skip to main
|
skip to sidebar
Stevens Hill - Stow MA
Not sure why it took me so long before finding a way to explore this hill but the access is difficult and I only just found out there is a conservation land entrance from the residential road (EdgeHill Rd) that got back in there. Once in, I scouted the northern slope of the hill from the top as I traversed over from right to left and up to the top of the main hill, down to its southern edge and then back around, clockwise, at a lower elevation. And swinging back across the northwestern slope of Stevens Hill I found an enclosed area with rock piles:
I assume this is a marker pile site even though there is little evidence of even spacing or of piles in lines. But every other major hill in Stow has a rock pile site down somewhere on its slopes and most of the others are pretty clearly marker pile sites. So I'll lump this with the rest and consider that - in terms of the hills of Stow - I now have the complete set. A possible confirmation of the "marker pile" identification is that several of the piles had a longer "pointer" rock hanging over one edge:
Such things, if not just random, have always seemed to indicate a means of more precise positioning of the pile, or its shadow, or something... Here are some other piles from there, not a lot of structure to them:
A typical hillside scene, from this part of the countryside. More:
Here is a classic "twins" pile. Note the parallel shape of the component rocks:
The site continued across and down the side of the hill, with separate clusters of piles like this:
[
You may have noticed a lot of blogging and new sites lately. I have been taking a vacation between an old job that had grown hateful and a new one about which I am quite optimistic. I start tomorrow and expect blogging will be noticeably reduced going forward. But while on break I went exploring every other day. The best finds were the site near Peppercorn Hill and the Gumpas Beaver ponds. But quite a few smaller nondescript sites like the above.]
Not sure why it took me so long before finding a way to explore this hill but the access is difficult and I only just found out there is a conservation land entrance from the residential road (EdgeHill Rd) that got back in there. Once in, I scouted the northern slope of the hill from the top as I traversed over from right to left and up to the top of the main hill, down to its southern edge and then back around, clockwise, at a lower elevation. And swinging back across the northwestern slope of Stevens Hill I found an enclosed area with rock piles:
I assume this is a marker pile site even though there is little evidence of even spacing or of piles in lines. But every other major hill in Stow has a rock pile site down somewhere on its slopes and most of the others are pretty clearly marker pile sites. So I'll lump this with the rest and consider that - in terms of the hills of Stow - I now have the complete set. A possible confirmation of the "marker pile" identification is that several of the piles had a longer "pointer" rock hanging over one edge:
Such things, if not just random, have always seemed to indicate a means of more precise positioning of the pile, or its shadow, or something... Here are some other piles from there, not a lot of structure to them:
A typical hillside scene, from this part of the countryside. More:
Here is a classic "twins" pile. Note the parallel shape of the component rocks:
The site continued across and down the side of the hill, with separate clusters of piles like this:
[You may have noticed a lot of blogging and new sites lately. I have been taking a vacation between an old job that had grown hateful and a new one about which I am quite optimistic. I start tomorrow and expect blogging will be noticeably reduced going forward. But while on break I went exploring every other day. The best finds were the site near Peppercorn Hill and the Gumpas Beaver ponds. But quite a few smaller nondescript sites like the above.]
Best of luck with your new situation!
ReplyDelete