primarily funded by the EBC. No wonder the archaeologist at Track Rock made a fool out of himself by calling the 300 agricultural terraces, “ceremonial platforms built by the Cherokees.”  

Part of the reason that I decided to take a high profile on the Track Rock announcement was that I “got word” that the USFS bureaucrats in Georgia were negotiating to turn over the Track Rock Archaeological Zone and Brasstown Mountain in Georgia  to the Eastern Band of Cherokees “as a reservation.”  The stated reason was to “privatize USFS recreation assets” and save the taxpayers money.  However, the real reason was that the change in ownership would effectively negate federal regulations that blocked organized crime based in Gainesville, GA from sponsoring a Cherokee casino north of Atlanta.

 

That gets us to the root of the problem. There is something far more sinister going on with these real estate acquisitions.   Lora-Kay pointed out several real estate tracts in Georgia and Tennessee that were of marginal importance from an archaeological standpoint.  However, their proximity to Interstates 24, 75 and 85 would be ideal locations for gambling casinos.   Federal regulations require that a tribe have a reservation in a state where a casino is planned, plus own the tract of land for the casino at least five years.

 

A now you know!

 

Richard Thornton, Editor

Architect & City Planner

In Search of Rhode Island's Lost Stony Fort (by JimP)

by JimP

"LAYING OUT OF A HIGHWAY.

The following laying out is believed to have been about 1703. It is recorded in the L.E. in the Secretary's office.

. . . until it comes to an old pair of barrs and the road to run to the eastward of Samuel Tifft's fence, until it comes to William Knowles NE corner and so by marked trees or bushes until it comes to the stony fort and then by marked trees through Ebenezer Shearman's farm, till it comes to a great rock not farr from a brook and so to untill it meets with marked trees in a corner of Jeremiah Harzard's farm . . ." (Collections 1835:224) 

COLLECTIONS of the Rhode Island Historical Society, Vol. III. 1835. Pg. 224. Providence, RI: Marshall, Brown and Company.

   Growing up, I heard local legends about the Narragansett Indian's "stony fort complexes". Certainly I have made dozens of visits to Queen's Fort, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and includes a complex of stone walls, standing stones, talus caves, and other features in and around a hill of enormous boulders. I knew about the Great Swamp Fort and Fort Ninigret with their contemporary accounts of partial construction with stone walls. I have also visited the Rolling Rock site with its interesting stone walls, possible use of quartz symbolism, stone-lined springs, and nearby "poor" graves. I am also familiar with the Gungywamp site in nearby Connecticut and its possible connection to a colonial account of a stony fort, "neare Pequot". But could there possibly be more?

One of two green epidote standing stones leaning against a boulder in the western wall at Queen's Fort.

There had also been some scant evidence of another stony fort. I have never been able to track down descriptive accounts in local histories, but I have found another piece to the puzzle -- the aforementioned quote found in the 1835 book from the Rhode Island Historical Society.

First, let me fill you in about what initially led me to believe there may be a lost stone Indian fort in Rhode Island. The screenshot below from Google maps shows two placemarks. The first, to the north, is the site of Queen's Fort -- the only stone Indian fort in New England that is recognized as a historic landmark. But more than six miles to the south -- lined in blue -- is a road named Stony Fort Rd. I had always found this curious. I thought Stony Fort Rd. would have been named after Queen's Fort. There is no stone fort that I know of within six miles of Stony Fort Rd. How can there be a connection to Queen's Fort if Stony Fort Rd. is six miles to the south?

The exact spot where the placemark for Stony Fort Rd. sits is on railroad tracks that run north/south. To the east of the placemark/tracks the road is called Stony Fort Rd. To the west of the placemark/tracks it is Wolf Rocks Rd.

Google Map showing the site of Queen's Fort to the north,
and Stony Fort Rd./Wolf Rocks Rd. six miles to the south.

It has been a mystery to me for decades -- but very recently I found the reference to the "stony fort" that I quoted at the top of this post and it has given me an important new piece to the puzzle. Although I am not entirely certain, it appears that the highway that is being laid out is what is today called the Old North Rd. to the south and Shermantown Rd. to the northeast.

But whatever that old highway is called today, the stony fort described in the entry cannot be Queen's Fort. The entry refers to the farm of William Knowles. From town records we know William Knowles owned land at a place called Little Rest Hill. In 1726, the Village of Little Rest was renamed Kingston, and today it is home of the University of Rhode Island as well as one of only two Amtrak stations in the state. Then, according to the entry, after reaching the stony fort the highway ran through Jeremiah Hazard's farm. Again, from town records, we know Jeremiah Hazard lived not far from Little Rest. At no point does the road laid out go six miles to the north where Queen's Fort is situated. So I can now, for the first time ever, rule out Queen's Fort as the origin of the name "Stony Fort Rd."

So now that we know the "stony fort" in the entry is definitely not Queen's Fort, what stony fort is being referenced? Since Stony Fort Rd. is also named Wolf Rocks Rd. to the west of the train tracks, could the entry be referring to Wolf Rocks? Wolf Rocks is a geological wonder in Rhode Island - a large 50-foot deep ravine filled with giant boulders. At one time, Wolf Rocks was a popular place for visitors. But since the 1970's, local landowners surrounding the site have discouraged visitors. As far as I know, Wolf Rocks has become all but forgotten except to locals.

The 50-foot deep ravine filled with boulders known as Wolf Rocks.

Queen's Fort is certainly a natural geological wonder itself. Most of it was made entirely by nature. Humans have embellished the site by building stone walls and other features. Could Wolf Rocks have been regarded as a stone fort in early colonial Rhode Island simply because it was an important place to the Narragansett Indians? Could the early colonists have called Wolf Rocks a stony fort simply because it reminded them of Queen's Fort to the north? Or is there another stone fort somewhere nearby, lost, forgotten, hidden in the North Kingstown woods?

An unknown collection of boulders between the site of Wolf Rocks and Wolf Rock Rd. Could this be the lost stony fort?

Of course, I still have more questions than answers. But I have a solid lead. Now all I need is a volunteer in or near Rhode Island to search a few land records and pin down an approximate location for the lost "stony fort". I need someone to help me poke around town records for the origin of the name Stony Fort Rd. Who wants to help this poor Arizonan solve a mystery and find the lost stone fort? Shoot me an email if you're interested! jimtheump@cox.net

IF-THEN Questions

     If there are many free standing stone concentrations/constructions that resemble animals, both actual and legendary, that figured highly in the Indigenous People of Turtle Island (Native Americans of North America) Worldview – the turtle, bear and deer etc. along with the Great Serpents etc, -  then who was more likely to have the time and motivation to create this artwork?

      If those same techniques of artwork can be found in those longer piles of stones most often called “stone walls” then again, who was most likely to have the time and motivation to create this artwork?

       If the Indigenous People of Turtle Island (Native Americans of North America) maintained the landscape with fire then how were those fires controlled, especially in areas of dense population?

        If Paleo-Indians (the Ancestors of the Indigenous People of Turtle Island) made “sophisticated prehistoric stone walls deep beneath the surface of Lake Huron,” the most recent find described as “two stone lines forming a lane about 30 metres long and eight metres wide which ended in a corral-type structure” with “hunting blinds built into the sides as well as other lanes and structures,” then why not elsewhere on Turtle Island?

        If: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/05/02/lake-huron-hunting-wall_n_5253041.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000044&ir=Green, then this just might create a null hypothesis of this: http://stonewall.uconn.edu/investigation/pre-european-contact/

Jim P's video

[Promoted from comments by Jim P]
Years ago I created this video showing stone structures all over Southern New England. The soundtrack was provided by Generations Drum recorded by Ponkapoag and Natick bands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExKcC4G--QE

I also created this website years ago with timelines, places, and more.

http://www.menotomyjournal.com/massachuset/

Broken quartz rules everything around me

     I would rather find one nice arrowhead, in an interesting shape, made of an unusual material, than a whole pile of broken quartz arrowhead fragments.
     But, I would rather find a broken corner of a triangular quartz arrowhead, than search all day and go home empty-handed. So when I can, I like to go to those places that are productive and where I have the best chances of finding an artifact.
     Lately that has meant going to a place where I find a lot of broken quartz arrowhead fragments. Here are the results from a walk after work.

     That piece at the far left is one corner of a huge triangular point. There are some broken triangular arrowheads, some crude stuff that might be preforms or scrapers. This stemmed base was a heartbreaker, it was a big point and I do not find many in this shape at this site.

     This Squibnocket Triangle has nice flaking on one edge (left side) but the other edge is more crude, I'm not sure if this was resharpened, damaged, made that way?

     This was the most intact of the points from that evening. Rather crudely made.

     It's really thick. Probably used as a knife, I guess.

     I went back to that place this morning before work. The warm air felt nice, I only had around 20 minutes to search and it rained the whole time but it was worth it. I spotted this and took one (blurry) photo before I picked it up. Lots of slugs on the ground out there today.

     It's a tiny Squibnocket Triangle missing the tip. It's really thin and nicely flaked. It is flaked on one side only, flat and smooth on the other- carefully crafted from a quartz flake. I only have a very few unifacially flaked quartz triangles like this and they are all small. Some call these "bird points" but I don't know if anyone really knows the purpose of these smallest projectile points. Here it is cleaned up with another find from this morning, I have a number of roughly chipped artifacts in this same shape- I think they are scrapers.

     The place where I found these is small. There's a little hill next to a stream. The hilltop, the slope, and a small flat area at the base of the hill next to the stream are covered with quartz chips. I have found very many triangular quartz arrowheads there, a few small stemmed types (Wading River, Squibnocket Stemmed), some Levanna triangles. I found a Brewerton base, a fragment of a bannerstone, a pottery fragment, tantalizing fragments of large points made of different materials including flint. I think the debitage there is 99 percent quartz, very rarely I find a flake of argillite, black/white rhyolite or red felsite. The hammer stones must be there, probably I pick them up and drop them without recognizing them. I don't know if families lived there, maybe it was a fishing camp, perhaps this site was used in different ways at different times?

Lawton-Foster Cairns (by JimP)

by JimP

It's been a long time since my last blog post here and I want to thank Peter for keeping me on board. I might have been away, but I have always kept close watch.

Lately I have been very intrigued with the recent fight over cairns along a proposed subdivision at Lawton-Foster Rd. in Hopkinton, RI. I took photos of cairns along that road more than ten years ago and thought I would share them now since they are topical. The cairns in these photos are not on the parcel where the subdivision is proposed -- but are very close. As you drive down Lawton-Foster Rd. you can see rock piles on both sides of the road as far into the woods as the eyes can see. I didn't want to do any trespassing so I stuck to photographing only a few piles that I could see from the road. But there are hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- in that area.

These cairns are not isolated. They are a small part of a much larger and more expansive site that covers dozens of square miles, starting with a hill above Ashville Pond at its epicenter. Contiguous rock piles can be found in all directions surrounding the hill -- even crossing the border into nearby Connecticut. Rockville, Canonchet, Yawgoog, Lawton-Foster - all of these surrounding places are chock full of rock piles and other features. I am very happy to see some of these sites getting the recognition they deserve and sincerely hope the cairns in the proposed subdivision can be saved.