By Geophile
A few links. The first is to a picture of a rock pile in the area of Pennsylvania where I grew up. The Pinnacle is a spot along the Kittatinny Ridge of the Appalachians where the ridge doubles back on itself. At the end of the kink is a rock outcropping that forms a lookout. It is a tradition among at least some hikers to bring a stone to add to a large rock pile there. Here's a picture with hikers. And here is what the Pinnacle itself looks like, speaking of rock piles. The landscape in the far background there is where I grew up.
Also, my brother Andy sent me a link to pictures of a site in Schuylkill County, called Boxcar Rocks or the Chinese Wall. It's hard to tell in the pictures but at places it is as much as 60 feet high. Some good pictures of it are here and here, and if you use the links in the top box at the right, you can see more. Note the boulder that looks like a standing female figure in the second photo.
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This is about rock piles and stone mound sites in New England. A balance is needed between keeping them secret and making them public. Also arrowheads, stone tools and other surface archaeology.
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That huge rock piles near the Pinnacle looks mighty interesting, but I find it hard to believe that hikers would haul those stones up the mountain, some of which look to be in the 100 pound range. An ancient rock pile anyone, especially given its location?
ReplyDeleteNorman
Good point Norman. Maybe the summit had other structures or at least debris from them.
ReplyDeleteSearching for more info, I found this (in a "treasure net" message board http://www.treasurenet.com/f/index.php?topic=34273.5;wap2 )
ReplyDelete"...the High Rocks, aka Point of Rocks, aka Boxcar Rocks aka Chinese wall.
A Very long Very High Line of Conglamerate Rocks, (3 mile long ? ) Rocks as large as a Boxcar stacked in line & on top of each other. Some 4 times as big as a Boxcar. that look like a
Man Built wall, But would have been Impossable.
the Indians considered it Holy. They Buried around it, They used it for look out, & Smoke signals to attacking Parties during the French & Indian Wars. There are Caves there, but I don't know the history of the caves."
The Pinnacle is a very important feature in that area. I know where there's a stone chamber nearby that may or may not have been pre-colonial. It has mortar now but may not have originally. Also, on the Spitzenberg, or Little Round Top (no relation to the one in Gettysburg), a geologically anomalous hill nearby, there are what I thought to be prayer seat-type structures facing the Pinnacle. Unfortunately I saw them back before I took my camera everywhere I went. Seemed like a great place to go and fast or do vision quest.
ReplyDeleteThere are stories, both of a dragon, and of star-crossed Indian lovers, that have to do with the Pinnacle and its caves, also involving the Spitzenberg somehow. The Pinnacle is an awesome place to be, known to anyone who hikes in this area and for quite a distance around.
I don't know anything about these Boxcar Rocks, but am dying to go there.
Just remembered I have pictures of the Pinnacle on the landscape here and here.
ReplyDeleteHave been looking for a ' rock pile ' comment, as opposed to ' natural formation ', on Boxcar Rocks. Read an author on prehistory who speaks of massive forms being created by simple methods, not impossibly moving them. Wish someone would give it serious a look. There's some uniformity up there it's tough to explain as ' natural ' plus a few places you cannot help seeing animals, eyes, heads, etc. Scoffers please refrain from comment- love to know if anyone has noticed ' Boxcar ' seems very created.
ReplyDelete