Punkatasset Hill - the rock piles (continued from the previous post)

Here is the chronological description of the site:

As I approached the site, there was a bit of a gully with a split-wedged rock so I was thinking - "well at least there was some ceremonialism". But I did not expect to see a big rock pile site here for two reasons. One is that I explored Punkatasset years ago [apparently not very thoroughly or competently] and being near the center of Concord I thought this hill would have long ago lost any ceremonial features. Anyway, here are some shots of the gully, this is on the eastern side of the hill:Although the split-wedged rock is typical, especially in a wet place like this, there were two short stretches of stone row inside the gully which I thought were interesting. One next to the wedged rock, the other shown in this photo:
I thought that was all I was going to see on this hill and could not decide whether to bother photo'ing this minor pile made from burnt rock.
But soon I was into an area of many piles and forgot about my doubts. I rushed around taking pictures. This one caught my eye for the obvious reason [it was not a fire ring, there were other rocks in the center covered over by leaves and there was no sign of char]:
There were some typical non-descript ground piles. Some had more obvious burnt rock in them but only a few had noticeable quartz in them. Like this one. What is prominent is the black rock at the center, quite different from a white rock at the center:Although there were more ground piles than anything else, I tended to focus more on the supported piles. These appear to have been decent sized "cairns" before they were brought down by falling trees, passing teenagers, etc.Here, for example is the solitary pile Nick Holland sent me a picture of. Except it is not at all solitary. And here is a detail, showing the burnt rocks incorporated at the center of the pile:Here is a pile I groomed slightly. A "pile in motion" showing how it was knocked over:
[DIGRESSION: I am becoming more aware of pile damage. In many cases you can see a "vector" of damage, as if the thing got bashed from one side. Here in the last photo you can see rocks scattered to the right of the pile. Let's call that a rock pile "in motion".]

In the next post, I want to discuss the stone wall segments which flanked the site.

*****************[To be continued]*******************