New photos from Indian Stones/Cairns/Intentions

Jeff in RI writes:

New photos up at Indian Stones/Cairns/Intentions. 31 thru 41. A few Dolmens to be seen in there.

Carolina Rock Art

[Not rock pile related] From the Charlotte Observer. "Carolina's rock hold ancient messages"

High on a Falulah Tributary

A closeup of the little quartz-on-rock:

Finds in familiar and unfamiliar places

Monday was a depressing day for me at work, my coworkers were really distressed about the explosions at the marathon. For me there is no better way to de-stress after a day in the office than getting outside and looking for arrowheads, it is a relaxing and contemplative pasttime. I went back to the narrow strip of dirt where my friend Dave had found a nice triangular arrowhead about a week before. It had rained quite a bit in the meantime, and lots more rocks were visible. After a short walk I was happy to see this:

That's exciting. You can see that most of one edge and corner are still stuck in the dirt. I was hoping for a whole point, and this time I wasn't disappointed. This quartz triangle is really small but very nicely made, pretty. My first quartz triangle of the year.

Today I had more time to search. The time for finding new spots to look will be winding down now as vegetation springs up everywhere and people are doing more stuff outside, making them less likely to let me wander around on their property. I had zero expectation of finding any arrowheads today- most new places I look are void, and I come home with nothing. Still, it is fun to see new places and get outside and there is always the chance of finding a great new spot. I left the house today with two new places in mind that I wanted to explore for the first time. The first spot was a place that someone had mentioned to me as a place where arrowheads have been found in the past, a solid indicator. The second place seemed less likely but someone who approached me for a chat as I was out looking for stuff one day had mentioned it and it was not far from another place where I have had some luck. Now as I have said before, what I am really looking for when I survey a place for the first time is the telltale chips and flakes from people making and sharpening stone tools. In the first place, the ground was only visible in patches, but I walked for quite a while without finding anything that I could definitively call a flake. Maybe there were arrowheads here at one time, and perhaps there are still some to find, but with no chipping debris, it doesn't seen like many people could have lived in this place, for very long. So, on to new candidate #2. Literally as soon as I stepped out of the car I was finding broken quartz chunks. These are clues that tell me I might be looking in the right place. I got closer to the water and started picking up thin, flat quartz flakes about the size of a thumbnail. Some were made out of very clear quartz and were flat on one side with flaking scars on the other. These are absolutely artifacts and for me are proof that I have found a site. Before I got very far I had picked up a flat piece of quartz with flaking on the edges, on both sides- maybe a preform or crude tool, not worth showing, but the last thing I needed to see to know for sure that I had found another place where arrowheads can be found. A success! It had been quite a while since making any finds in a totally new place. I started walking very slowly, studying the ground. In some places, the debitage was really dense, with broken pieces to study with every step. As is common in most of the areas where I look, almost all of the debris was quartz, with some few pieces of blue-green argillite here and there. I bent down to pick up a little piece of broken quartz protruding from the ground. It turned out to be the base of this:

This is a great find for me. I was so astounded, I almost fell down. I was elated to find it. It is fairly big and I like this shape. There is some wear and the very tip is damaged, the shoulders are asymmetrical, but it is a first find in a new place and I love it. I kept on looking, really carefully. In some areas it was hard to see the ground, but I was being very thorough. Otherwise I would have missed this:

I wasn't certain what to make of it. The tip of a triangle or small stemmed point? Or just a pointy flake? Check this out:

I don't know what to call this, really. I don't have another one like it. It's got a long, tapered stem that is unusual. I imagine this was sharpened down from something much bigger.

These look really nice, cleaned up at home.

Happy to have another spot to keep going back to, over and over. I searched most of the area very thoroughly today but not all of it, I will be back soon and hope there might be something else to find.

Hoffman lecture tomorrow - be there or be square

Middleboro, Robbins Museum, 1:30

Help Wanted - Clearing and cleaning the Wissatinne​wag property

From the Friends of Nolumbeka:
Dear Friends,
Yesterday we went to the Wissatinnewag property for the first time since long before it was put under our stewardship in February. It felt wonderful to return and feel the peace and promise. The land needs our help in so many ways. Joe and Howard will assess the priorities. Our goal is to have the property ready for a public event in mid to late May. If you can offer assistance please respond to this e-mail [ nolumbekaproject@gmail.com ] with a phone number where you can be reached and Joe will contact you.
Thank you.
The Board of Directors, Nolumbeka Project
http://www.nolumbekaproject.org/

Strawberry Hill, Acton

Had no time for exploring last weekend but managed to convince FFC to take 10 minutes to drive over to Strawberry Hill (really in his back yard) and step into the woods over there. There is a Spring Hill conservation land trail head at the top of the road where you can walk in, heading north. It is a nice woods and I was surprised to not see anything up there. Then FFC cleaned off a "bowl" and, a moment later, I thought I saw a rock pile off in the woods to the left. The bowl:

 

The first rock pile:

 There is a white rock nestled in the tree roots.

And then, there was another rock pile and ... ooh! what's that beyond?

 First we give this pile # 2 a closer look:

It also has a white stone in the interior:

And a grey quartz on its perimeter (the pile is slightly rectangular and the quartz is on the right  hand corner):

closer:

 Then, the mound! It is a rectangular mound:

Note the manitou-like stone leaning over, in the middle:

Here is a view in towards the inevitable hollow, passing beside that interesting stone:

I think this is a hollow that no one would blame on vandals:

The argument against vandalism is: this L-shaped hole is deliberate and shows no sighs of being the result of someone digging a hole into the pile. On the contrary, it shows tidy arrangements of small rocks in spite of severe damage. Also, there was a small white rock (against the tree):

Look at the context of this mound:

FFC was looking at other details. He pointed out several other rock piles buried under leaves:

and curious rock shapes.

How bout this pile and it's white rock:

 closer:

This one had a lot of structure:

He also called attention to a linear feature that was at the top of the site (which we saw near the bowl on the way in, but ignored not seeing that it was a separate structure). This linear feature ended below near some of the rock piles. It had a few white rocks at the end:

 It ended above, looking towards a distant horizon

 We'll have to "Stupid Sheet the wall" to see where it is pointing.

 

Pretty good "10 minutes". One of the closest sites to the road, that I can think of. 

Out in the Berkshires

Took a walk in the woods in Tolland, Massachusetts on Sunday. A stone wall runs along a path that goes into the woods. Not far from the road, and near the path, on a slope going down to a swampy area, I spotted this well-built structure with an obvious hollow.

A couple of views from the downhill side, showing the careful construction.



Further down that slope is a sort of a split pile.

This second pile is built close to the edge of a large boulder.

That rock on the ground in front of the boulder has a presumably natural depression that could perhaps have been used as a mortar.

Near the bottom of that slope, a low pile, looking smeared out.

Elsewhere in the same woods, a group of three stones and a rock-on-rock flank two sides of a shallow depression in the earth.

A couple of lucky finds

Last week on Saturday a couple of friends dropped by for a visit. Like many of my friends, they take an interest in my arrowhead finds. After dinner there was still some daylight and we were trying to come up with something to do, one of them suggested looking for arrowheads. Now, too many times, I have taken someone with me and he has made some wonderful find and it has made me miserable, I have (for the most part) since learned my lesson and usually go out alone or with my friend Dave who is generally metal detecting and thus looking for something else. But on this occasion I thought it might not hurt to check a pretty spot where I have had some luck in the past but where I have spent so much time that finding anything else there does not seem particularly likely. And of course when we got there it was bitter cold, with an icy wind, and conditions were not great, and my friends wanted to leave. Looking for arrowheads is boring, and it can be a literal pain in the neck (and the back), and you have to be really motivated, to do it. But I coerced my friends, and the three of us spent about an hour out there. I spotted a quartz arrowhead on the ground.

You can see that only part of it is visible. Quartz doesn't show flaking very well but worked quartz will often have a glassy quality that is hard to describe. And the curve of that edge is artificial-looking. So I called my friends over, so they could see what an ancient arrowhead looks like in its natural state, protruding from the earth's surface like this. One of them laughed derisively, and scoffed- he was sure it was just going to be a rock. Well, no wonder he didn't find anything.

When I first started finding arrowheads it was mostly triangles. Lately there have been few triangles and more of these lanceolate forms. This one certainly made me happy. It's whole, and still sharp. A good one. We left after I found it.

Last Sunday I spent all day with Dave looking for stuff. I didn't find anything but had some nice walks. At the end of the day we were driving near a favorite spot of mine and I saw some new areas where the earth had been moved around. I wondered if maybe something had changed in this spot I like so much, I took a short detour to have a look. I couldn't believe it when we pulled up and saw a long, narrow strip of bare earth, fresh. Usually you have got to wait for some good rain to wash off the rocks when looking at fresh dirt but in this place I have found stuff in all kinds of discouraging situations. I walked along one edge but didn't find anything. I let Dave walk in front of me as we walked along the other long edge of the narrow strip, and so he was the lucky guy to spot this one first, totally exposed and obvious:

Can you believe this thing? The material is felsite. Usually when I find this shape they are made of quartz, this is an unusual one. It's got one tiny nick at one corner of the base. What a beauty!

Dave took it home and will hold on to it for a little while but eventually I will get to keep it and will display it with other artifacts I have found in this special place.

Large Mounds at College Rock

With reference to previous posts (here, here, and here), I was hoping to understand all the incredible variety of structures at College Rock by seeing them in the context which, by now, is familiar to me: a context of structures in and around large mounds with hollows. Aside from one such mound built into the stone wall next to Beaver Brook, I did not see anything comparable until I got far enough south and west - where I saw this one:

And as I gazed into the woods...lo another mound was looming:

On closer look, the wall on the side of the hollow is unbelievably well preserved:

closer:

I was walking along here, when I noticed some even larger mounds in the background.

Or were they stone wall? Then followed a sequence of higher and higher tiers of stone mounds. In pictures: Mound#1 with mound#2 in the background:

Here is mound#2, which is built into a wall. I am not sure mound #3 is visible behind.

Here is mound#3:

Let's take a closer look:

It's a long thin eyebrow of a rock pile, with a notch in it. Some other views:

You can see the stone walls going crazy in the background.

(Where have I seen a long thin pile with a notch in it before? Well I think Pratt Hill had one. I saw one at Tenney Rd in Westford). 

Messy as it was, mound#1 is worth a closer look:

 It is a slightly different layout.

Stone walls with mounds in them (or predating them) seem to have been a habit around here. One more, on the way out:

Goodbye for now: