Wednesday, September 01, 2010

EMC development in Southborough - Marker piles and stone mound with hollows

EMC has permits to develop an office park in the woods beyond Coslin Dr. in Southborough. Those woods are full of rock piles and I am not sure what is to be done to stop their being destroyed. The environmental impact statements made no mention of ceremonial Native American structures in there and it looks like this may not require any federal "blessing", so there is no leverage. If anyone has any ideas let me know. At little earlier I thought a win-win would be to buy the land since EMC really did not need extra office capacity at the time. I heard that, ironically, EMC wants to put the office buildings in the woods, so they would not spoil the view along Rt 9. What strange priorities.

So I went to see the damage last weekend. There is a report of some clear cutting going on nearby but, so far, the site is much as it was when I first reported on it a couple years ago (see here). Going back, I was surprised to find a large rectangular mound with a hollow and a "tail" which, in this example, presents as a mound with two collapsed inner chambers:
At first glance:That puts this site into the continuum of "Wachusett Tradition" sites which are scattered from here and Hopkinton, west and north into Leominster, Fitchburg, and (less frequently) in places like Framingham, Carlisle, and Lincoln.

Across from the mound with hollows is a knoll, future site of an office building, with a large boulder overlooking a number of vertical-sided piles and piles evenly spaced in lines. For example:Most of the piles are not in such good shape anymore:Although the piles are not in good shape, this is a nicely organized site that appears to be designed for viewing from the large central boulder. This type of radial organization is very common in the area. Wildcat Hill in Ashland is only a mile or so to the east (for example here). This site is a good example of rock piles with hollows in proximity to marker piles - feeding speculation about the relation between these two characteristics. In any case, it is a nice little site. Further back in the woods, and around the wetland back there, there are other clusters of rock piles. I guess Sudbury Valley Trustees are getting an option on one part of it which, I hope, includes another of the nice sites back in there - but not this one.

No comments :