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...the (rock pile and other formations such as "stone walls" of Indigenous Origin) debate...could be represented by these two quotations: “The pre-European stage (of stone wall building)…was characterized by the absence of stone walls (Thorsen, page 96 of Exploring Stone Walls),” and "Certainly not all rock piles and formations (such as stone walls etc.) are Anglo-American in origin…Archaeologists have a good idea of the diagnostic characteristics of stone piles and stone walls related to European farming. We now need to get a handle on the distinctive traits of indigenous sacred rock sites (Lavin, page 298 of Connecticut’s Indigenous Peoples).”
More: http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2014/03/cultural-trap.html
Thorson has been talking too much to Bellantoni, who denies that there was any major stone building in New England before the English arrived in the early 17th century and showed the Indians how to pile one stone on top of another. Absolute nonsense. I've found Philip Smith's description of stone walls linking large boulders, as found in his 1962 article "Aboriginal Stone Constructions in the Southern Piedmont," inspiring, and I've found several similar examples of such design while wandering through the New England woods.
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