Interesting Stones in VT Stone Piles

     A reader of Rock Piles “for quite some time” decided to “step out of the shadows” and sent me quite a few photos including those of this interesting stone (sandstone with quartz veins?) in a stone pile found at the edge of a floodplain along the Huntington River in Vermont:

A few more views:

 

   Other stone piles etc. nearby:

    Above is “sort of before,” below is “after” of a “cobbles on boulder.”

    This reader states that this above is “a photo of what I think is a turtle form. On our land (Huntington, Vermont) we have a road that is ancient (although it has been unfortunately disturbed by logging) that is on a direct way from Lake Champlain to Camel's Hump…”

   (The Abnaki name for the mountain was "ta wak be dee esso wadso," or "tahwahbodeay wadso" (wadso meaning mountain), which has been variously translated as "resting place", "sit-down place", and "prudently, we make a campfire in a circle near water (and rest) at this mountain." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel's_Hump)

     “…Indigenous folks camped and farmed a bit in the summers around here, including down by the river on many properties close by…(Several other camps along this river and other nearby areas have been subjects of digs by the University of Vermont and the Vermont Archaeological Society.)...On either side of our road are occasional erratics…many of which seem to have subtle enhancements.  Most we have left undisturbed.  I found this small arrangement last year, took lots of photos of it as it was almost completely buried and then carefully removed most detritus.  It is on the edge of what is now a very boggy area and might once have been a proper small forest pond.  I have many more photos.  I've been poking around the 'pond' edges looking for other signs, and have found a few possibilities, but nothing like this…”

 

There is also a “Split Erratic” (above left) described as “filled with 'chosen' rocks, way too small, I think for a farmer to bother with, plus the fact that the erratic is on a steep enough incline to make farming here unlikely (there is a cellar hole about 200 yards above and some messy stone walls - all larger rocks too - that have an entirely different feeling to them)  The piling is characterized too by thinner rocks that seemed to have been arranged to 'echo' some of the quartz bands and the shape of the erratic itself, although some look disturbed, just by the forces of time.)  It has some astonishing bands of quartz and we're still working on clearing it, so the whole picture has not emerged.  It also has what I think are an unusual number of 'manitou' shaped rocks in it.... but some aspects of it puzzle me or haven't come clear.   I'll include two photo of it too in case you have some ideas.  The first one doesn't show that there are two rocks sort of nestled together, it just shows the one bigger one - but that is what caught my eye.  The second (above right) attempts to show the 'echo'…”

More views of this:  

 

And a few more photos:

 
 

 
 
 
 

 

 

There may be more to follow, but I’d like to include that the reader also sends this message along: “Thank you so much for your (Rock Piles) site.”