Medawlinno Footprints (Henniker NH)

 

     Sherry L. Gould writes: "These footprints are in Henniker NH where the Abenaki believe foot prints were left here by Medawlinno. People with extremely powerful medicine, like Passaconaway, could press their feet into solid earth.

     There is no oral tradition of what person may have left these prints in the rocks in Henniker that we have found yet. Just our traditions of what kind of person was able to do it, and traditions of Passaconaway's abilities..."

https://www.facebook.com/Abenaki-Trails-Project-130903648704620   

Ed Lenik writes:

Indian Idol (Woodbury CT)

   “It is no less than an Indian idol or charm, artistically cut from piece of rock, which appears to have been originally a piece of petrified walnut wood. It was found in 1860, on the lot near F. Minor's, before mentioned as the place where the most perfect specimens have been found. It was discovered while hoeing corn. It evidently represents some animal, but it is difficult to divine what. It has pretty well form ed head and body, with large, round ears, and holes for the insertion of four legs, but the latter are missing. It looks as much like the representative of an enormous lizard, as anything. It can hardly represent the Great Spirit. It is not of sufficiently attractive conception for that. It may, therefore, be presumed to be the likeness of Hobbamoko, or their Spirit of Evil, whom they feared, and worshipped more assiduously than the Good Spirit, whom they supposed lived quite at his ease, caring little for the actions or affairs of his red children, after having given them their corn, beans and squash, and taught them the mode of their cultivation. Some of these relics our artist has endeavored to make plain to the mind's eye."

"And Nonnewaug, too, at the appointed time, slept with his fathers, and the small remnant of his people buried him in the beautiful plain at the foot of the musical falls that are called by his name, where his fathers' people had been buried before him, true to their instinct of selecting the most beautiful places by the river side, by the silvery cascade, or in the verdant plain. An apple tree was planted at the head of his grave, which still stands there, the faithful guardian of the ashes that repose beneath its grateful shade. It is venerable tree, some 150 years old, but docs not bear the marks of so great an age, though there are several decayed places in it, so perfectly shown in the accompanying cut of the grave and tree, taken by the artist on the spot during the last summer. When the writer first visited it, twenty years ago, there was large hillock, or mound, raised over the grave, which remained, distinguishing the sachem's, by its size, from the other graves around him, till few years ago, when the present owner of the field committed the sacrilege of plowing it down, saying he was not going to have such an old "hummock in his field," much to the regret of every true antiquarian, and lover of ancient things. The mound thus destroyed was some ten feet long, six feet wide, and four feet high, having been gradually formed, in the same way, as in the case of Pomperaug's grave."

HISTORY OF ANCIENT WOODBURY  (Wm. Cothren Vol. II  page 884-5)

https://www.cga.ct.gov/hco/books/History_of_Ancient_Woodbury.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3vG0ezMgBRaM_c_rr14J7kWOUL0OTQxXwMYMKQpcT0ydOn3FtAfIGrz_I

The George Washington Rock in Holliston has fallen

 First shown on this blog here:

https://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2007/01/washington-stone-in-holliston-ma.html

Apparently it fell over for unexplained reasons:

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/09/23/holliston-balancing-rock-falls/

Strange Rock Mounds - California

From

https://theforesterartist.com/2012/09/11/strange-rock-mounds/

Stone placement order used to interpet a mesolithic grave in Scotland

[Not rock pile related]  https://www.scotsman.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/5000-year-old-tomb-orkney-designed-ease-passage-afterlife-research-finds-2964197

I find this interesting as an example of the idea that getting the soul to the underworld might be hard. It seems connected to a belief in ghosts who, presumably, are souls that didn't make it.

Sorry for the lack of posts

 There have been fewer opportunities for exploring and a lot of sluggishness, lately

 Reader Connor B. writes:

I was exploring the cliff edges of Mt Tom in Holyoke MA far from any trails and I found this. Have you ever seen something similar? It was right up on the edge of the cliff, looking west. 

A Manitou Stone -like Single Horn? (Winchendon, MA)

And a White Manitou Stone?

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-manitou-stone-like-single-horned.html

 

Stone sites around the world

Link from Norman Muller:
https://stonestrider.com/

Mendon Town Forest

Reader Keith told me about a site in Mendon and it was great going back in the woods. Thinking about seeing rock piles in the woods, after months of doing other things, the whole idea that there would be Native American ceremonial stone structures out there begins to seem like a dream. The idea that I could take a few steps up a hill and see a collection of structures facing west, spread out down the side of the hill, seemed unreal. Not because I didn't trust the information but because the whole idea is so alien to this modern, currently coronavirus-focused, culture. But you step into the woods and there the rock piles are - still and peaceful. And you think: these may still be around, even if America passes away.

So it was with these thoughts that I followed Keith's directions [enter from Asylum Street, take the northernmost trail] and within 10 minutes found myself in a wonderful collection of rectangular mounds with hollows. 

There were also satellite "marker" piles, near each of the larger mounds. Generally the site was undisturbed and the piles were in excellent shape. If you head downhill and upstream to a little valley northeast of the summit, there are other mounds down in there and, at the headwater, a different sort of mound, larger and [seemingly] older.

At first, a glimpse of a few piles near the summit lets me know I am getting into it. Then, this rock on rock seems to signal a "final approach", as we get to larger piles.

And here we are at the top.

(from another side)

This was perhaps the largest of the mounds that are scattered across the northern slope near the summit. The site "faces" northwest. Just downhill from this first mound, was a small boulder in line with a marker pile:

And here are several other mounds:

Beautifully made, and in excellent shape. So much so that you begin to think the hollow in the pile never had a covering of stones. Perhaps the pile was covered with brush?

Added Later: This photo shows a good example of a right-angled (90 degree) corner in a mound. This is why I call the mounds "rectangular". Not all corners need to be present. It was significant to me that Doug Harris instructed people in Carlisle who were building a viewing platform near a rock pile site to avoid making corners in the platform. That idea was not part of the culture of the people who made this site in Mendon, nor generally in inland Middlesex.

Here is another, with a larger, longer pile in the background:

Here is a boulder connected to a rectangle with hollows:

The slope continues:

And you follow it down and to the right (east) and find other rectangular mounds next to the "crease" of water flow:

Is there anything more marvelous than an ancient ruin, poking up through the hay-scented ferns? 

Following the gully up hill, one finds:

Seen from above, this is a different style of mound: larger, not so rectangular, and more broken down. 

To me this seems older than the fresh piles on the summit. Which fits into a theory, that "water loving" burials are older than "sky loving" ones. This site, sitting at one of the highpoints feeding into the Blackstone River, began in the valley and, over time, went higher on the hill. That is how I imagin it developed. Generally in various places, the higher on the hill, the better the condition of the rock piles.

Heading back, a few other things, seen in passing:

This one looks like an effigy:

Thanks Keith!

Appetizer

Finding Meaning in Stone

July 22, 2020 by Hannah Harvey - “Nothing excites the imagination like an unanswered question, and since spring I’ve been exploring a little-recognized mystery here in Pennsylvania…”

https://pahistoricpreservation.com/finding-meaning-stone/

Clovis First dies again = Chiquihuite Cave

[About first Americans, not rock pile related]

Solid research about people in Mexico around 30K years ago. If accepted this will become another version of "Clovis First".  Archeologists cannot get enough of assuming a diminutive role for America in world pre-history.

https://www.inverse.com/science/chiquihuite-cave

Creek Mounds in Georgia were in use in the 1600's

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-evidence-euro-centric-narrative-early-colonization.html

Rhode Island Arrowheads

More finds from reader Joshua:

I have found quite a lot of artifacts in the past month or so including a brewerton eared triangle, possible resharpened clovis point made from quartzite that measures just over an inch in length, a frost island point made from black rhyolite with porphyritic quartz specks, a large point made from felsite or some other material that has been ground down in two places to be used as a spokeshave.  Also is an argillite piedmont I think and another old argillite spearpoint as well as a small quartz lamoka point and a really old spearpoint made from blue gray serpentine stone. It has a knick or spur on one of the basal edges so I think it might be a stringtown lanceolate.  It's heavily beveled to the point where it seems to twist slightly and the only tools I see at this site made from serpentine are paleo tools and paleo artifacts such as birdstones.  I included a photo of the spearpoint with other paleo artifacts to show that they are all made from serpentine. Also included is a photo of some recent broken points including a neville point made from very unique material, a rhyolite palmer I think and a quartz point that I keyed out to jim thorpe but am not sure. All of these artifacts were collected at the same site that I believe is very old site dating back to the clovis era and possibly pre-clovis times facing narragansett bay.   Thank you for any and all help.  

[from a second email]

. . . plus an interesting piece of what i think is art made from orthoquartzite (sandstone).  It's ground down in certain areas to make certain planes and shapes.

Aundré Bumgardner Photos (Glastonbury, CT)

   Some photos of some beautiful “Stone Prayers” taken by Aundré Bumgardner  in Glastonbury, CT.

 

 

 

Dogs can detect burials up to 5K years old

I have written several times that dogs seem to like to sit on top of stone mounds. There is lots of photo evidence. They don't seek out boulders to stand on - so the preference is not about getting a view out over the landscape.

So I always wondered if dogs smelled something (you know...like human remains) and how long after burial would something still have a detectable smell for a dog. Well, apparently the burial age can be up to 5 thousand years - more than enough to encompass the large stone mounds of our last 2 thousand years

Anyway:
(from the Atlantic)
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/07/dogs-archaeology-bones/613828/

(past references to dogs on rock piles)
https://rockpiles.blogspot.com/search?q=dogs

Mayans in Georgia

Thought I would browse this YouTube, to recall the controversy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2w-WSl3NN8

I don't remember if readers are ok with the idea of Mayans in Georgia, or want to make fun of it. The videographer Scott Wolter is easy to make fun of. But the rock piles and stone walls are real. So permit me to take a position on the idea that there were "Mayans" in North America.

I believe that mound building cultures dominated America for most of the last 2 thousand years. We are told that the earliest mound sites (eg "Poverty Point") are in southern US and predate Adena Mounds in the Mississippi as well as Olmec pyramids in Mexico. (I just looked it up, the Olmec were 1200 BC and Poverty Point is 1100 BC, so actually US sites are contemporaneous with oldest central American ones). They were building monuments all around the Caribbean at that time - for example the Caddo mounds in Texas.

In addition to the timing and architecture being connected between cultures of central and north America, it is clear [to me] that the basic cultures were a bit homogenous all over the Americas, in general. You look at a Mayan arrowhead [hard to find pictures of them] and it is the same as an arrowhead from the Mississippian mound building cultures of later years.

Pre-classic Mayan:

 Cahokian:

I have one of these arrowhead. I found it in Arizona at a "Sinagua" site - a pre-Anasazi, Puebloan people. What this tells me is that there was a culture that was pan-American with many local variations of the common theme. And they built mounds in the north and in the south. In the river valleys and alluvial deltas, they built in dirt. In the rocky highlands they built from stone. 

Everyone was building mounds and everyone was building terraces and everyone was making the same sort of arrowhead. It would not be surprising if an Indian from the north east could have been intelligible to one from Mississippi using a shared "trade language". I propose that mound building cultures were all similar and all shared some common behaviors and beliefs. These include not only mounds and arrowheads but also foods. The "three sisters" of corn, beans, and squash did not get to New England by coincidence but through trade and a continuity of cultures. Another example is the "4 color" division of: black, white, yellow, and red -corresponding with compass directions.

So why are we creating a false sense of separation between the Mayans and the Indians of Georgia? Of course the Mayan culture was present in Georgia. But those Indians should be called "Georgians". To make fun of this idea is to ignore the obvious cultural continuity that, I believe, stretched from Canada to Peru. You can make fun of it. You can argue about timing and the difference between when the Adena were in the Mississippi valley versus the Mayans in central America. But you have to make arbitrary distinctions to do it. Every place from Mexico to Massachusetts had examples of the same cultures.