Railroad Culvert

For railroad buffs, the loop of railroad off to the west of Oakmont High in Ashburnham, is an old switching yard. Multiple sections of railroad seem to criss-cross the area.

Crikey! Thought it was a chamber for second.

Stone pile embedment

More from Tommy Hudson:

Picture of a stone pile on a mountain in northwest Georgia. This is in an area where dozens of stone piles are located on the spine of an east facing ridge, but not at the very top of the mountain. The property has had only two landowners since 1841, and these piles are known to have been in place at least since then. Of course, the original landowners were Indians. 

I used a gas powered leaf blower to clear away the sticks and leaves, so I could photograph and measure the pile, then blew the leaves back in place when I finished. Looking at the bottom of the pile, it is easy to see that the stones are deeply embedded in the topsoil, even to the sterile soil below, an indication that the stones have been buried over time by the natural debris in the forest. A profile of the pile would show that the hummus buildup would even be slightly higher than the surrounding forest floor due to the rocks containing more of the debris. I wonder if any other readers have noticed this with stone piles in your area? Have they kept any records of stone embedment, not only individual piles, but site to site? I have noticed it is a simple way to gauge the possible antiquity of the stone piles in north Georgia and I have recorded quite a few sites like this.

Frog Rock on Lookout Mountain Georgia

From Tommy Hudson:
Thought you might find this interesting. It is called Frog Rock, and is located on Lookout Mountain in north Georgia. It "points" toward a massive stone structure that is riddled with caves and rock shelters.

The Lost Valley of Wallace Brook

Who needs poetry when you can just read the map? Needless to say, I have to go check this place out, although it's a cold Sunday morning.

Update:  for the most part the comment to make about this "lost valley" is: "good riddance". Boulder fields with sphagnum moss, dark under the hemlock in the low places, mountain laurel all around on the higher ground. I got about a quarter of a mile in, didn't see more than a smidgen of stonework, and turned back. The only thing that would get me back in there is a persistent curiosity about how so much acreage could be invisible - maybe if I went just a little further it would open up into some kind of Shangri La.

Some Thoreau quotes

A friend sent some quotes. This one is noteworthy, Thoreau is being skeptical, a good scientist:

12 J3, p. 56
[Between 4/19 and 4/26/1850]

"The oldest monuments of the white settlers hereabouts are probably some dilapited & now undistinguished stone walls--laid long before Philip's war--not houses certainly perhaps not cellars--but old unhonored stone walls & ditches-- But it is difficult to find one well authenticated. I respect a stone wall therefore."

Roadside Attraction - Overlook Rd Westminster

Visible from the road is a little "window" pile (sorry about photo quality) down near the water west of the road:

With respect to the previous posts: I found 2 sites, a prayer seat, an isolated pile near the parking lot of High Ridge, and this roadside attraction. Not a bad day trip to Westminster.

Marker piles fading into the slope

[Still at High Ridge in Westminster] Making a straight line traverse back to my car, I came across one rock pile and it turned out to be part of a decrepit site. Sites must be quite common to show up when you are not even looking for them. 

Saw this pile and then looked around more carefully for others nearby - about six of them were visible on the slope above. They were in lines and evenly spaced but almost erased.

Trying to enhance the locations:

Quite a steep slope:

The nicest preserved pile was at the top (just visible at upper left of previous picture), in detail:

(To be clear: I believe this is the same type of site as the Spring Hill "grid", which I assume is a calendar.)
A few moments later, I was over the hill and steps from my car. Here is a view towards the parking lot:

Recent (?) Prayer Seat

Came upon this in the hill/valley/wet areas east of the entrance to High Ridge:

Now look at the birch branches covering the pile:

If it is true that the end of the ceremony involves closing of the seat (something consistent with most examples of small 'U's) then it is being done here with birch branches. Since birch decomposes quickly, how old could this prayer seat be? Not that old.
Recall I found one on Snake Hill in Ayer with an iron pipe "closing" it. This indicates widespread use of prayer seats in Massachusetts up to the last -say- twenty years. That is the present.

A visit to High Ridge Wildlife Management area - Westminster MA

Sites often do not photograph well because of bad lighting. It is all the more difficult when the site is barely perceived at all - when it is hard for me to tell if I am even looking at rock piles. In doubt, the only thing that convinces me is more rock piles nearby of the same nature.
So here are some almost useless photos of almost invisible rock piles. The site is by the side of the water (right hand blue outline above) and consists of a roadway following the edge of the water. A stone wall comes down from slightly higher land, breaks for the roadway, and continues about fifteen yards down to the water. Along the road are five low piles with hollows and one more pile that looked like a donation pile, a table with scattered cobbles on top:

Here is one of the piles:

 from the "back"

A la video:

Some nice quartz in one of them:

 

Perhaps we can save the other site for a later post.

Tiny Little Stones on Bedrock (and other assorted features)

Above, a contributor to this blog (who might be an archaeologist) points to something or other on the north end an exposed bedrock outcrop Snake Head that just might have possibly been humanly enhanced as another contributor to this blog takes a digital photo, thinking, "Okay, I'm missed the Snake Head all the many times I walked right by it before but I know I saw all the cup marks in the stone - so why is he pointing to that one?"

These two crops above and below are sad replacements for the actual photos the contributor with the camera should have taken instead of being shocked at what was there... 

...and two actual sad close ups:

And a third photo of some of the cup marks:

A Bird's Eye View:

And a wider view, including a vernal pool:

That sort of bedrock spine leads to a row of stones:

Some of the stones in that row of stones suggest zoomorphic human creations, sometimes showing signs of workmanship, like a pit for an eye or details of a nuchal:

An interesting choice of stones and placement: 

One contributor forgot to ask the other if 'sculpting' rather than "pecking" would be the proper term to describe some of the possible human enhancements to the stones: 

(There was a short discussion that this could be proof that Jug Bands may have made the stone walls of New England but no other instruments such as washboards or kazoos were found, although washtubs have been sighted here and there...)

A desecrated stone pile - one observer said "Neo-Pagan" while the the other person alluded (in cleaned up language here) that it may have been "Just some jerk." 

This view along the other stone pilings makes the crime seem even worse:

Pheasant

This guy did not seem too put out by my standing there. I wouldn't have seen him if I not for my thinking I saw a rock pile and looking around carefully nearby.

I haven't seen one in a while.