Edges of Foxborough State Forest

I parked on Thurston Rd and walked in at a trail head but stayed to the left, off trail, in the woods parallel with and to the side of Thurston Rd. (I am afraid this may not be within the State Forest.) There were numerous rock piles. First I came to a large pile with a tree growing up in it, surrounded by smaller triangular piles.A first triangle:A second one that looks like it might have been hollow:A detail:Red rock and white quartz.

Another triangular pile:
So that was one little cluster of rock piles. Further along I found other things at the edge of the wetland but it was raining and I had a choice of taking pictures that were blurry:or pictures that were masked by little points of light where the flash is hitting raindrops:Blurry:Or with an orb:Another triangle, somewhere else:Other odds and ends in the saplings and hay-scented fern:Really hard to get a decent photo in the rain.

Clark's Gully - Dog on a rock pile with "orb"

From Madis Senner:

Yesterday my friend Zac and I hiked and prayed along the top of South Hill/Clarks Gully. We found all sorts of stone structures. One of the pictures we took has an orb in it. Lucy, my friend’s dog is sitting in the middle of a stone mound that covers several earth chakras—very charged! To see the rest of the pictures go to: http://clarksgully.blogspot.com/

Rainy woods

Wetland's Edge - Foxborough State Forest

Inkblot with Bear

Larry's inkblot

The way these hilltops looked

From reader Vin, a ~1910 view of a hill in Middlesex Cty. Mass.All kinds of things are visible.

Walking in the Woods

A nice blog, not rock pile related.

A last Woods Hole rock pile outing report

I spotted a rock pile from the road, in someone's backyard:Here are pictures from a side lane:In detail:I guess these have been cleaned by the landowners. I should knock on their door someday.

These piles are part of the great Webster Woods/Quisset ceremonial continuum that stretches roughly from Quissett Harbor over to Fay Beach.

More on the Rock Eagle Mound

Norman Muller writes:
...from a report I have which discusses the large rock eagle mound and then a smaller one, both in Georgia. Note how the present reconstruction tries to copy the version drawn in the 1880s.

Rock Eagle Effigy Mound - Georgia

Finally some other pictures of this mound! [Here] . The official one put out by the park leaves one wanting more.

Unsourced rock pile from Flikr

Here

M'kmaq Burial Ground

Worth a look here. I found the "headstone" appearance interesting.

treasure hunters discuss rock piles

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php?topic=274111.0

Interesting mix of ethical stances. I note that no-one mentions ever finding any "treasure" in or near a rock pile. For example

"The older chiefs were supposed to like to be buried there by water is what I was told. When i found the ones I was talking about there were 5 of them. I found one in a totally different place and a relative with me really wanted to dig so we did but with the understanding that if we saw bones we were covering it back up...we dug all the rocks out and down below four feet never found anything at all just the pile of rocks. But some of the rocks were a foot or two down into the ground. The archaeologist said many of the really old ones have turned to dust and if you do not know what to look for you will dig right past them. "

Also note a second group of photos. Seems like the piles are triangular - suggesting they are what I call "marker" piles.

Three links from Norman Muller

http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/firstnations/burialmound/burialmound.htm

http://www.beaconhillparkhistory.org/articles/119_cairns.htm

https://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8443//handle/1828/2076

Split Wedged Rocks in Falmouth and Medway

In the woods west of Long Pond in Falmouth MA, approaching a split rock with suspicion:Suspicion confirmed:Now, I have strayed down a path into thinking maybe some wedged rocks, especially ones that were quarried using steel tools like this one (?), might be shimmed up so one could more easily pick them up later, with an appropriate piece of equipment. But never fear, near the above was another that looked older, or at least not deliberately split using steel drills:What I am saying is that this is incompatible with an agrarian use. The quarried rocks were not removed and there is evidence some of the quarrying created slit rocks so they could be wedged.

This idea was re-enforced when I saw some other examples. These are from the town of Medway, on West Street. (I stopped to breathe some forest air on my drive from Falmouth back to Concord, and passed them in the car, this one caught my eye)Looking more carefully in the same suburban yard:And these ones certainly used steel drills. However, just across the street in the woods, was another split-wedged boulder, perhaps older, with no signs of steel drill use. It seems somewhat obvious that this place spanning West St was intensely involved with split-wedged rock ceremonies.

A rocky gully with rock-on-rocks - Falmouth

A small site:I never saw this place before but may have been nearby.
I am not too afraid of vandalism. To get here you have to go through some thorns, not to mention the poison ivy:

Little rock pile - Falmouth

Near a fallen down shack:

Highway Inukshuk

A bit more than a mile south of the Mass Pile, driving north on Rt 495 I spotted a 2 ft high Inukshuk built out of material from the bedrock cut by the highway there. It was on top of the cut. I saw pictures of similar things in Canada. Wanna bet this sort of thing increases?

Knuckup Hill - Wrentham. A most beautiful Massachusetts hilltop

I am just going to show you pictures of this place. It was a field growing back to woods, with cedar and some other types of trees at the top of the hill. Traces of ceremonialism were visible.

Pause and look at the rocks and the light.Note the rock on the right is shimmed:A closeup:Nice:
On the way back down:And some wedged splits:Changing the subject: I have been seeing a lot of split wedged rocks where the split was made with deliberate (steel) drillholes. Maybe they made the split to release the spirit of the rock.