Mosier Mound Complex

I had forgotten about this:
https://www.science-frontiers.com/sf122/sf122p15.htm


And we already had this:
https://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2016/09/mapping-mosier-mounds.html

Comment: this is not like what we have in New England. Maybe more like Track Rock Gap?

What kind of arrowhead is this?

From reader Joshua:

Could someone please help me identify these two arrowheads I recently found in Point Judith Rhode Island? Any help would be appreciated.

Broken point from Woods Hole MA

Found on the "hole" side of Devil's Foot.

It is missing its tip. Not beautiful but interesting. It is called a "small-stemmed" point but I don't know the type.

It is pretty thick to be a projectile and what would a spearpoint be good for on a small island?

The break, perpendicular to the axis of the point, does suggest it broke tip first.

Is this a typical MA arrowhead style? Wading River?

Pockumtuck Festival

Artifacts at Hammonasset Beach State Park (Madison CT}

Meigs Point Nature Center Artifacts (my photos]

Photo from a 2014 Archaeological Survey:

https://ahs-inc.biz/legacy/Hammonasset/Hammonsassett%20Ph%20I-II%20report%20draft%20complete.pdf

Jonesing for new rock piles

Feeling an urge to get back off the Cape and explore. Sorry for the quiet in the meantime.

Long distance alignments

From Norman Muller:

Herman Bender, a good friend, sent me this comment about long distance alignment which he posted on the Hanwaken Facebook site. It agrees with my thinking about the matter:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/156215703094/

Morning after a good rain

     In my last post I mentioned that I would be out searching for arrowheads after it rained. As it happened, it rained most of the morning, and I had to work in the afternoon; my only chance of getting out there before anyone else was to get out there while the rain was still coming down. I got soaked, but that's OK. Happiness is no footprints. Also it did stop raining while I was out there so I got to dry out some.
     This thin little triangle was easy to spot.

     This stemmed point was also totally exposed.

     I wound up getting a couple of decent arrowheads, a big broken blade and a few fragments not worth showing. A good day.

Spring arrowhead season

     Spring is the best season for arrowheads.
     One day I went out after work to a nice sandy place where I have found a lot of chips of quartz and argillite, but very few tools. Conditions on the ground were very good with a lot of fresh exposure. This quartz arrowhead was fun and rewarding to find, and could not have been more obvious or easy to spot.

      Nearby, I picked up what I thought was just another quartz flake. It turned out to be a pretty unusual little stemmed point with an expanding stem.

     A quartz triangle and a quartz stemmed point, the two types of tools that to me are so typical of the artifacts left behind by prehistoric people in southeastern New England. There were, of course, other people in this region at other times, who used different types of materials. I think the quartz industry sites are more numerous but maybe it's just that I am better at finding those sites.

     One very rainy afternoon my friend Dave and I went to a favorite spot only to see two others out there, with sticks, searching for artifacts. Discouraged, we left and went to another, very small area where he and I have both found stuff in the past. I spotted this tiny corner peeking out of the mud.

     This triangular quartz arrowhead is very small, the sort of thing that some collectors used to call a "bird point." The site where I found this must be so dense with arrowheads, there is almost always something to find there even though there is almost no geological change happening, extremely limited exposure in a tiny area only. As with most of the sites I know, it is private property but is known to the state as an archaeological resource. I am not aware that there is any real effort to protect these resources which to me is a shame.

     One sunny weekday recently I had an incredible lucky streak. I was really feeling lucky so I went to a favorite place in Rhode Island near the coast, before work. This stemmed point is big, thick, and chunky. Thicker than what I usually find. I speculate it might have been used as a knife. I like it.

     This neat little stemmed point nearby was very easy to spot. Just waiting to be picked up.

     It is pretty much all there. Maybe a little worn from centuries in the ground.

     There was lots to find there, that morning. I found most of another stemmed point, and some fragments.

     After work, the weather was still nice and I was still feeling lucky so I decided to try again in a different spot, this time in southeastern Massachusetts. I spotted this tiny base sticking out of the ground. It was exciting pulling it out of the ground, hoping it would be whole. They usually are not.

     This one was, though. Very pretty. It is, I believe, a Squibnocket Triangle. This could be the nicest point I find this year.

     I found some other stuff that afternoon in that place, too, including another triangle made of a really pretty crystal quartz material, with some damage.

     On another day, back in Rhode Island, I spotted this. It might be a hafted scraper but perhaps more likely it's just broken.

     It was hot and dry out there that day. I did manage to find another crude and beat-up stemmed arrowhead.

     Last week I went to another spot that I know has a lot of artifacts. It was really hot and really dry, terrible conditions. Almost no rocks visible. Despite this, I carefully searched the most productive area and I was rewarded with this.

     This is pretty big and well-made. It doesn't show well in the photo but in hand, this quartz material has a glassy appearance that shows the flaking scars better than is typical with quartz. I'm happy with this.

     It's nighttime as I write this and it is raining here. We are supposed to get some decent rainfall tonight. I will plan to be out there searching again tomorrow. I spend a lot of time looking, to be able to find anything.

YouTube from Quebec

Here are mounds from Quebec. The piles get better and better on the way through the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5dU3H2s0zE

Keeping sailing destinations secret

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXya9plt8SY

Ashburham State Forest

From Reader Russ:

"Night-Light" presentation with Curt Hoffman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kKj18hlgTY&t=65s

Linear feature with a "dimple"

Next to Rt 16 on Uxbridge/Douglas border, south of the road there is a brook with a linear stone feature next to it.

 At the near end, a rock covered with rust. [As if it had been wrapped in leather.]

 A dimple in the mid-section:

Strange walls around there:

From a treasure hunter

Quoted with permission from an email (my emphasis added):

No artifacts found , not looking for them , I would think they are deep in the ground . We did not know this was 100% indian until a few weeks ago. I only go after treasures not Indian sites. Its just this site is so big and has a lot going on with it and no one knows about it. This week I will talk to the right people to make sure they know about it then I am done. Can't make money from investigating Indians so I am back to looking for Civil War... WE keep busy with TV, radio,  book and movie deals. Indian sites do not sell on TV , I guess too many of them . Treasure hunts are big now so this is what we do.
Ya you can quote me, If I saw a arrow head I would keep it safe for future people to see but NO  WAY would I dig up a grave for artifacts, sick to think of it.

Pennsylvania "Stonehenge"

via email:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2252058445059081/

A possible calender site on the Uxbridge/Douglas border

North of Rt 16 on the Uxbridge/Douglas border is a nice open woods. I walked in from Rt 16 on the east side of the brook and began trending uphill, thinking: going up to the top of the hill is a bad habit I acquired from Bruce McAleer and there is rarely anything at the top except a few hilltop sites in Harvard and Boxboro, and Henry's Hill in Framingham. I walked along and came to a valley between summits and a stone wall, and thought: I can go left or right, I'll go right further uphill. There were a few traces around, like this damaged pile:

A moment after turning further uphill, I saw a distant rock-on-rock and, as I came up to it, I was happy to see it was part of a sequence of rock piles:

A view from the side:

The even spacing is a characteristic of what I call "marker pile" sites - where the piles have the properties of "tic marks" dividing the horizon as would tic marks on a ruler. They were nice piles but a bit old:

 The telltale blaze of a piece of white quartz on some of them:

On the hilltop was a magnificent sight. 

A boulder with marker piles, marching along beside it...

… and extending to all the places where shadows from the boulder would be cast by a western sun or moon. Of course this is my fantasy construction for what is going on at this site. I do believe it is a type of sundial but it will take someone more systematic than me to go out and see where the shadows fall. Here are other views:

A few other things on the northwest shoulder:

I doubt many will visit this site but it is highly recommended for students of astronomy, because it is a natural location with regular features, waiting to be measured.