More on: Underwater Rocks Puzzle Archeologists

More on the underwater "Stonehenge" from Lake Michigan. From the ChicagoTribute.com
[Click here]

Rock pile creature - Sudbury State Forest

The shape is, at least, suggestive.[From May, 2008]

Features behind FFC's house

FFC spent a lot of time this fall measuring the positions of features out behind his house. There are lots of alignments, including stone walls that run in the direction of the winter solstice sunrise. Here is a map of the locations:This map covers about 1/4 mile edge-to-edge. I believe the diagonal lines of features from upper left to lower right are oriented toward the solstice sunrise. Also I should add that there are numerous rock piles all around nearby.

Split boulder cairn from Queen's Cairns RI

Norman Muller writes:

Here's another one from the Queen's Cairns area in Exeter, RI, showing a roughly square cairn, a somewhat vertical split boulder to the right, with a short connecting bit of stonework between them. Whether the cairn on the left was constructed on what was the recumbent left half of the split boulder, I don't know, but the whole feature has a Cubist feel to it.

Some Nice Rock Piles

I was really looking for some rock piles at Schaghticoke Mtn. (above) when I came across http://picasaweb.google.com/moosevan, Photos by Nick , mostly New York State I think.

This is from Monadnock

A Rock Pile in the water?
And this is Jupiter's Boulder at Black Rock Forest:
A rather testudinate boulder on Peekamoose Mountain (are those hand tools below it?):
And some interesting standing stones at Shawangunk Mtn.

There may be more stones in his galleries; I didn't browse through them all.

And I couldn't copy this one, but it might possibly be the "Tavern Stone" near the Schaghticoke Res, but I'm not sure. So click here for "Cairn on River by Schaghticoke:"
http://cuetalentcomllc.smugmug.com/gallery/460484_RF3p9/1/18611386_G7y8k/Medium

How tough cairns can be

Norman Muller sends this example from Rochester VT:

Hawaiian stone features

Here is an interesting expression of Hawaiian beliefs related to stones. I wonder if this is similar to how New England Native Americans might have thought about such things. [Click here]
[More here]

Schaghticoke Rally and Protest, Jan. 29, 2009

"If it was your house, and it was your mother's grave getting dug up, wouldn't you get upset?"

Tony Crone of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation

Driving up to Hartford Thursday, when the The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation held a protest and rally at the state capitol, the fifth anniversary of its reversed federal acknowledgement, to protest the state's refusal to intervene on its behalf to stop the destruction of land on the reservation, I was sitting in the front passenger seat, when this big ex-Marine pictured above told me about spreading his Mom's ashes as she'd asked him to do. He said he put some by the old apple trees of the ancient burial grounds and then walked to the top of the mountain, placing some more here and there along the way.
He said, "When we did, we made - for lack of a better word - "rock piles," so we'd remember where they were."

These Rock Piles are now gone...

More at: Video from the Schaghticoke Rally and Protest

Canada's Stonehenge

A 5,000 year old medicine wheel in Alberta is getting some new interest [click here]. From theglobeandmail.com [via Archaeologica]

Rock piles from the web

A nice barrel cairn from "Ivan's Gallery" at Picasaweb [click here]

A nice Scottish Cairn [click here]

....oop! time to leave work.

Winter at "Above The Falls" - Bolton MA

This is a favorite site I call "Above the Falls" and I thought it would be worth going out to take some pictures of it in the snow. Even though I know exactly where the site is, I had trouble seeing it. It was so covered with snow I would not have seen the rock piles - except that I knew they were there.
[Click here for all the previous articles mentioning this site.]

I had a chance to re-examine the layout of the rock piles around the main central boulder feature at the site and I took pictures from every angle. Here is a sketch of the layout:The picture is oriented with the top of the picture more or less to the North. Notice that four of the piles are more or less in line with each other. Notice also that there are several "gaps" - between the boulder and the largest pile, and between the upper two piles. Notice also that, with the exception of the large pile forming a gap with the boulder, the other piles are all slightly elongated in a directions towards the upper left, which would be roughly northwest.

Here are the panoramas. You can figure out which direction. I started looking north, then moving counter clockwise around the features.These gaps open towards water and, in fact the site is on a piece of land between two brooks which meet and form a cataract dropping down about 15 feet at the edge of the site to the east.

Here are "before and after" shots of a snow-covered pile:It was well-buried.

I should mention a connection between deer and this site. I found two different well-preserved deer skulls here. One had a full ten-point rack of antlers (which I traded to FFC for a lunch one time). Visiting this time in the snow, I noticed a deer had walked up into the gap between the large boulder and the adjacent large pile. The deer stopped, peed, and then came back out again. You can make out its tracks in the first photo above, heading up into the gap.

Ice Stories - Rock Piles in the Arctic

[Click here]

Deer licking cat

Not rock pile related: This is so funny. [Click here]

Standing Stones in PA

An interesting link from Norman Muller:
http://rustedgarden.com/pa5.html

CRISIS ON THE SCHAGHTICOKE RESERVATION

Russell Means participating in Schaghticoke Tribal Nation rally from: Indian Country Today Story Published: Jan 23, 2009By Gale Courey Toensing

HARTFORD, Conn. – In the mid-1970s, at the height of the American Indian Movement, Russell Means came to Connecticut to support the late Golden Hill Paugussett Chief Aurelius Piper Sr. in his fight to protect the tribe’s half-acre reservation in Trumbull, which was being encroached upon by a non-Indian neighbor.Now some 40 years later, Means, who is perhaps the most famous Indian activist in the world, will travel to Connecticut to support Schaghticoke Tribal Nation Chief Richard Velky in his struggle to protect the tribe’s 400-acre reservation in Kent, which is being bulldozed and desecrating by a non-Indian intruder.
=> Read more!

"Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond" radio program on WESU, Middletownm CT , 88.1fm.
LISTEN ONLINE while the program airs from 4-4:55pm (EST): http://www.wesufm.org/
On Tuesday's program, January 27, 2009, join your host, Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui for an episode focusing on a crisis on the Schaghticoke reservation in Kent , CT. Past programs of "Indigenous Politics" are now archived online: http://www.indigenouspolitics.com/.

See also: "Schaghticokes seek help to stop quarrying" by Kathryn Boughton @

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?dept_id=13476&PAG=461&rfi=6&newsid=20215257

STN Home Page

STN Home Page: http://www.schaghticoke.com/index.html

“The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation has been recognized by the Colony and then the State of Connecticut as a separate and distinct American Indian tribal entity continually from historic time through the 20th century. Today, the Tribe has approximately 300 members.
The historical and spiritual base of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation is the Tribe's approximately 400-acre reservation in Kent, Connecticut. The reservation is mountainous and rocky, with a small strip of flatland located on a flood plain along the Housatonic River.
After decades of state policy to remove tribal members from the reservation, few currently live there. The vast majority of Tribal members reside in Fairfield, New Haven and Litchfield counties, along traditional Schaghticoke seasonal migratory routes along the Housatonic that were first documented in the 18th century.
From 1925 to 1972, Connecticut intensified a policy of detribalization and termination, making it extremely difficult for tribal members to live and gather on the Reservation. Tribal members were forced out, while those wanting to return home were refused permission. Except for farming, no business could be transacted and no buildings or improvements could be added without the written consent of the state. This anti-Indian policy is underscored by the fact that there were no public powwows on the Reservation between 1941 and 1972. All in all, tribal members recall, the Reservation was a "difficult place to live and survive" during this century…”
About the photots: These are some copies of Wtby Newspaper photos of the Last Pow Wow at the Kent CT Resevation, given to me by Marcia C. Grenier that she found in the archives of the Watertown (CT) Historical Society.

http://www.schaghticoke.com/index.php?page=history.modern
Posted: June 20, 2008 by: Gale Courey Toensing / Indian Country Today:
“After months of seeking state protection, the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation has filed complaints of human rights violations against three state agencies for refusing to help stop the desecration and destruction of tribal property. The complaints were filed with the state's Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities in April and May. Two complaints were filed by STN Chief Richard Velky against state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's office and the Department of Environmental Protection. A third was filed by tribal council member Joseph Velky Jr., the chief's nephew, against the Connecticut State Police. The complaints charge that the agencies are violating human rights and state statutes by ''not enforcing the state laws to protect our tribal property, because the respondent [DEP] doesn't want to recognize the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation as a Native American entity. My complaints about destruction of tribal property are being ignored because I am a member of a Native American tribe.'' Joseph Velky Jr.'s complaint says the law enforcement agency refused to put his complaint in writing. All three stage agencies have refused to help, claiming that a ''tribal leadership dispute'' prevents them from intervening to protect the land. Velky said the state is claiming a leadership dispute in order to ''divide and conquer...''
Full article: http://www.schaghticoke.com/popup.php?page=media&id=72

Standing Stones in PA - from an old Journal

Norman Muller writes:

Below is a very interesting, detailed account of standing stones in Pennsylvania, along the Brandywine River. The article that follows refers to cupuled boulders. This reference shows how much more can be extracted from old journals. The publication is from 1898.

[Click here]

Quartzite on Cairn

From Norman Muller:
Attached is a photo of a cairn from Woodstock, NY, showing a piece of quartzite on top. Your VA respondant asked whether there was quartz on the cairns I posted images of.

HAWAIIAN SACRED SITES

From Tim Mac Sweeney:

http://www.sergeking.com/Hsites/

Schaghticoke Reservation_ Kent CT

From: ProtectSchaghticoke
January 19, 2009

----- What is happening at the reservation today can accurately be called a hate crime and unmistakably desecration, despoliation and destruction of our ancestral land. In 2004 and again in November of 2007, a non-Schaghticoke individual trespassed upon our reservation, began ripping out trees, cutting and removing timber, quarrying stone and illegally excavating our sacred land without Tribal approval or official State permits. Since November 2007, Tribal members have been in contact with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and demanding an immediate cease and desist order to be applied to this intruder. No order was ever applied and the hate crime, destruction, desecration and despoliation have been allowed to proceed for over one year now. The Governor, who has been aware of this situation, allows the intruder to indiscriminately damage our ancestral land, digging up sacred artifacts and keeping them, despite constant opposition from Schaghticoke. To date, he has committed these crimes to over ten (10) acres of land. He has destroyed natural habitats including those of endangered and watched species, desecrated many burials with out any consequences as well as threatening a Tribal member with a rifle, again with out consequences. The State of Connecticut has been allowing these crimes to continue for too long. We are planning a protest in Hartford, CT on 29 January 09 at the State Capitol and Legislative Office Building. Please join us from 10 to 3 PM, snow, rain or shine. We, additionally, are circulating a petition; which can be viewed and signed at http://www.petitiononline.com/STN129/petition.html

We plan to hand deliver to the Governor on the day of our protest. Thank you for your support.

In peace,

Schaghticoke Tribal Nation Preservation Committee