Interesting statement about Wabanaki History

 A Final Response to Reinvented Abenaki at Ne-Do-Ba

Golden Eagle on a Ceremonial Structure

Somewhere in Spain (Valle de Iruelas Avila?)...

Somewhere on YouTube....(here)

Looks like one of those burials they excavate in Scotland. Being as how we are quick to spot such things, here in archeology-starved New England, it is quite possible that they don't realize it is a prehistoric structure, there in Spain. 

Ice Age Relic/Balancing Rock (Watertown CT)

Florence T. Crowell Photo Accessed from: https://www.facebook.com/334846928460/photos/a.337556648460/10157676881323461

Watertown CT Historian Charlie Crowell writes: "Before being used as a monument, this stone was known as “balancing rock.” At its original site, it sat on top of a rock outcropping and was so finely balanced that a small child could push it and to would rock back and forth, but it couldn’t be knocked over. The seemingly precariously balanced boulder was left in that position by the last ice age. The process of dragging the rock to its present site was grueling and laborious. It was done using horses..."

In a personal communication to my friend Al Conley, Charlie notes:  "Richard Sperry, owner the land where the boulder originally sat, wanted to keep it as a balancing rock even after it was moved and set up as a monument. He thought engineers could handle the job, but it never happened."

More here: http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2020/11/ice-age-relicbalance-rock-watertown-ct.html

 

Indian Rock Piles in the Massachusetts Woods - Waksman's 2014 lecture in Acton

Edited a bit, sloppy in some places, nevertheless this contains much of the basic "logic" of this subject. Hope it is entertaining:

Split Wedged Rock - Sippewissett

 

There should be word for this: when a dog posts guard on top of a structure.

Note the steel drill holes and the already removed portion of boulder, on the left side. You may need to zoom in to see the wedge. The missing piece of boulder was not nearby. In the course of trying to convince a friend that this was a ceremonial structure, I argued myself into the position that this wedge could have been used as a separator, inserted when the rock was first broken, to keep the sides offset from each other during subsequent moving and removal. Of course that does not preclude the wedge having been used with ceremonial intentions as well. :)

Connelly Hill

 Are there any readers from the Holliston/Upton area that can go check a site? I was glancing at the map:

Given the extremely rich collection of sites just to the east, it seems obvious that there will be sites around the marsh, circled in red. 

I checked the satellite view and there are building all around, so this may involve some tresspassing. Any takers?

Which Turtle? Which Place?

 

The Significance of a Stone Turtle 

 Or a Turtle Made of Stones 

Depends on
Which Turtle in Which Place

Above: Judges Woods Turtle Effigy (incorporated into a "memorial"). Below: A Diamondback Terrapin Effigy above the Hammonasset Salt Marsh, "Hunting Grounds," like Ed Lenik says, not for a Turtle Clan, but for the Diamondback Terrapin, if you are looking for the simplest answer as to "Why this particular Turtle in this particular place?"

As a modern day observer of Stone Turtles

 Or Turtles Made of Stone 

The main significance is that the Stone Turtle speaks, saying:

 “Indigenous hands were on these stones,

    Placing them just so in order to resemble Turtles…”

A longer version here: 

https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2020/11/why-turtle-again.html

So what if it looks like a turtle?

OK, I may be in some disagreement with my colleagues who are sending pictures of rocks that look like turtles, or rock piles that look like turtles. I figure I should ask: what is the significance of a rock or rock pile looking like a turtle?

We are aware that the turtle is a very important creature with its thirteen shell plates and it place in the mythology as the creator of earth. But let's take a rock, for example, that everyone agrees looks like a turtle. "There is a turtle....it was revered".

What I am curious about it whether my colleagues leave it at that? I want to propose something else: that the rock with a point on it, and the pile shaped like a turtle had a function which is enhanced by the turtle presence, but that is not the primary characteristics of the feature. 

What I mean is, the pointed rock might cast a sharp shadow, or the turtle pile may have the same function as other piles nearby that lack the turtle shape . In both cases I assume that primary function is made stronger and given more power due to it being a turtle. 

But to have a modern observer experience a turtle shape does not seem to say a lot about the past. So I ask my colleagues what they make of it, beyond observing a turtle's shape?

Another Quick Comparison

 

Possible 'Turtle' Rocks

Norman Muller writes:

I read your recent post about single stones resembling turtle heads.  Maybe yes, maybe no,  I prefer something clearer, such as that turtle petroform at Killingworth, CT, with its prominent head, carapace and legs, particularly visible on one side. 

Or that remarkable turtle boulder in Voluntown, CT, that Larry Harrop discovered (P1120480), 

which has an anthropomorphic construction on top, perhaps alluding to the origin of man.  Or a large glacial erratic in Rochester, VT, which from one side looks like an upraised turtle head (DSC0030).  

Whereas from the other side there is a curious stone platform attached (DSC0120), the latter

perhaps emphasizing the importance of this particular boulder.

A Quick Comparison

 

A couple turtles in Beebee Woods, Falmouth

A small concession to my friend Tim MacSweeney. I have to admit that these rock-on-rock examples had turtle head shapes. Seems pretty deliberate. 

At a low point

On a slope

A minimal site in Woods Hole

A site can occupy as little as 10x10 square feet, so it is not surprising to find something in even the smallest patch of woods. There is a thin strip of woods across from the entrance to Devil's Lane and I poked my nose in their yesterday. Saw a little circle of rocks, too small and uncharred to be a fireplace:

A bit small for a person to have sat in, I suppose this is a 'niche'. But the thought also occurred to me that it might have been a small 'U', now stoppered after use.

A few feet away on the knoll, something that would be easy to miss, four rocks in a row.

Straight lines make me think "astronomy". Mavor was up and down in these woods.

The spread of Mississippian Culture

https://theconversation.com/cahokian-culture-spread-across-eastern-north-america-1-000-years-ago-in-an-early-example-of-diaspora-130106

I was enjoying reading this article, especially as they did something rarely done: they showed a picture of an arrowhead. I don't know about you, but I judge arrowhead style to be a good cultural indicator. If you find a Clovis point, you assume a Clovis culture. Similarly, if you find a notched triangle, like the above, you assume a common culture. In this case we can call it "Mississippian".

OK, so here are arrowheads from the "Sinagua" culture, from near Prescott AZ:

Note that the small one (and it is pretty tiny) is a notched triange - clearly from some version of a Mississippian Culture. 

Question: Guess where else these arrowheads are found?

Answer: "Pre-Classic Mayan Arrowheads", retrieved from Google image search:

When I realized the authors were un-aware of older cultures than the Mississipian one, with these same arrowhead styles, I stopped reading. 

Should I be shocked the authors do not even know basic facts of their own subject matter? 

The Last of the “Woodbridge Indians”

   "According to Woodbridge resident Edee Lockyer, who visited the cemetery as a child in the 1940s, the graves were then mounded up and covered with rocks. Sadly, the graves were repeatedly disturbed over many years. Today, there are no gravestones or burial mounds; rather, the grave sites are sunken. The stone marked pillars were erected in the mid 1920’s by the Daughters of the American Revolution of Derby, Connecticut..."

 http://www.woodbridgehistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Indian-Baskets.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3ZpGmN6I_CwsQZInZF7q-J_pg0nnhmT7u_zqV0Wnb6cIf50qAx6e9mesk

Clovis only lasted 300 years

  (Not rock pile related):

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-tools-north-america-earliest-inhabitants.html

Curt Hoffman Talk - Wednesday night Zoom

Oct 21 7 PM EST Curt is talking in Acton: 

https://zoom.us/j/92492270291?pwd=RGZtKzMxR0VBZ1Fka1JXOE05M3RnUT09

Passcode: 716028

What did the Indians know?

Since first learning about ceremonial stone structures I have wondered, as have others, how much of the specific ceremonies is remembered by today's Native Americans? Mavor concluded that there was a bit of residual knowledge, kept by some families; but nothing that would inform our understanding of what we find in the woods. Personally, I concluded, based on how many fresh rock piles appear (almost none) and their adherence to familiar patterns (incomplete, at best) that Mavor was essentially correct. I listened carefully, during an "expert panel on rock piles" at a NEARA meeting, when the president of USET, over the speaker phone, thanked Doug for teaching the member tribes about rock piles. He said: "We did not know about these things and you showed us the way". That seemed definitive.

In fact, the Native Americans - notably Doug Harris -  like to imply they always knew about rock piles. "The cat is out of the bag", Doug used to say when asked why these ideas were being discussed for the first time now, rather than at any time in the past. This always leaves me concerned that I am stepping on the toes of people who really know about rock piles because they are the originators of them. It is a huge opportunity to make a fool of myself.

Yet, I am given pause seeing a picture of the Narragansett medicine man standing on a stone mound and walking across it casually. An act of disrespect.

In any case, I just noticed a bit of logic that escaped me earlier.  If Doug Harris already knew about rock piles, then why would he take multiple walks with me? If he already knew about rock piles then why did the USET resolution appear (Resolution 2003:022) , identifying eight towns, only after I gave Doug the names of those towns? Had the main purpose of the USET resolution been the political aspect of working with New England towns, then Doug, who is an extremely busy person, would have gone to the towns first and not bothered taking walks with me.

Ice Age culture in Straits of Mackinac

 https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/10/14/straits-mackinac-ice-age-culture-native-american-tribes/5978992002/

Medawlinno Footprints (Henniker NH)

 

     Sherry L. Gould writes: "These footprints are in Henniker NH where the Abenaki believe foot prints were left here by Medawlinno. People with extremely powerful medicine, like Passaconaway, could press their feet into solid earth.

     There is no oral tradition of what person may have left these prints in the rocks in Henniker that we have found yet. Just our traditions of what kind of person was able to do it, and traditions of Passaconaway's abilities..."

https://www.facebook.com/Abenaki-Trails-Project-130903648704620   

Ed Lenik writes: