Keyes and Washburn Brooks - Princeton MA

I followed a smaller unnamed tributary near where Rt 31 and 140 meet and found rock piles in the gully and at the top, both on the way up the smaller branch and on the way down the main brook.

On the way up (southern outline) a few rock piles around a small spot of water:

A bit evenly spaced.

 The water:

Above this grouping on the hill was a wonderful larger rock pile with a pointed "head" rock sticking out prominently.

Front and back:

A view back down to the wet spot:

According to one theory, the pointer rock might be able to throw a shadow over the wet spot as well as on the individual rock piles.

And then we continue...down and over and back to the top of the larger channel (northern blue outline on the map fragment above) where it becomes more and more obvious that the rocks in the bed of the brook are piled up:

Here also are some larger piles:

 Hard to get a good look at.

 

And smaller ones.

Carl Bjork

It is not important that we agree.

It is important that we talk.

Note the alignment of the glyph on the rock and the sight hole on the cairn.

  I just recently “re-connected” with Carl, I am happy to say. I even corrected a dead link to his pages at the Waking Up On Turtle Island blog: Carl Bjork's Rock Art Site

     A bit of wisdom, passed on to Carl by a Native American Elder: "The location of the site was selected first and the rock-art came later. Turn your back to the symbols and you will see why the location was selected because you are standing at the center of the information depicted in the carvings and paintings.  Watch the play of light and shadow on the symbols.  It is our history...in a time before we started using your alphabets to record our history.   The symbols and figures are a pictorial [ideographic] communication system that was used by most tribal groups and understood by all."

       Something else that comes to mind, mentioned here and there at Rock Piles, is that thing about “the shape of a stone on a rock pile having the same shape as a mountain or hill in the distance.” Carl also notes this phenomena sometimes occurs elsewhere, as he writes, in a section about perceiving possible images and pareidolia: “When we look at a rock art panel and notice that the top of the boulder is in the same shape of the mountain behind on the far horizon, is it a coincidence that it is shaped as the horizon and did the petroglyph carver select the boulder to record to share a message or a history about the rock art site and its relationship to the mountain?”

The photo above comes from this page:

http://carlrockart.com/RA%2002.html

More water

A tributary of Keyes Brook, just south of Washburn Brook:

(and a rock-on-rock()

Reader John writes:
I found your blog when I was recently searching for an explanation of the 2 rock piles I have known about since 1971.  We have a cabin in Spring Creek, PA.  There are two large rock piles behind our cabin on top of the mountain separated by about 100 yards with a collection of smaller rock piles scattered around them.  The picture attached is one of the large piles.  Not a great shot since it was from my flip phone.  My dad has always said it was Indian burial grounds.  The location is near the edge of the mountain top on flat ground.  The area is now part of the PA state game lands.  There is no evidence that this area was ever logged off because there are no skidder paths near the rocks.  I'd like to learn the approximate age of the piles and who might have made them.  They are oval shaped.  I can't imagine that anyone ever farmed up there.  It is just not accessible and completely forested. It is a relatively steep climb to the top. Our cabin is located on a dirt road along route 426, east of Garland.

A dry stone dome (Isle of Mull, Scotland)

Hallamdrystonewalls captions his photo: “Building a dry stone done for a bit of Christmas fun. Santa loves dry stone domes ya know.”

"My little dry stone mound on the isle of mull, Scotland. Not bad for a first attempt especially as the stone was awful."

 Above: Obviously an English stone wall also made by Isaac Hallam, a Derbyshire based dry stone waller.  Below: 5 miles from my house, around the estate of the first Puritan minister, is this wall that most people would say was obviously made by people of English descent because "Indians (in New England) didn't build stone walls until the English taught them to."

Another segment at the Preacher's Estate, undulating obviously snake-like and quite obviously unlike an obviously English stone wall:

UK photos from: https://www.instagram.com/hallamdrystonewalls/

A rock-on-rock or two

Looking at the pictures, at first I couldn't figure out why I took this photo. (These are from southern-most Wolfden Hill, Princeton)
Here are some other photos with more evident purpose:

 Moose!

Nuclear Lake NY

"Great hike Sunday (4/10/2016) in Pawling NY. Lots of enigmatic stonework everywhere!" 

Teresa Bierce reports and sends along some photos (with, among others, Dyane Plunkett, Polly Midgley and Donna Savino) taken at Nuclear Lake NY.

You might remember this post – and the multitude of comments:

http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2015/02/nuclear-lake-ny.html

Spring arrowhead finds

     I have been spending a lot of time looking for arrowheads but more often than not, I have come home with very little to show for my efforts. This picture shows the results of countless hours of careful searching. Rather demoralizing.

     On Saturday I drove to a farm field where I have found some arrowheads. Many people go there and look for artifacts. I have found no other place like it, in terms of popularity among arrowhead collectors. On any weekend day, you are more likely than not to see a figure methodically, slowly pacing the rows. At times I have seen 4 or 5 people out there, not as a team, but individually, searching a favorite spot in this field. Anyway, I got out of the car, I started walking and saw many small piles of chips and flakes left behind by previous searchers. I hate this tactic. The plow can move stuff around a lot, but the density of quartz chips and flakes on the surface is a clue and I don't see why collectors need to move these things around and pile them up in a place maybe different from where they were picked up. I tried not to get too discouraged, reminding myself that any rain can expose something new, and that as thorough as I am, I have found arrowheads very close to my own footprints. You can never find everything. I walked to the back of the field where there is a big pile of rocks that the farmer has pulled out over the years. And at the edge of that pile was a little area of quartz chips and flakes on the surface, where someone had been making tools. By "on the surface" here I don't mean eroding out of the bare earth, I mean these chips were sprinkled right on the top of the ground. Perplexed, I looked closer and picked up a single perfect quartz Squibnocket Triangle. This point was visually indistinguishable from other points I had previously found as nearby as a few yards away. Same shape, same material. The edges were no more sharp or more dull than the other points I find. But the debitage was clearly new, someone had been there making stuff. Extremely close scrutiny of this otherwise ordinary point showed a tiny speck of copper in a flake scar. This thing was made with modern tools. I was appalled. It ruined my whole day. I couldn't get over how irresponsible this knapper was. Why would you go to an archaeological site and make and leave behind new-made facsimiles of the artifacts that are there? Even the new debitage he left behind is a stain on the integrity of this site. But my distress was more than just indignation at the short-sighted recklessness of this modern toolmaker. I have been having a real hard time finding arrowheads- and then I go to a site and I find a modern copy. The first whole arrowhead of 2016, and it is days old. And no matter how hard I look, it is likely to be the "best" find of the day. A fake. My demoralization was total.
     I went to another place and tried to forget about the bitter taste in my mouth. I found a big broken triangle and a crude thing that some might call a preform but I would prefer to call a knife. It is made from a quartz cobble and still has some cortex at the base on one side. I don't have another like this. Not much to look at, but at least this is genuine archaeological evidence of early man and not just some kind of prank.

     Sunday, I met up with my friend Dave. We talked about places where we could go and look. I had zero expectation of a find. We went to a grassy place with little exposure. Hardly any rocks to be seen. We stopped by another place, tall grass- no hope. Dave mentioned another place where we could go. I was surprised to get there and see lots of dirt and rocks visible. I searched for about an hour. I realy wish I had brought my camera... Anyway, this was probably my luckiest day looking for arrowheads in the last 12 months.

     That felsite tool on the left is really special. It's not broken, it is a large point that has been worked down like this for use as a drill or graver. The argillite triangle on the right is a great find for me. It's large, really thin, and I love the material.

     On the way home we spotted some new construction by a river. The topsoil has been removed and is piled up in huge dirt mounds. The mounds are covered with chips and flakes of toolmaking stone. I will be going back there.

Clear Water

...almost makes me wish I was a crayfish.

Appetizer

New England Antiquities Research Association - Spring Meeting

See here.

Henry Smith Site (Montana)

"Hi-Line Fires Reveal Hundreds of Cultural and Historical Artifacts"

                    By Brett French french@billingsgazette.com  Apr 7, 2016

    “By reviewing the photographs and other images 2,400 points of data were marked across the 300 acres — roughly a site every 3 feet. Before homesteading on the surrounding lands altered the landscape, Chase estimated similar sites could have stretched across the landscape…”
         “When you look out across this (landscape) it tells a story of people in North America throughout time,” Chase said. “So we drove by a homestead on the way here, that’s one part of the Hi-Line’s history. We’re now into this part of the site which is one part of the Hi-Line’s prehistory..."

  Re-loading the page seemed to work to get rid of the questionnaire thing, so you can get to the full story here: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/hi-line-fires-reveal-hundreds-of-cultural-and-historical-artifacts/article_dadf4763-f0f1-5e5e-b49f-cb59bdc985c1.html

Wondering About Wondering Beside Willard Brook (ME)

Photos and some text from a blog post by Leigh MacMillen Hayes, taken from here:: http://wondermyway.com/2016/04/03/wondering-beside-willard-brook/, where Leigh writes: "Part of my quest was to take a look at stone placement and think about it not as Colonial only, but also as Pre-colonial or Native American..."
And my speculations and photo overlay illustrations here:
 http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2016/04/wondering-beside-willard-brook.html

Prayers in Stone Talk at Croton Point NY

Near Whitemore Hill, New Ipswich NH

(And Recent Viking News)

Above: the PWAX photo that got me going (it's raining here), virtually ending up here: 

Maybe I should have entitled the post: "If I had a Million Dollars."

Stone Hatchet - an old find from Concord

About 2 inches long (quite small)

3 Roadside Rhomboids - CT

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2016/04/roadside-rhomboid.html

Gates Lane - Stow

The land development threat in Stow, at Gates Lane (see here also),  is continuing - in "fits and starts". If you live in Stow, or know someone, please get involved by going to a Hist Comm, Planning Comm, or Conservation Comm meeting and finding out as much as possible about what is going on. Also contact this blog if needed.

Snake Effigy (Fences, Fishing and Chemical Warfare Agents at the former Fort McClellan in Alabama)

   I came across this below a while back, passed it on to a person or two, including PWAX who suggested I post it up here. It took a little while for me to investigate further into the source of the text, but it didn’t take that long to find that it was a stenographer’s version of Harry Holstein’s presentation at a January 2007 meeting of the Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) that allocated Department of Defense Funds for Investigating a Snake Effigy as well as the cleanup of some Chemical Warfare Agents and two guys at the meeting talking about fishing.

Please note: The Court Reporter and Commissioner for Alabama at Large, who transcribed this was apparently someone unfamiliar with some of Harry’s words, including the term fish weirs, as illustrated here as HH explains that Native American stone building technology in the area goes back a long time: “One of the things we see here in Calhoun County a lot are called fish queers, fish traps. They're very efficient. Instead of hunting elephants, now they're fishing. And the way these things worked, they piled rocks up one bank, rocks off another bank, they leave a little opening, this V, and they anchored a basket facing upstream, and the fish swim along the rocks right into the basket, Captain D's. They got themselves a fish dinner, very efficient. This is on Terrapin Creek, by the way, just a little bit north of here in Calhoun County.”

Intro ~ CURTIS FRANKLIN: “All right. The program tonight is on the Snake Effigy from Monty Clendenin and Dr. Harry Holstein, and so I'll turn the program over to them…”

DR. HARRY HOLSTEIN: “Hello everybody. It's nice to be here tonight. I've never been to the RAB meeting before, but the topic that I'm about to present, I think, is something that will spark your interest in one degree or another. I've been at JSU as an archeologist for 25 years now. One of the things that I've discovered in those 25 years is northeast Alabama has an incredible heritage, prehistoric heritage and historic heritage and as far as archaeological resources are concerned, and I've had an opportunity to investigate a lot of cool sites, interesting sites that range from Hernando de Soto to Davey Crockett to prehistoric Indians that lived 8,000 years ago.

      And one of those things I'm fortunate enough to be (see? have seen?) here in northeast Alabama is a phenomenon that archeologists have contended with from the Appalachian Mountains all the way from Alabama up to New England, which I'll show you in a couple of minutes. The Midwest has to deal with this resource. It's kind of a mystery. A lot of archeology is a mystery. We don't know it all. We just know bits and pieces of it. The ability to study sites like the one we're going to be talking about, the Snake Effigy. We'll have a better understanding of what it's all about, and what it's all about, basically are rock piles, piles of rocks laid across the landscape.

And the controversy comes into, very simply, a lot of people pile up rocks. I bet everybody in this room has piled up rocks out in your yard or piled up rocks in your neighbor's yard at one time or another. Like everyday rock piles, Indian rock piles, the Snake Effigy, is a good example to how this is to be done…”

    You can dive into and try to translate the rest here: http://www.mcclellan.army.mil/Documents/Restoration%20Advisory%20Board%20Transcripts/2007/January%202007.pdf?articlesPage=3

Some more bits and pieces, links to this and that, including mention that the U.S. Army recognizes USET:

http://www.mcclellan.army.mil/Documents/Miscellaneous/Unanticipated_Site_Discovery_Plan_MtLongleaf/USET_Resolution_2007-037.pdf?RelDoc=%2FDocuments%2FMiscellaneous%2FUnanticipated_Site_Discovery_Plan_MtLongleaf%2F&file_url=%2FDocuments%2FMiscellaneous%2FUnanticipated_Site_Discovery_Plan_MtLongleaf%2FUSET_Resolution_2007-037%2Epdf

“The Department of Defense (DoD) has made a strong commitment to keeping citizens informed and giving communities a voice in environmental cleanup decisions. In meeting this commitment, DoD makes information available on environmental restoration activities, provides opportunities for comment, and seeks public participation on Restoration Advisory Boards (RABs).”

Fort McClellan established the Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) to enable affected communities and representatives of Government agencies to meet and exchange information about Fort McClellan's environmental cleanup program.

http://www.mcclellan.army.mil/RAB.asp?article_id=2

http://www.mcclellan.army.mil/Documents/FinalFortMcClellanCRP2014SEPT.pdf

Mountain Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge, Calhoun County, Alabama Unanticipated Site Discovery Plan (Archaeological and Historic Sites) October 2013 Archaeological and historic investigations at Mountain Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge were performed by the Department of Defense (DOD) prior to the Refuge’s establishment in 2003. DOD’s investigations focused on the mid-19th – 20th century Fort McClellan and other types of historic properties present on the military reservation, such as precolumbian artifact scatters, quarry sites, historic period house and industrial sites, historic period cemeteries, and stone wall and mound complexes. Stone wall and mound complexes are considered to be part of a tribal ceremonial or sacred landscape (see USET Resolution No. 2007: 037).

http://www.mcclellan.army.mil/Documents/Miscellaneous/Unanticipated_Site_Discovery_Plan_MtLongleaf/Unanticipated_Site_Discovery_Plan_MtLongleaf.pdf?RelDoc=%2FDocuments%2FMiscellaneous%2FUnanticipated_Site_Discovery_Plan_MtLongleaf%2F&file_url=%2FDocuments%2FMiscellaneous%2FUnanticipated_Site_Discovery_Plan_MtLongleaf%2FUnanticipated_Site_Discovery_Plan_MtLongleaf%2Epdf

And of course, the link to the report:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264308123_Preliminary_Investigations_At_The_Skeleton_Mountain_Snake_Effigy_Site_1CA157_Calhoun_County_Alabama

More by Harry: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264309293_A_Preliminary_Archaeological_Investigation_of_the_Morton_Hill_Stone_Structure_Complex_1CA671_Calhoun_County_Alabama

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2015/09/prayer-seats-mounds-walls-and-snake.html