Summary of the weekend's finds

I hope to roll out descriptions for two sites I found over the weekend. One site is from right here in Concord MA, the other is from Wayland. The sites are similar: both are on the north-facing slope of a hill, both are flanked by low stone "walls" broken into segments. At both sites there is a mixture of ground piles and supported piles, and at both sites unusual rocks are incorporated into the piles. I would call both sites "marker pile sites" except the piles are not in lines nor are they evenly spaced. Instead, these piles seem to be in no particular pattern of inter-relation, they simply look out to the north. On the other hand I might be tempted to categorize these sites as "burial grounds" except there was little use of quartz and there were numerous supported piles. This makes me inclined to think of the piles as memorials, but I really have no idea about which type of site these may be.

I have seen many sites on western facing slopes, and have been tentatively thinking this was in order to face prominent hills, like Mt. Wachusett. But here we have two sites on north-facing slopes. Were these supposed to be looking towards something prominent to the north? It is true that the western facing sites tend to occur further west and south than the two I will describe. So there might be a slight correlation between direction of view and actual location of the site. I can think of at least one more site on a north-facing hill slope, and that site is even further east and north. Anyway, let's get started.