Circular Ditch-and-Mound in the land of Nashoba

 [Dan Boudillion writes:]

Do you recall the earthen circles Mavor-Dix reported at the Boxborough esker?

I found something like that a few miles away using Lidar and confirmed it on the ground. 

 

For refence, here are the esker circles on Lidar:

And here is what I noticed on Lidar a few miles away:

These are in a heavily wooded area, in a swale.  They are about 30 feet across, and constructed but digging a shallow circular ditch and piling the dirt in the middle. They are lined up exactly to magnetic north. 

 

I don’t have pictures because it was not possible to capture the structures with a camera due to forestation, size, and shallowness of the ditches.  In fact, had I not been looking for them and GPS-ed the exact location, I would not have seen them even if I walked over them, they are that subtle on the ground.

 

Anyway, any thoughts on these?  I don’t know what they are, either here, or at the esker. 

[Peter writes:]

Apparently circular mound/ditch features have been discussed before on this blog:

Rock Piles: Re-reading Dan Boudillion about the Boxborough Esker and Circular-Ditch-and-Mound

I think the Dunstable example is north of Frederick's Corner.

Pattern recognition till I am blue in the face

Looking at satellite views of the desert on Google Earth is addictive behavior and turns up one puzzling pattern after another. I am going to tell you that the white funnel you see here:

...is a very typical hunting site in the southern Nevada and northwestern AZ....On top of a low mesa...a lighter bowl with a darker ring. The black ring at the edge of the mesa is geology but the dark ring around the white patch, with gradation, (probably) includes lithic debris.

Bighorn sheep like to climb up on tops of things. Looking at where they have worn the hillsides and ridges to a "threadbare" white patch - for example in the funnel - it is clear they like to get up on top of things. I believe is is so they can look around; not just for food browsing opportunities. 

The sheep have excellent eyesight. I watched a modern Bighorn sheep hunt on YouTube and every time the hunters got their binoculars focused on a distant animal, say 2 miles away, you could see the sheep looking back directly at the hunter. The hunters chased after the sheep, tried to sneak up on them, and eventually took a shot from 1/4 mile away. This is not at all what ancient hunters would do. They knew where to wait, and how to get the animals to within reach of their spears. I think they let the animals betray themselves. I think a hunt might have taken a day or so, while animals were slowly herded up to a funnel. An unexpected change of wind direction could spoil several days work.

Be that as it may, what is driving me crazy is trying to understand the little white dots that keep showing up in the pictures of game trails, where I think a hunting "trap" was arranged. 

The game trail crosses the mesa in a vertical direction. Looking at the pattern of white dots, there is not much doubt if you could measure alignment as a positional correlations along different directions, then the best directions are ones that are more or less parallel with the game trail. In other words, all those white dots form alignments parallel with the game trail. For what? I do not see how it could be geology.

Here is another funnel. Given examples of white dot alignments like this:

It is pretty clear that some of the white dots are deliberate products of man. In this case it looks like the dots are part of a fence that encourages game to go into the center of the funnel. Here is a closeup of the center:

Hmm? More stone walls. Hunter's blinds I guess.

Anyway, with examples like the low mesa above [which is near Red Lake AZ], I start looking at the dots near funnels and I can't decide if they are natural or man made. If man made, why would they need so many of them? 

It seems inevitable that questions like this are going to keep me busy until February, when I get to go and check some of these things on foot, and get out of Google Earth.

Colors of Nevada

 Good lord this place is colorful! [Beaver Peak]

Here is another  (Fire Mountain, AZ).

What a place.

Discovering hunting sites in southern Nevada

Frustrated to be stuck at home, I have taken to exploring via Google Earth, and leveraging the fact that debris from stone tool making ("debitage", "lithic debris", ..., "black gold") is visible from satellite views of the Nevada desert. There are places at the edges of an ancient river or lake where humans have left a "bathtub ring" of lithic debris you can see from the air. Southern Nevada is bone dry and the archaeology goes all the way back. Lithic debris is deep and abundant. 

I am going back to Las Vegas in February. The more I look at pictures, the more I learn about several different topographies where you can detect lithic debris.  I cannot wait to go back. I have been making videos and, to some extent, keeping my planned destinations secret. But there is such abundance, why not let everyone participate in the information? It reminds me of finding rock piles sites and struggling with whether to publicize their locations. 

So here is one video about lithic debris, in general, and two videos examining hunting sites south of Las Vegas. I am excited to learn what game "funnels" look like and I started noticing what look like fence post alignments connected to the concentrations of lithic debris. One starts to understand how to trap mountain sheep.

Video 1  - General Discussion [23 minutes]

Video 2 - Hunting sites south of Las Vegas. [7 minutes]

Video 3 - Drive lines, hunters blinds, and more details. [14 minutes]

Producing YouTube videos.

I have been making videos (mostly about Nevada archaeology) on my YouTube channel:

Peter Waksman - YouTube

One of my videos got 14K views and now I am hooked.

Small stone circles with standing stone center

[Norman Muller writes about this post] 

I saw the video clip you posted of "Mysterious Rock Structures in Great Smoky Mts. NP" and the circular structure posted reminded me of a photo of a similar structure I had saved on my computer, which was presumably found in Cades Cove in TN. (see attached).  Larry Harrop photographed a similar feature somewhere in RI (see second image below).

[Now, Peter writes]

A rock pile with a central stone is a common design. I personally think the central rock was probably for casting a shadow, as suggested by the video author. I did a search of this blog for the word "fin", which gave these and several other examples:

Best arrowhead finds 2023

It's the last day of the year, a time for me to look back. These are my favorite arrowhead finds from this year. 

I found these at 8 different sites in 6 towns in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. These are typical local materials: mostly quartz, with rhyolite, felsite and quartzite. They span thousands of years of time. The triangular and small stemmed forms are typical finds in the areas I search. I found most of them in the spring which is usually the most productive time for me. 

The fragment at bottom left is an important find for me. This is part of a bifurcate base projectile point. This could be 8 to 9 thousand years old and likely is the oldest tool I have found to date. Finding a bifurcate base point has been a goal for me since I began this pursuit. 

I have been putting some time in this month hoping for one more decent find for the year but have not come up with anything worth showing. It does not get easier for me to find these things. The loss of agricultural land and changes in farming practices together with me pounding many of the same spots for ten plus years have made finds fewer and farther between. But, I have had worse years than this, I still have fun looking and, if I put the time in, it is still possible every now and then to find something among the weeds.

I am grateful for being able to look, for the time I spent looking, for the spots I have and for all my finds. Best wishes to everyone for lots of luck in 2024.

Mysterious Rock Structures found Hidden in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park!

Mysterious Rock Structures found Hidden in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park! (youtube.com)

Diamond and Horns

"Diamond" and Horns(?) on Big Snake head, Peck Hill in Woodbridge CT??

From Tim MacSweeney

[PWAX says: Tim may be thinking this represents Unktena (various spellings) the Water Spirit with a pearl (or diamond) on its head. Quartz is not common in Woodbridge CT.]

The Stones We Carry - O'Riordan PhD Thesis Defence

For a PhD Dissertation at University of Connecticut. This compares approaches to studying Ceremonial Stone Structures (or ignoring them).

CLICK HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbC2vPabNHo

[Corrected] Surveying the stone tool making debris in the neighborhood of a little Nevada Hill

This is an addendum to the overview posted here.

Small Children , Small Stone Prayers, Small Turtle Effigies (Nonnewaug CT)

 

  “Historically, archaeologists have devoted few resources to understanding the social roles and activities of children...Lucy (2005) attributes part of the problem to the unwillingness of many archaeologists to include children in their interpretations unless there is direct evidence, usually mortuary, of a child's presence…"

From: "Playing with method: testing one approach towards identifying the places of past children" -Mackenzie Cory (2020)

More:

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2023/12/small-children-small-stone-prayers.html

Revisiting a little hill in the Nevada Desert

 

Scottish Rock Pile

 They don't mess around.

Closing out a year of arrowhead hunting.

It has been several month since I found anything. After walking and walking, hour after hour, it is always a bit of a shock when the piece of the universe you happen to be looking at happens to contain the thing you are looking for. 

From coastal RI.

 

Update: I spent long hours yesterday looking at parts of the universe that did not contain arrowheads. You don't really look for arrowheads - arrowheads happen. You just hope to be there when they do.

Covering historic signs

 Concord officials look to cover up Massachusetts historic signs due to their 'offensive' nature (bostonherald.com)

This upsets me. I am from Concord and have deep respect for that spot on the Milldam where the sign appears. I was reminded in several different ways over the last week that Concord has nothing to be ashamed of with respect to the Native Americans. The town tried hard to protect them during the King Phillips War before the Indians were forced to go to Deer Island in Boston harbor. 

In addition, there were religious people in Concord (Bulkley?) who were devout and respected for it by the Indians. I just read (I already forgot where) it is the reason Concord was never attacked during the War.

Then, on the level of everyday American politics, I have to wonder about this "woke" initiative from Concord's current selectmen. They talk about being respectful to Native Americans but I simply do not believe they are responding to an actual complaint from an actual Native American. It is a thinly idealistic theoretical "respect". It does not play with a love [and respect] for history and I would be glad to know if there exists a real, local, Native American who is uncomfortable with the fact that Concord was purchased "from the Indians".

Ceremonial Stones from Honey Hollow VT

[From reader Hazel over several emails]

I'm including for fun, some of my favorite images of the stones I have 'discovered' in Honey Hollow, VT. I have also seen the impressive sites at Wolfrun/West Bolton(noted by N Muller and NEARA) and I think these sites are related, being directly north/south of each other, with the Winooski River between them. I shared my findings with Mike Luoma, who recently visited and feels these findings are genuine. I am working on a map - not counting stone rows, I have over 20 + different stone formations noted. Everything from 'typical' stone prayers, to prominent directionals, niches and 'stone spells' as you call them - which I agree seem different then the prayer-type piles. I read Manitou for the first time this summer and now suddenly, I cannot seem to go ANYWHERE in the woods without finding things.

This perched boulder points directly 0* north and is within a few degrees of the biscuit cairns at Wolfrun. I have found several perfectly north directionals at Honey Hollow but this one was most compelling and is very large. I love the way it seems to mimic the opposite ridge. 

Some more from Honey Hollow…

And this I found high above the colonial clutter, on the western ridge of Honey Hollow. I couldn’t ignore the 315* NW orientation, as if aligned with summer solstice sunset or winter sunrise. I know my boyfriend can’t wait for me to drag him up there again on 12/21 at 6 am LOL 

And these are some of the cairns at Wolfrun, directly north of Honey Hollow…

***

I've always noticed them but only recently did I learn that they may have some significance.  State archaeologist Nick Bellantoni came to this area 22 years ago because of an Indian burying ground in the area.  I had him come to this area on my property and he said it was probably an area of Indian settlement:  A terrace with an adjacent steep-ish slope.  There is a circle of large flat stones, and there is a spring and a small wetland very nearby.

This last one is very large, maybe 15ft or more, on a hillside. The cairn is on adjoining land trust land.

***

I took more pictures today, sent to you as files, of the large mound which, lol, I over-estimated to be too tall.  I'd say it's only about 7-8 ft or a bit taller.  The mound is at the bottom of a steep-ish slope (elevation drop of 50 feet over 300 feet on a hill which is like a symmetrical bowl, on an upland terraced site, the bowl being a large extended triangular mound at the base of it).  Included is a small "cave" on the mound which extends in a couple of feet.  

This mound is in a straight line with the humanoid-fish-turtle like structure that is roughly 300 feet away due around 10-15 degrees degrees west of north, so I guess true magnetic north.

If you could guess, I'm interested in the possible date of these structures.  I always thought the mound was colonial and the low effigy was a place where someone buried a pet, but every time I passed I thought it was way too elaborate for that.

From Mike Luoma

Hope you're doing well... In my ongoing attempt to educate folks about Indigenous stonework, I'm offering my thoughts on designed elements in Effigy Rows in a new video based on my notebook sketch page "What I Look For In The Stones" which I thought you might find interesting. Any feedback or thoughts are certainly welcome. At the very least, hope you enjoy: https://youtu.be/YYTA83pW0AA?si=PGfoWAaTlkE8d8GC

NESSHIE - In search of Nashoba

 (4) In Search of Nashobah, Part 1 - Site 000345 - YouTube

Southern AZ. Is that a pyramid? ...You decide

part 1:

part 2: