Crying Out for Rocky Woods (East Freetown MA)

Metacomet's (or "Prince Phillip's") "Cave"

Photo – Sera Bray

   Heartbreaking...
http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2018/08/crying-out-for-rocky-woods.html

Split filled rocks in Ireland

Let me recommend the photography of Rebecca Latson:

Borrowed from here: https://www.rebeccalatsonphotography.com/International/Ireland/i-nJcQjzF/A

East of the Franklin Water Tower

Going back and forth to the Cape is taking my explorations further south. I have been doing bits and pieces of Franklin for several years, Wrentham next and, eventually, Foxboro. I have been skipping Milford since Bruce MacAleer already showed me how that town is packed with rock piles. Somehow it is less fun to re-discover, so I have skipped Milford. Of course there are plenty of towns between Concord and Cape Cod and I have my work cut out for me. Anyway, here is a little piece of the map I have been looking at for a while, so I got out there last weekend. The water tower is located about at the cross-hair. After weeks away from the woods my hands were itching and curling spontaneously as I stepped out from under the power lines. Ah, the smell of hay scented ferns!
And of course there was a beautiful mound right there, which I showed previously. Here are other views. Interesting that someone would set up a camp (now abandoned) right there.

You can see the hollow better in these side views:

I do not see "corners" and the kind of rectangular shape I am used to seeing further north. This is no longer the Nashua watershed, but the sample is too small to conclude things about differences in styles of burial mounds. In fact, on this walk, there were several very different types of rock pile "mounds".

I continued south along the edge of the power lines. Having found this first mound (above) it made sense to stick to that topography, although I was headed for the headwater lake in the lower right of the map fragment. Here is a different mound, different shape, different age:

Nothing much to see. Here is another:

and another:

This one was actually quite tall, it does not show in the photo and, generally, I am sorry the pictures are not very clear. (I think an iPhone takes low contrast photos, without depth of field.)

I saw several examples like this:

This is a mixed soil/rock material in the shape of a "flattened donut" meaning the hole is not round but long and thin - more like a casket shape. There were several like this. The photos do not tell us much:

At this last place, there were several rocks-on-boulder piles, adjacent:

All in all, not too exciting. It seems that people over a wide stretch of time made there way up to this place from the water below. This is the Seven Mile River, heading south into Pawtucket.

There were a few other rock piles in there but most of the larger items were up by the power lines.

Got a walk in, planning another

Haven't seen one of these in a while, more later about it:

Another Stone Complex (GA)

More Rock Piles/Mounds

A large group of stone structures in the Chattahoochee National Forest

"A large, flat-topped oval mound, with large rocks stacked on top of a rock ledge base.   At one end was an upright stone that stood like an altar;   Sheldon H. stands next to it for scale.   The structure's form has been somewhat ruined due to blow-down of some large trees that had taken root in the mound..." 

More: https://www.be-roberts.com/se/snant/beng1.htm

Random Rock Pile

With only occasional exploring on the way back and forth to the Cape, I have seen almost nothing this summer. Stepping into the woods after a couple weeks away and it is a sheer relief to breathe in the hay-scented fern. Here was a one place where I saw an isolated pile, across Belcher Rd from Foolish Hill in Foxboro:

I will try harder today, when I head back in the other direction.

Oh yes, and this: an Ebony Spleenwort:

Mystery Stone Structures in Connecticut

Fieldstone cairns at the Werge Easement, Thompson, Ct.
 November 4, 2017      

http://burgersonion.blogspot.com/2017/11/mystery-stone-structures-in-connecticut.html

Stone Ax head

From Michael Hoye:

This was dug up this week in West Springfield Ma on Chestnut Street. In a back yard next to a residence. 

Rock Piles on a Farm in Saskatchewan

A nice account:
https://merlemassie.wordpress.com/2015/09/17/rockpiles/

riddle-rock-piles-effigies-and-enigmas-southeastern-mystery-story

https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/riddle-rock-piles-effigies-and-enigmas-southeastern-mystery-story-part-i-021393

ARCHAEOLOGISTS SAY HUMANS MAY HAVE COME TO TEXAS EARLIER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT

[From the Texas Standard, about the Gault site; a picture of  arrowheads from several layers below Clovis:]

“Right now we find no other technology that looks like this assemblage,” Williams says.

[PWAX says: really? You must not get out much. Those are the typical shapes of arrowheads from North Africa. This one is from Niger.]

[By the way, it looks like there are some Clovis precursors over there too. Or maybe they came from the US first?]

Field trip to the Upton Chamber

What:                   Field trip to the Upton Chamber and associated ceremonial stone landscape features atop nearby Pratt Hill

When:                  Saturday August 11 from 1PM to 4PM 

                              or Saturday Sept. 8 from 1-4pm 

Where:                 Meet at the American Legion parking lot at 15 Milford St, Upton, MA 01568

• From there we will carpool to the Upton Chamber at Heritage Park, and then to the base of Pratt Hill
• We will park at the base of Pratt Hill and walk to the NITHPT land at the top of the hill to see the stone features there
• For elders and handicapped we will can transportation you up the hill if given advanced notice

RSVP:                    Please send email to nithpt.csl@gmail.com (we can accommodate up to 20 people)

Planning a couple walks

I am down on the Cape more than usual, so, no good walking [I have already explored around Falmouth, a lot]. I'll be heading north and hoping to get a couple walks in this week, and have something to report.
Update: struck out twice. Got wet.

Southern Franklin State Forest

I have reported on FSF before, here and here, when I visited the central and northern parts of the park. So on this visit, I went in from the end of Lorraine Metcalf Rd and stayed as far left as possible.

I spent most of the walk slogging - it rained hard the night before and -boy- is there a lot of Sweet Pepper Bush in there! I found some mounds around Magotty Hill but also got tuckered out when trying to return to the car I found myself at the water tower at the high point of the Forge Hill. Luckily I recognized the place and only had to do another mile of slogging to get back to the car.

So I want to say that the first mound, at A, was exactly where I expected to find something. I had taken a trail to the left from Lorraine Metcalf and, after it crossed a brook (you can see a western branch of Mine Brook there) there was another side trail leading off south. Kept south for a few yards until a stone wall crosses the trail and I followed the wall west down towards the wetland, thinking: "now this is the kind of place I expect rock piles". Sure enough, I poked my head into the bushes on the north side of the wall and saw something looming in the distance. I showed a video a couple posts ago. Here are some still photos. First a fuzzy picture from a nearby "satellite" pile towards the larger mound.

Better:

If there was a 'hollow' it was at the far end (more like what I called a "tail" in the past). 

Some other views:

How cool is that?

I continued south by bush and trail and eventually found some very messy things next to a field (at B) which I did not trust. I suspect these were real but added to by field clearing. I'll spare you all but a couple of the photos:

The piece of quartz swayed my opinion.

I continued west along and through some cleared field areas on Magotty Hill, then headed north. The underbrush was heavy and I exited the cleared area at the only spot (at C) where I would have seen this, and I take no credit for finding it - just lucky: 

(from the field view)

 (view back towards the open field)

That one is definitely real. 

After seeing these mounds in the southern part of the forest, I walked through thick wet bushes all the way north and then most of the way back to the car.

Update: I guess a chronological account like this, coming after many of the same ilk, adds little value other than the location of some rock piles - someone living nearby might want to go have a look. But in truth, what is observable at these sites is piles that are built up quite high - meaning they are young, without the type of "hollow" I expect to see in mounds further north. Should I compare these mounds to the ones over in Hassanamesit and Peppercorn Hill? My experience is still too patchy to make these comparisons confidently.

Ontario "Megaliths"

Interesting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5V5BZaZjkY

A mound in Franklin State Forest Mound

(More details later)

A mound in the "distance"

Great, when you turn aside and peak into the woods and see something through the bushes. (This is Franklin State Forest.)

Ames Long Pond (eastern side) - Stoughton Memorial Conservation Land

To be honest, it is not worth showing pictures from here - it was bright sunlight dappled shadows on top of old, broken-down, 'ground' piles.

First find in a long time

From the Concord corn fields:

This is a fine material, called hornfels, or "hornstone". I never found a complete item made from it before. Some other shots.

I believe it is a little knife. An unusual shape but undamaged.

SCOTLAND’S LONGEST NEOLITHIC CAIRN

Destroyed by Fowl Watchers

A photograph of the conceal construction erected at Carn Glas cairn. (Picture: NOSAS)

 Read more at: https://epeak.info/2018/06/27/scotlands-longest-neolithic-cairn-destroyed-by-fowl-watchers/