Rock Piles

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

More artifacts from the Kentucky Stone Wall/Mound Site

More photos from Yanaba L, who writes:
I found this arrowhead a few miles away from the rock pile location on a Creek bed..my friend has also found quite a few arrowheads at this creek..
Also, I found this fish shaped rock in the area of the rock piles..found quite a few of them but this is the only one I kept...

Tuesday, June 09, 2015

Up by Some Power Lines in CT

Some recent site destruction at an enhanced or decorated outcrop in an Archaeologically Sensitive Area, along the power lines, on the border of Woodbury and Bethlehem CT, along a path Norman, Peter and I once walked back in Nov. 1998.

(Above an enhancement of "before" and below a photo of "after:")

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2015/06/feeling-powerless-under-power-lines.html
http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2015/06/older-photos-from-under-power-lines.html

Monday, June 08, 2015

Lovell Reservoir Continued

Continuing from here. Essentially my walk took me along the side of a valley, up to its origin, and then back up the side to a plateau, after a brief rest.

Let me tell you that after my brief rest (under the letter 'v' of "Lovell") that slope to the northwest looked inviting. Open, sunny, not too much underbrush but patches of fern and, as it turned out, patches of exposed rock that looked more and more like deliberate rock piles. At the brow of the hill was a wall with a conspicuous wall bulge. It caught my attention because of the collapse at the center against the wall:

This was also "suspicious" because there was an auxiliary small pile (to the left) and because of some quartz details:

(Lower right, there is a small piece of quartz, then another above it near the green leaf and, finally, I am pointing slightly to the left of a third piece.) Also, I could see another pile from there and was more confident - for the first time during the walk - that yes, these piles are the real thing:

But never mind the little stuff, I turned and saw this with its feet in a vernal pond (there is water seeping out of the ground in several places on this plateau):

I took quite a few pictures. You can see there was a bit of structure (wall in back and hole in front), now fallen down:

I did not realize there were two larger ones out of sight off to the side. Here is one:

Let me call attention to the cream beige quartzite left of center:

About 15 feet down the left side of the pile was a second piece of quartz:

And here is a view from that end:

You can glimpse the quartz on the right behind the sapling. As with the first mound, there is obvious structure here - now collapsed.

The last, and biggest:

And again there is a hint of collapsed structure:

Goodbye, I'll probably not see you again:

On the way back to the car, there were a few smaller mounds, a house foundation, then a further small cluster of piles around a seep. I have no reason to think the house foundation is from a different age than the piles. As is often true in northern Fitchburg, it looks like the farmers were continuing some older traditions. One comment about the style of piles: these are not your typical rectangles with hollows - they are more like messy, multilevel, with internal walls. Quite like others from this same specific area, as shown here and especially here.

The whole slope is a graveyard. Does it matter? Perhaps the town needs to know about it, so they can avoid bulldozing and logging. But otherwise it is a remote area and reasonably likely to remain undisturbed.

Sunday, June 07, 2015

Unfamiliar stone tool from stone mound/wall site in Kentucky

From the same site in Frankfort KY.

Friday, June 05, 2015

A site in Phippsburg ME

Thursday, June 04, 2015

From Bear Sign to Mound Group

I parked on Ashby West Rd and followed Scott Brook downhill before cutting across the side of the hill northward hoping to get into a ravine I could see on the topo map, east of Lovell Reservoir..
Here were some unfamiliar flowers:

I came across some bear poop, as I mentioned. Which is my first contact with such things in Massachusetts. Eventually I got across the hillside, covered with pine saplings, into the ravine.
As I followed the west side northward, I tried to keep an eye on the eastern side - which looked dull. I kept coming across piles of rock that were ambiguous. Were they natural? Were they part of nearby system of walls? A first of several wall bulges:

Then down to the very top of the ravine - where water first comes out of the ground. And look west:

And look east, and there is a large berm, divided, with smaller piles nearby:

A smaller pile next to the berm:

And a smaller pile next to it:

See what is in between the heart-leafed lillies?

A busy place - the head of the ravine.
I fell into the poison ivy at one point and rushed down to what was left of the brook to wash my hands in the mud. From the head of the ravine I continued northeast to a lookout over the reservoir then headed back northwest into the remnants of the valley. I was not sure where to go from there but the slope to the northwest was inviting - with large sunny patches of hay-scented ferns and more rock piles that seemed somewhat natural and hard to make out on the slope. I saw more:

A nice symmetry

More on the Hensler Site

Via Norman Muller:

For those interested in the Hensler site in WI and the petroglyphs found there, here is a link to an article on the site by Jack Steinbring:

***
Update:

This link will take you to the page with the Steinbring article on the Hensler site. It is the third article down under “Research”, p. 27-45. Tim’s link is to an abstract of the longer article.

http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/3/1

Hensler Paleo-Indian Point Petroglyph (Wisconsin)

A video by Todd Rongstad, part of the Sacred Ground Documentary Series, that features Dr. Jack Steinbring, David Weier, Ritchie Brown, and DS Cook.

Click here: THE DISCOVERY - Hensler Paleo-Indian Point Petroglyph
Click here for the other videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1uQDrP2EIsgP8dNtiSbm_w

Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Stone Mounds (Morris/Litchfield CT)

I was walking along some undulating rows of stones, open space land now, probably post contact time pasture turned woodlot as the times changed when the automobile replaced the horse, when I encountered some stone mounds in a sea of wet ferns on the first day of June, the rainy cold beginning of Meteorological Summer.

The first may be just a "modern" creation, stones piled to make some wide modern pathways, the rows of stones looking scant, slim and sloppy as if they had possibly been "harvested" in the last couple hundred years maybe:

I'd been by this one before and I didn't stay long to look, continued on along fairly level ground. I got off the path when I saw some sizable stones visible sticking up above the ferns, just before the drop down to a very large swamp:

The entire set will end up on my Flickr page, as the opportunity or insomnia arises. Some of the other stonework, some possibly related to the cranberry bog below these mounds, is already up here: http://nonnewaugfalls.blogspot.com/2015/06/turtle-and-more-in-rain.html

Mound and Wall site in Frankfort KY

Reader Yanaba L. sends some pictures from here land in Frankfort KY and writes:
I do hope someone from Kentucky pipes up as there are quite a few artifacts to be found..arrowheads etc..but the mounds are very intriguing..