Nice stone walls

There really are nice stone walls everywhere I go around the Gumpas in Pelham NH. It would be a worthwhile project to map them. Coming up from the east side, I was thinking: "more wall than pile":

This is fine work:

A small disturbance in the ferns, at the tip top of a watershed:

I decided it was a small collapsed "seat":

And there is that hole in the wall again (at the base of the wall, right next to a high point):

When I got up and over to the upland ponds there was a place where the wall was about 7 feet tall:

And by the time I got over to those ponds, there were rock piles:

I was trying to think of a word for a culture that lived around small lakes and ponds. Later I phoned my wife to Google the word for "lake" in Greek and in Latin: "limne" and "lacus". So a culture that is "circum-limneic" or "peri-lacustrine".
Separately, I was wondering what would you need a seven foot tall wall for? I cannot see it being needed for any of the usual agrarian explanations for stone walls.

Coming up...Gumpas Hill NH

Pretty large

Summer Solstice Ledge View/ Surface. Arch. Along A Brook

From Matt Howes:

 

Hello All, 

   Just thought I would share with people some recent posts from my blog and to stay in touch.  First is a very interesting ledge in Sherborn, MA. that I took note of and feel strongly about the features associated with the site:

http://www.nativenewenglandstones.blogspot.com/2015/06/summer-solstice-viewing-sacred-ledge-in.html

     And finally are some stone tools I found (on the surface) along a brook.  I did not disclose the location of the brook on my blog for sensitivity reasons.  Just between us these  tools were found along the banks of Beaver Brook which is right behind the College Rock ledge by the Hopkinton/ Holliston town lines.  Curt- the cairn field/ stone mound site I showed you and Walter Van Rogen last summer by college rock is located on the slope above this part of the brook.  Here is what I found poking out of the mud along the brook (also in dry spots in the water table)-

 http://www.nativenewenglandstones.blogspot.com/2015/06/projectile-points-found-alongside-brook.html

PS- stone tool #6 (which is picture #10) was found off of South Mill St. in Hopkinton (MA.) last summer poking out of mud on the bank of a pond off the street.  I noticed the quartz poking out of the mud and picked it up, and noticed it was a nice proj. point. Everything else in this blog post was found along Beaver Brook this spring. 

I hope these findings are helpful to your/ our research.  And I wish everybody the best of luck and happiness.  Stay in touch, 

                         -Matt   

Lyme's Disease....Darn!

My leg - sorry for the ugly picture:

Not so bad this time, perhaps with some residual immunity from last summer. One day into the antibiotic and I had a great walk in spite of it the disease.
Update: don't misinterpret my light tone. It is a serious disease and I am lucky to have noticed it sooner than later.

By Gumpas Hill and Lake

Rough terrain, wonder how long this has been there?

You always look

when you cross a brook or see a root ball from a fallen tree. This is particularly arrowhead like:

Some kind of side scraper, I guess:

This is from Hollis NH.

NYC Area (1916)

"Above the grave they place a large pile of wood, stone or earth..."

    "Next we have a detailed account by Van der Donck, written in 1656…

      "Whenever an Indian departs this life, all the residents of the place assemble at the funeral. To a distant stranger, who has not a friend or relative in the place, they pay the like respect. They are equally careful to commit the body to the earth, without neglecting any of the usual ceremonies, according to the standing of the deceased. In deadly diseases they are faithful to sustain and take care of each other. Whenever a soul has departed, the nearest relatives extend the limbs and close the eyes of the dead; and after the body has been watched and wept over several days and nights, they bring it to the grave, wherein they do not lay it down, but place it in a sitting posture upon a stone or a block of wood, as if the body were sitting upon a stool; then they place a pot, kettle, platter, spoon, with some provision and money, near the body in the grave; this they say is necessary for the journey to the other world. Then they place as much wood around the body as will keep the earth from it. Above the grave they place a large pile of wood, stone or earth, and around and above the same, they place palisades resembling a small dwelling. All their burial places are secluded and preserved with a religious veneration and care, and they consider it wicked and infamous to disturb or injure their burial places…(114)"

      In a description of the first settlement of New Netherland by the Dutch, taken from VVassenaer's Historie van Europa, published in Amsterdam in 1621, we read:

    “It appears that the Sickanamers, before mentioned, make a sort of sacrifice. They have a hole in a hill in which they place a kettle full of all sorts of articles that they have, either by them, or procured. When there is a great quantity collected a snake comes in, then they all depart, and the Manittou, that is the Devil, comes in the night and takes the kettle away, according to the statement of the Koutsinacka, or Devil hunter, who presides over the ceremony."

    This statement may account for the occurrence, often noted on other sites, of the dog-burial in Pit 14, since dogs were and are still commonly sacrificed to the gods by the forest Indians, most of whom still recognize a monster snake manitu. Pit 55 held the entire skeleton of a small sturgeon, about four feet long, neatly curled around its inner edge. This fish may also have been an offering...(122)"

https://books.google.com/books?id=qpEtAQAAMAAJ&lpg=RA1-PA57&ots=Ej6nzJ7wLz&dq=burnt%20quartz%20ceremony&pg=PA52#v=onepage&q=burnt%20quartz%20ceremony&f=false

  I was really looking for "burnt quartz" ref's but came upon the above, stone piles over graves and then the Snake Manitou reference, leaving me wondering about the stone walls that surround the stone heaps sometimes - could they be Serpent Petroforms??? - Tim
Post Script: Maybe this is similar?

Water Spirits from the Sacred Ground Documentary Series

Burnt Quartz

On a rainy solstice.

Solstice Stones, Stonehenge and Patch Hill (CT, England & MA)

From the Old Sketchbook.

A link to: Solstice Stones, Stonehenge and Patch Hill

Solstice Viewing at Patch Hill in Boxborough

From Russ Mullen:
 You posted photos on September 24th 2014 of my proposed equinox alignment.  Here are the directions.

Enter from the parking off Liberty Square road.  Take the access trail to the blue secondary trail.  Follow it uphill and the stone is about 20 yards off trail half way on the right, approximately near the last blue dots on the bottom of the map.  Link to full map:

http://www.boxborough-ma.gov/conservation-commission/pages/patch-hill-robinson-carriage-trail-conservation-area

Wednesday September 23rd. / Sunrise

Merril Hill Hudson , NH

You can see it is a pretty big woods on the north side of Merill Hill and I wanted to get there. I thought maybe I could cut across from the top of the hill and stopped for a detour to look at the little hill at 'C' on the map. Just one structure, at the very top:

with a suggestive shape on that upper rock - it looks deliberately formed.
Driving onward to the top of the hill the landowner said "no, use the public entrance on Musquash" which left me with an extra mile at the beginning and end of the hike - a long slog for me. It might be worth trying to figure out how to get in from the north. 
In retrospect it did not seem like a great walk, mostly just a long slog. But I guess I am getting jaded because I did find a couple of sites.
At 'A', a ridge had a few piles on it, seemingly almost in a line:

One gets the impression of a 'head stone'.

Onward...up the hill...into the far backyard of that unhelpful landowner...down to around 'B' which was my goal in the first place. On the top map it is an area with interesting topography and water. But by the time I got there I was tired out and what I saw was weird anyway, so I headed back to the car....I thought. 
I have to interrupt the rock pile account to mention some of the nice nature on the way from 'A' to 'B'.

• This guy was a long way from water up on the hillside:

•  This bit of light in a small woodland pond needed to be photo'd

•  And you know what this is:

 
Meanwhile back at the rock piles...what was weird at 'B' was how about 6 stone walls came together in a messy set of corners and enclosures. It was hard to photo:

Nestled within one corner, in the upper left of the above picture, was a large rock pile with a bit of dirt on it and a feathering of ferns. A direct view:

There was a second one a few steps away. The walls from a different (equally uninformative) direction.

After this I headed back towards my car. Ended up getting lost and hiking for an extra 3/4 hours anyway.
This pretty flower was new to me. Seen growing at the wall junction:

Split rock with adjacent small rock on rock

From southern Sterling:

By Monday night I couldn't remember where I had walked on Saturday. Now I remember, it was in Sterling and I got accosted by helpful police on the way out (neighbors suspicious of my car). That is the 2nd time for Sterling. Nothing else of note for the walk.

Purple Flowering Rasberry

A new one for me:

Why you shouldn't climb on rock piles

It is a bit superstitious and a bit scientific to believe that climbing all over a rock pile is tasteless. After all, it might be someone's grave. It is certainly fragile. So keeping off of it is a good way to be respectful.

Solstice Viewing in Boxborough

via Peter Anick at NEARA:

This Sunday morning, June 21, NEARA member George Krusen will host a summer solstice sunrise meeting at a location in Boxboro hypothesized by Byron Dix as a sunrise alignment.  (There is also a winter solstice sunrise alignment here.)   Information here from Sudbury Valley Trustees site: http://www.sudburyvalleytrustees.org/events-calendar/summer-solstice-sunrise-weather-alert

If you know of other sites to visit for observing possible alignments, send me a message with directions and I will post to the group.  Take photos and videos to test your hypotheses.  As most of you know, the sun will rise/set at roughly the same horizon location throughout the week before and after the actual solstice, so you can check the weather and pick your day(s) to optimize viewing. 

In past years, some of us have gone to Upton Chamber for the sunset (between 7:30 and 8:30pm).  There is foliage but the glint of the sun setting over Pratt Hill can usually be made out from inside the chamber.  You can watch from outside, but if you want to go inside, bring boots in case there is water.

A Few things about Indigenous Clam Gardens

"demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of stonework engineering”

Photo and Image: Amy Groesbeck.

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2015/06/clam-gardens-june-2015.html

Boulders in Smithfield RI

This photo above comes from here:
https://trailsandwalksri.wordpress.com/category/mercer-lookout/
(By some power lines, if you look here: http://www.exploreri.org/trailmaps/wolf_hill_map.pdf
or here: http://binged.it/1Qv7fN2)

Also at Wolf Hill Forest Preserve - Smithfield, RI, I find someone relates that "Stone walls (are) everywhere..."

http://www.yelp.com/biz/wolf-hill-forest-preserve-smithfield

This, "Quartz rock at Nipsachuck, showing repeated use in artifact making," comes from: 

http://www.bvhsri.org/past-events/2014-annual-meeting-and-christine-nowak-lecture-with-kevin-mcbride/

A recent visit to the woods northwest of Parker Hill in Fitchburg turned up very little. For example the only thing that looked like a mound also looked bulldozed:

But there are always a few rock piles around and there were some nice lighting opportunities.

 

Modern rock pile

Curiously, there were rock piles of three sorts in this one place. Some old ones, some messy agricultural discards, and several of these modern "Sedona Stacks".

Living in the Past

Landowners often loot or destroy archaeological sites. Is this new subdivision a solution?

By Nick Romeo

   JUNE 12 2015 3:54 AM

“When he was a boy in the 1930's, (Archie) Hanson loved collecting beads, fishhooks, arrowheads, shells, and any other tangible relics of the Native American tribes that once inhabited the California coast where he lived near Long Beach. Throughout a prosperous career as a California land developer, he continued amassing an amateur collection, flying a helicopter along his private stretch of coast and landing to grab artifacts. In the late 1980s, he and Mary became interested in the archaeology of Southwest Colorado after taking a river rafting trip guided by three archaeologists associated with the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, a nonprofit institute located next to ICR that is dedicated to research and public education. Mary loved picking up beads and arrowheads as much as Archie did, but on this rafting trip someone was always admonishing her to put them back down. “Finally I said to Archie, ‘Let’s get 10 acres so I can do what I want,’ ” Mary told me. “Here they believe in property rights,” Archie added. “You can dig up skulls and throw ’em over your shoulder.”

“I really respected archaeology,” Archie told me, “but I was doing a development here. So how do you treat ground that contains ruins respectfully?”

More:

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/06/indian_camp_ranch_private_archaeology_looting_destruction_of_puebloan_sites.html

Ai'nt got nothing like that 'round here!!

Only sort of Rock Pile related, but...
http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2015/06/aint-got-nothing-like-that-round-here.html

Native American Mounds (GA)

    "Permanently disabled, Zimmerman began looking for a rustic hideaway and ended up buying 74 acres in Richland Township, Berks County, not far from Crystal Cave. He began exploring his property in an off-road vehicle — and made what he says is a startling discovery. The steep terrain was full of earth mounds, carefully constructed rock piles and other evidence of life among previous residents that he believes could date back to pre-Columbian times. Excited, he began seeking confirmation.

    Unfortunately, his claims haven't generated much interest. He's looking for someone with expertise in this area to see his discoveries firsthand. "I know what I have here," he insists..."

http://www.mcall.com/opinion/white/mc-bw-indian-artifacts-20150516-column.html

    Bill White writes, referring to the story above: "My column today mentions a Georgia author who responded to my recent story about a Berks County man who believes mounds and cairns on his remote property date back to ancient Native Americans. 

    In preparing that earlier column, I ran photos past a couple of experts who were unimpressed. But as I wrote today, Rick Zimmerman of Richmond Township received a lot of support in emails I received and sent on to him.

     Zimmerman told me last week he hadn't contacted any of those people yet. But I learned after my column was filed Wednesday night that since we spoke, he reached out to one of the people with Lenni Lenape connections, who probably will visit his property this fall, when the foliage isn't so thick.

     Still, the message Zimmerman found most intriguing came from Richard Thornton of Georgia, president of the Apalache Foundation:"

http://www.mcall.com/opinion/white/blog/mc-native-american-mounds-20150610-column.html

Modern-day explorer rediscovers rock Quinnipiac Indians worshiped, celebrated (video)

Via the NEARA Bulleting Board [click here]