"Our Hidden Landscapes: Native American Stone Ceremonial Sites in the North American East"

12th Annual Native American-Archaeology Roundtable

 Saturday, October 28, 2017; tentative times: 9:00am-5:00 pm

     The federal government recognizes Native American Ceremonial Stone Landscapes (CSLs) as significant archaeological sites, yet most people – the general public and professional researchers – know little about them. Oftentimes their stone cultural features are misidentified as “farm clearing,” and subsequently destroyed to make way for suburban expansion or industrial developments. This conference focuses specifically on the identification of CSLs, their physical characteristics, relationships to the cosmos, connections with indigenous world view and sacred stories, and the need for professional archaeologists and state officials to identify, catalog and preserve these objects of living history.

Scheduled speakers: Deanna Beacham (Weapemeoc), Jesse Bergevin, Dr. Chris Bergman, Dr. Daniel F. Cassedy, Robert DeFosses, Mary & James Gage, Doug Harris, Dr. Julia A. King, Dr. Paul Loether,  Dr. Johannes (Jannie) Loubser, Charity M. Moore, Tom Paul, Dr. Paul A. Robinson, Dr. Laurie Rush, Douglas Schwartz, and Matthew V. Weiss.           

  Co-Organizers: Dr. Lucianne Lavin (IAIS) and Elaine Thomas (Mohegan).

Open to the public, pre-registration required; $10 conference fee.

Light refreshments to be served.

Please join us for another rousing Native American-Archaeology Round Table with outstanding presentations and panel discussions by professional researchers and Native American leadership.

 The Institute for American Indian Studies (IAIS)

38 Curtis Road

Washington, Connecticut  06793

Visit us online @ iaismuseum.org  

Soon blogging will resume

Back from the summer. Starting to make plans for the weekend.

Blood Hill and Mushrooms

Took Joe and Gail Coolidge to visit Blood Hill on the border of Ashby and Ashburnham. Took a few pictures of the piles, and a few more of the mushrooms.

A familiar shape:

And here is my son, grown a bit older, giving me the thumbs up:

How about these Boletus? These are the ones that make the Russians' eyes glaze.

 

Looks like mushroom hunting would have been good last weekend.

Cairn from Killingworth CT

reader Tim M sent these photos, and asked if anyone has an opinion about this rock pile:

Redwing MN Cairns

We may have all come across the web site:
https://www.fromsitetostory.org/rwl/stonecairns/stonecairns.asp
Which shows a dramatic cairn on a bluff in Redwing Mn.

Some time ago reader Steve K who lives near Redwing, asked about something I had posted about those cairns and also mentioned he wanted to locate them on foot. I asked him to send photos if he took any, and I am pleased to be able to pass along his report.

Steve writes:
If you're still interested, here are some recent photos (08/13/2017) of one of the rock cairn sites in Red Wing. The DNR had recently cleared away brush, shrub trees, and buckthorn from the bluff making it possible to get some clear pics. 

I also included a couple of aerial photos of another cairn site nearby. There's not much to see in that one, but the tree in the foreground is in a hole that used to be the center of the cairn and there are many large rocks strewn around it. 

Looks pretty damaged since the original photo.

Indigenous Stone Structures in Guam

“Latte (also latde) is a Chamorro term that refers to stone pillars and cup-shaped capitals or capstones, which represent house supports and are ascribed to the ancient people of the Mariana Islands. In some accounts, they are also referred to as casas de los antiguos (houses of the ancients)... research has found that during Guam’s late prehistoric period, from about 1200 BP to 300 BP (before present), latte began to be used and became increasingly common before abandonment after Spanish colonization... In modern times the latte shape has become a symbol of Chamorro cultural identity...”

from:

http://www.guampedia.com/guams-villages/hasso-remembering-guams-ancient-heritage-sites/

from:

http://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/12/the-latte-stones-of-mariana-islands.html

Webster Woods, Woods Hole

I think Mavor wrote about this wedged rock:

 It may have been blasted apart.

I remember this loose mound from seeing it in the past, but I never noticed it was a rectangle with two hollows - which I think is pretty rare on the Cape:

A wonderful woods, out there beyond the golf course.

The 4th Annual Pocumtuck Homelands Festival

   "The 4^th Annual Pocumtuck Homelands Festival was, in a single word, “Nice.” It was nice to be invited, nice to be in a place where Ceremonial Stone Landscape features are recognized and well known. Everyone I talked to was so very nice and almost everyone had a story or two (or ten) to tell about interesting and intriguing stones as I stood at a table with what looked much like somebody’s 6^th Grade Science Fair Project..."

More:

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2017/08/pocumtuck-homelands-festival-2017.html

4th Annual Pocumtuck Homelands Festival (Turners Falls, MA)

MORE INFORMATION AT
www.turnersfallsriverculture.org
www.nolumbekaproject.org

LET THE LANDSCAPE SPEAK

A fundraiser to support the Indigenous Tribes of the Northeast in protecting Ceremonial Stone Landscape Features in Sandisfield, Massachusetts

Presenter: Doug Harris
Preservationist for Ceremonial Landscapes
& A Deputy Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Narragansett Indian Tribal Historic Preservation Office (NITHPO).

Doug Harris will present a history of Ceremonial Stone Landscape Features in the Northeast region and the struggle to preserve them. The hills and valleys of New England are dotted with living prayers of stone (Ceremonial Stone Landscapes) created by the Indigenous peoples of this region. These stone structures were built to create and restore harmony between human beings and Mother Earth. The prayers that they embody continue to live as long as the stones are kept intact.
Saturday, August 5, 2017
3:00-5:00 pm
First Churches, 129 Main Street
Northampton, MA
The church is handicap accessible and on a bus line
Please enter on the Center Street side of the building

You can make a tax deductible contribution in one of two ways

1) Write a check to Creative Thought and Action (memo: CSL), and mail it to Climate Action Now's treasurer: Rene Theberge, 250 Shutesbury Road, Amherst, MA, 01002.

2) Donate online by going to https://tinyurl.com/protectsacredstones

Please share far and wide with friends and family.

For more info and/or to help with this campaign contact Susan Theberge

Please include CSL in the subject line.

Reawakening on Turtle Island

   "I haven’t felt this good in years it seems. It’s like coming out of a fog that I’ve been lost in, returning to the familiar, coming back home..."
http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2017/07/reawakening-on-turtle-island.html

Possible Manitou Stone (Griswold CT)

     When I asked James Finley if I could use this photo above, he sent me two more:

     James mentioned a nearby quarry - and asked a very good question: “There is a small quarry right at the bottom of the hill from where this stone is located. I'm sure most of the large stones used in and around the property came from this quarry. My question is, how could you tell if something was placed by Native Americans vs colonials given that this stone is directly along a road?”

   There’s no simple answer to the question –and, living in a home built about the time, all I can think of is more questions:

  Is that road a former Indian Trail?

    Is there more Indigenous Iconography in other stonework (such as the “wall” the stone seems incorporated into)?

  Looking at other photos, I wonder, how many times has an original stone wall been rebuilt or had stones added to?

    What else is there around there stone-wise, where does it lead to, what is enclosed?

    And I wonder about the house foundation: Is it quarried bricks and blocks, or is it like our house – serpents and turtles and a surprising number of rhomboidal stones??

    A link to the Historic Home (with more photos by James):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Lester_Farmstead

   (And  I took a few classes taught by a certain professor Jacobs whom I’m pretty sure was named for his relative Timothy Lester...)

Chimpanzees building a rock pile

I cannot resist passing this along (ya think ya know about rock piles and...)
http://www.dailypress.com/news/science/dp-nws-religious-chimps-20160325-story.html
 

Clearwater Valley Mound (Canada)

http://cfjctoday.com/article/534573/clearwater-man-finds-unexplained-stone-mound-near-wells-gray-park

Weekends out of town...no blogging

To resume later in the summer.

Ancient petroform in Manitoba's Whiteshell Park destroyed

Rocks that formed shape of snake at sacred site rearranged into inukshuk

Austin Grabish - CBC News

 June 30, 2017 

An inukshuk now sits where there was previously an ancient petroform depicting a snake. (Diane Maytwayashing )

   “Petroforms are arrangements of rocks that make up the outline of an animal or other distinctive shape when viewed from a distance. The Bannock Point site is a sacred place used from time to time by First Nations people for ceremonial purposes, according to Manitoba Parks and Protected Spaces.

    But when Maytwayashing and her group reached the petroforms, they discovered the stones of one — arranged in the shape of a snake — had been rearranged into an inukshuk.

   "I felt my heart fall to my stomach. It was really horrible," said Maytwayashing who guides visitors to Bannock Point and Tie Creek. "It kind of numbed me because it was like a violation was happening."

    Maytwayashing, an Anishinaabekwe woman and area guide and educator, said the snake represented a sacred feminine ancient story. She said the stones are considered as sacred as the Stonehenge in England or the Egyptian pyramids.

     "It was a place of gathering for thousands of years."

      Maytwayashing believes the destruction of the snake petroform and building of the inukshuk was a malicious act of vandalism...”

 Full Story:

http://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4185107

An Update:

“An elder who's spent his life caring for a series of sacred stones that were recently disturbed in a Manitoba park says the site can be put back together and still has a future.

Ron Bell, who hails from the Sagkeeng First Nation, says the snake-shaped petroform at Bannock Point, which an Indigenous tour guide discovered disturbed this week, isn't ruined and doesn't need to be protected by security.

"This is nothing new."

Bell said he's been taking care of that petroform and about 200 others that are largely unknown in the Whiteshell Provincial Park for 63 years.

I have all this stuff recorded," said Bell, who started taking care of the site when he was seven-years-old...”

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/manitoba/elder-manitoba-petraform-1.4187833

The Noble Point Effigy (Alberta, Canada)

(The Noble Point not-a-turtle Effigy?)

    “The Noble Point effigy (DjPa-1) is on the north edge of Chin Coulee, approximately 25 km south of Taber, Alberta. The effigy was first photographed sometime around 1967 and later recorded (1975) on an Archaeological Survey of Alberta site inventory form. However, its detailed documentation did not take place until 2009, when it was mapped by members of the Archaeological Society of Alberta Lethbridge Centre. It has not previously been included in rock feature comparative studies of Alberta and the Northern Plains. This article summarizes the efforts to relocate the effigy and the mapping process carried out by members of the Archaeological Society of Alberta. It also provides details on the construction of the effigy and explores its cultural classification and meaning...”

(Yes, he said it's not a turtle...)

The Noble Point Effigy (DjPa-1) (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266797257_The_Noble_Point_Effigy_DjPa-1 [accessed Jun 28, 2017].

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266797257_The_Noble_Point_Effigy_DjPa-1

   "...But the most daunting question, because it encompasses aspects of all the others combined, is that of motive. Why draw large images with stone across the prairie landscape?

    Sundstrom’s report lists several possible interpretations for the sites including memorials to important people or events, identifiers of particular social groups, shrines related to war, hunting and planting, and astronomical observatories.

   “None of these are mutually exclusive and none have been decisively studied archaeologically,” her report says.

     Brace takes a practical point of view, saying that many of the animal effigies were environmental indicators, acting as landmarks or identifying the location of resources.

    For example, an effigy in Mankota depicts a salamander with a simple set of external gills, like one that lives in fresh water. The forms sits in an area with much alkaline water, but a line drawn from the tail through the head of the effigy pointed to one of the few fresh water springs, he said.

   Brace sees a similar use for a buffalo effigy. A line drawn from the tail through the head leads to a blind coulee where large game could be driven off the edge.

   The turtle effigies could mean that an important food source could be found in the area, he said...”

(Yes, he said, “The turtle effigies could mean that an important food source could be found in the area.”)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3199691/posts

    Turtle found in the area of Alberta: 

http://www.hww.ca/kaboom/images/fish_amphibians_-reptiles/Freshwater-Turtles/Painted-Turtle_Neil-Dawe.jpg

Hmmm...

"Stylus Stone" from Hillman Mn

Reader Brian T writes:
... While investigating the rock cairn I found The "inscribed" rock on, I found a small fashioned tool  ( I call it a "Stylus Stone" ) .  Since then I have spent time researching trying to find a like item.  I was excited to find an almost exact copy 3700 miles away  in Yarmouth, submitted to the U.K Museum of Natural History for identification.       ( visit link below )  The first five pictures are the of the "Stylus Stone."

  http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/message/92729?fromGateway=true

[Anyone want to guess what that is for? - PWAX]