Thursday, September 28, 2006

The Robot Warrior: Near a vernal pond in Estabrook Woods Concord, MA - from Journals.

In Oct. 2003 I wrote:

At the edge of one vernal pond, I saw a larger complex rock pile that at first looked like a robot warrior. Don't know if this photo captures that look: A funny V-shaped head (upper most rock) with a careful chin placement, with bulky shoulders.
I tried to clean this up and kept finding more rocks until I had uncovered something 8 feet across. In this next photo, the "head" is above and right of center. But note the two extreme left and right rocks: each at the tip of a protrusion of rocks from the main "body". thought I saw a figure in this, what do you think? One feature that does not come through in the photo is a vertical flake of rock, a wee bit left of center in the photo. I wondered if this might represent a phallus. It is in approximately the correct position with respect to the head; but I couldn't make a good case for their being balls. I try to sketch the thing:
Don't know if anything is to be made of this. Several other rock piles are placed like this one: on the southeastern edge of a vernal pond. The most interesting thing about this pile was that, as I dug it out, I found a solid layer of charcoal on top of the pile and underneath the duff. I saved some in case a carbon dating opportunity presents itself. So this suggest that sometimes a fire would be lit on top of a rock pile.

Today I would be more hesitant to think this is a figure, and I would check to see if there was charcoal under the duff beyond and outside of the rock pile.

About a month later, I went back to the vernal pond and one of the brooks that drains it and photo'd a pile which seemed rather symmetric.
It looked a bit like this and had a vertical flake.
Re-reading the text above about the robot warrior and its vertical flake, it is surprising I did not notice the same structure in this other pile.

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