The Wachusett Tradition and Marker Piles

Since I coined the two phrases of "Marker Piles" and the "Wachusett Tradition", some discussion is needed about whether they are inter-related and, if so, what is that relation. I think there is some relation but the ideas are not identical. Let me explain.

A few weeks ago at the Hopkinton State Forest I noticed and described how the piles had a vertical face as well as a slanted or horizontal face that blended in to the hillside.
I have always described this vertical face as a basic characteristic of what I called "marker piles". [It was Linda McElroy of Acton who first pointed out the vertical face on a pile at the "Acton Grid" but I stole the idea and gave it a name.] This type of pile has been discussed a lot on this blog [click here for some of the discussions]. So I won't spend time now talking about even spacing of rock piles or rock piles in a line.

But then, at Hopkinton State Forest, I noticed this other pile characteristic of blending in with the slope of the hillside. So a week after that, at Millers Hill in Holliston, seeing something like that I called it a "ski jump" profile [click here and scroll down]. This is frequently a characteristic of marker piles but not always. However Millers Hill and Hopkinton State Forest are slightly different - Millers Hill has a big platform and Hopkinton State Forest has smaller more numerous piles.Both have ski jump shaped piles. So these sites are similar but neither exactly fits the definition of "Wachusett Tradition": both sites have nice views - "outlooks"- but the chambered rectangular cairns are absent. Also neither of these sites is a typical marker pile site in the sense of numerous lined up piles.

Now, with a site I found last weekend in Upton at the Warren Brook Watershed Conservation Land, some kind of connection was seen: ski jump piles in intimate connection with a chambered rectangular cairn at a place with a good view. I will report that site separately but here are "ski jumps" from there:
And here is a chambered (vandalized) and rectangular cairn from there:
[Sorry the snow makes it hard to see but there is a rectangular hole at the center of the pile].

I think this is a significant overlap between one form of marker pile (the "ski jump") and the Wachusett Tradition of chambered cairns.

Let's return to the thought that these are not typical marker pile sites. The latter have, in the past, been places with many small piles, lined up and evenly spaced. But with these recent sites (Millers Hill, Hopkinton State Forest, and Warren Brook) the lines and the even spacing are not so evident, all that is left is the vertical face and the characteristic of blending in to the uphill slope. To be accurate, the Hopkinton State Forest site is almost halfway between a standard marker pile site and a Wachusett Tradition site - the piles are somewhat smaller and somewhat evenly spaced. Is it reasonable to think that Hopkinton State Forest is some kind of transitional site from a culture and thought process somewhere between the (older) Wachusett Tradition and the (newer) Marker Pile site? I say "older and newer" because the Wachusett Tradition sites are much more beaten down than some of the very fresh looking marker pile sites I have seen.

Is it reasonable to go even further and imagine a crude chronology that extends from Wachusett Tradition to Marker Piles with Hopkinton State Forest as somewhere between the two? It is too late for me to ask if this is truly reasonable because I have gone over into thinking this way. I don't know where Miller's Hill fits in and do not know if the absence of chambered cairns is more significant or the presence of ski jump shaped large piles there.

So, for better of worse, I have adopted a sense of chronology, a sense of a spectrum of types of site with older, larger, and especially chambered, rock piles more in the Wachusett Tradition and younger, smaller, more numerous, more lined up rock piles more in the Marker Pile style of site. Vertical faced piles remain present throughout. This spectrum is a result of my observation - classifications that arise from a long term examination of many sites rather than the immature "Rock Pile Types" I was seeing and describing a few years ago (see here) based on superficial characteristics of the piles. That is not to say I repudiate that earlier classification but rather that it is evolving and becoming more real and more observable place to place.

So, since I am provincial and locked into a Middlesex County MA study area, it begs the question: what is going on in other places outside of this small world? Most of the piles I see photos of, from further south in New England, seem like marker piles to me. Do chambered cairns at an outlook show up somewhere else? What about huge platforms like at Millers Hill? Where do they fit in and how common are they elswhere? Please let me know.

Sites with a central "mound" - part 1

I want to describe three sites I saw over the last two weekends. One site in Wolf Swamp Boxborough had an old smeared out "mound" near the center with a very irregular shape, surrounded by a number of rock-on-rocks and low rock piles, as well as a row of stones leading off in one direction for a few yards. The other two sites are from Leominster: the one being just a single smeared out "mound" near a larger rock, with an irregular shape to the mound; and the other consisting of a low "mound" with a distinct rectangular hollow, surrounded by rock-on-rocks and a few "ski-jump" piles. In each case the mound is near the center of activity and with an irregular outline, as seen from above.

Attention to the idea of "rock piles with tails" has led to paying closer attention to such central mounds, even when they are not the most dramatic or well-preserved piles at a rock pile site. Also now, I am paying closer attention to how things are layed out around this central mound. Since I am of the opinion that these mounds with hollows represent burials and since I am of the opinion that things like ski-jumps and short stone rows are related to sky watching; so I am starting to believe these three recent sites are similar and combine something funerary with something astronomical. That's my fantasy but you can judge for yourself whether these "mounds" have anything in common. I asked a colleague one time, how many different types of rituals could be represented by the different types of rock pile sites. He said "infinite". Although I agree there is validity to the view that "no two snowflakes are alike" for rock pile sites, I think it is an anti-scientific attitude. I am looking for similarities and common patterns.

Wolf Swamp conservation land in Boxoborough has a couple of turnouts where you can park. At one, I explored across the street rather than going into the conservation land. I found a wetland and noticed a couple of rock-on-rocks:Then I noticed something larger and pretty old (based on its degree of smearing and its debris cover). I was quite taken with this and took a number of pictures:
In the 2nd and 3rd pictures you can see the irregularity of the piles shape. In particular in the 3d picture, you almost sense two lower dips in the height of the pile. These could be the "hollows" I have been noticing in some larger piles recently.

Nearby this large pile another few piles, maybe a "gap" pile (note the gap opens towards the large mound):A pile with some larger flat rocks:A bit of an "alignment" formed by a loose stone row:
And some slightly larger, "vertical-sided" piles on the other side of the large mound:
Seeing these as "vertical-sided" is a stretch but I think this is generically similar to the "ski-jump" piles we'll see at one of the Leominster sites. Also worth noticing is that these slightly larger piles are all on one side of the central mound and the minor rock-on-rocks and smaller piles are on other sides of the central mound.

Finally, here is the kind of rock pile you don't see unless you are looking for it:

More on rock pile half-life and site classification and chronology

Speaking (here) of damaged rock piles and estimating site age by the amount of the damage, or the proportion of damaged piles at the site (something I called rock pile half-life in these articles [you need to scroll down]), it is not such a crazy idea when construed statistically over a wide number of similar sites in a restricted region like east central Massachusetts. Take, for example, marker pile sites with triangular rock piles of which we have many examples, enough to comprise a legitimate statistical sample. And suppose, reasonably, that these are manifestations of a culture that existed in a limited part of the past - a time frame whose limits we want to estimate - or at least place in chronological order with other types of sites. It is certainly true that individual sites will have experienced different amounts of damage depending on later land use. If they were in an open field (I am thinking Manana Island) they might not get too quickly damaged. If they were subject to falling branches and trees, they might be more damaged. But over a large sample of sites the local differences in land use would average out in a restricted region. If you had a reasonable sample size for a different type of site, these same local variabilities would apply to them. To make a long story short: If over a collection of sites of one type there is more damage (on average) than for a collection sites of another type; then it is perfectly reasonable to conclude the more damaged sites are older. In this regard, there is no question that rock piles with hollows are significantly older than triangular rock piles.

I can almost create chronology now for these different types of rock piles:

• piles with hollows and tails
• piles with hollows and no tails
• piles with hollows, no tails, and in proximity to "ski-jump" shaped piles, evenly spaced and in lines.
• Evenly spaced triangular rock piles in lines and grids - with viewing platform or high point.

I like visual representations:For what it is worth these are also sort of regional:

• Rock piles with hollows and tails (A) are from Carlisle to northern Fitchburg.
• Rock piles with hollows and no tails (B) are from Leominster to Boylston to Hopkinton
• Rock piles with hollows and outlying ski jumps (C) are from Upton to Holliston
• Triangular rock piles (D) are pretty much everywhere.
  

I wonder how much of this is actually correct?

Through the breach - Camp Str. Milford Part 2

(Western side of the valley of Mill River, south of Peppercorn Hill.) Where we left off here there was a large stone wall with an opening or gap, about 15 feet wide. Let's pass through this gap now and look at a part of the slope right up against the power lines (at the edge of the blue outline I showed on the map). Notice the way the wall terminates, on the downhill side of the gap:

Now we enter a new area where the piles were larger - more what I would call "ski jump" style piles. 

Such "ski jumps" are more common down south here in Milford, Upton, Holliston, and Hopkinton.

I consider them a kind of "marker pile", with a nice vertical face on at least one side and possibly playing some role is time-keeping. Also sometimes found near rectangular mounds with hollows.

Here is a beauty (seen in two views):

Here were some other typical features. A pile with quartz (in the middle of a "U" of stones, largest at the ends of the"U"):

And a split wedged rock:

Here are some structures connected to boulders:

They are like piles from Horse Hill and north.

The place is surrounded by walls. Another massive one, with a clean ending:

  

Interesting that there are older collapsed walls in the foreground and etc.

Then finally, at the high point of this walk, was a larger mound:

From the side:

There is a small, distinct depression on top:

Very nice.

From there, I went back down the valley and out. Some impressions on the way:

A place with a large building foundation, integrated into the wall:

But not so fast! There was still more. I think I am going to need a part 3.

Advice: Look for the mound if you see the horizon markers

I have been mulling over all the "Wachusett Tradition" sites of the last few months and how, so often when I find a rectangular mound with an inner hollow, the landscape surrounding the mound will have several other smaller piles that include quartz, or are vertical sided, or are "ski-jump" shaped. It seems very much the case that the larger mounds have company and are typically surrounded by these smaller piles. If the larger mounds are for burial then the smaller piles are for some other part of a mortuary ceremony - something that includes the underworld and the astronomy of the sky.
I walked into the woods on a trail starting from Teney Rd in northeastern Westford and was thinking about several different things when I topped a ridge and found some nice rock piles. I had anticipated finding something nice and was thinking: "If I find some rock piles, I should look carefully in the neighborhood for a, perhaps less conspicuous, rectangular mound...". Here is what I saw coming over the ridge:From another angle:Following my own advice, I looked around when I got to these piles and spotted something like a house foundation across the road and downhill. Later, I decided this was the mound I was looking for.So I want to recommend to other people hunting for rock pile sites: If you find some of those vertical sided piles, or piles evenly spaced and in lines, or piles along an outcrop and ridge where they form the horizon for a place slightly downhill; then you should check carefully to see if there is not some larger mound in the vicinity, perhaps slightly downhill. [Of course there are plenty of places without such a mound.]

Still further downhill were a couple of smaller ridge/outcrop bumps that also were good candidates for marking the horizon, as viewed from the "house foundation". One turned out to be an outcrop while the other turned out to be an elongated rock pile (that reminded me of Pratt Hill):
Another view:These pictures do not show a detail which is that: there is a dip in the middle of the structure, breaking it into two pieces. Fifteen feet uphill and in line with the dip there was a smaller conical pile, Here is the view of that smaller pile, facing back uphill towards the "foundation" and the outcrop beyond that:Off in another direction, forty yards across the slope and perhaps marking the horizon in that direction, was another outlier:
This one had a little quartz:Let's take a closer look at the "house foundation".
I see smaller rocks used than I would expect in a house foundation and what is up with that wall dividing the space in half?

Do you see how similar this is to the sites along Falulah Brook in Fitchburg? I wonder if we'll eventually discover this type of site is pretty widespread. I especially offer the advice above with the hope of hearing from you, my colleagues, who are out exploring in other places.

********************

There is a different story here which I should not forget to tell: the story of confusing a large rectangular "burial" mound for a colonial house foundation.The characteristics of the one are not that far off from the other. The main mound here at Tenney Rd lacked structured walling, included smaller rocks but it was not that different from the poorhouse foundation(s) on Nagog Hill Rd.

Platform Mound at Miller Hill - Holliston, MA

On first approach from below, the platform looms to the left:
I made a video:

Saw some views of the platform:I like this thing:And of course this picture:Downhill to the northeast was another outcrop with a very damaged pile along it:
And the view from the mound towards the west:At least one of these was natural outcrop, the others were completely man made.Look at that wedge shape, that "ski jump" profile:It is like an early form of marker piles visible from a central platform. Is this not the very basic model of most of the sites around here? A viewing position (in this case a central platform) with slight geometrically placed 'marker' piles oriented in some way perpendicular to the line of sight from the platform? Frankly I cannot see how this would be for anything other than the shadows these piles would cast under various seasonally adjusted lightings, because the well defined faces of the piles are not even visible from the platform. Of course a simpler explanation would be that the whole theory is barren. Also it is possible these piles have been damaged beyond the point where there appearance is meaningful. Still, there is some sort of arrangement here.