Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Mounds in general

They are all over the place. Looking back over past blog posts, I show hundreds and hundreds of the same thing - rectangular, slightly pyramidal, with a depression or "hollow", near the middle. Often with side structure forming a curved around "tail" as an alternative or companion to the "hollow". They vary in size, they vary in height, they vary in decrepitude. But surely it is not my imagination. Why doesn't anyone else report these things?

Also, you know darn well those are burial mounds. Let's not talk about it too much! A truly unique resource, perhaps mostly in New England but we have seen photos from Georgia to New Brunswick showing the same thing. It is incomprehensible to me why these burial mounds are not well know to the archeological community. Get out much? The mounds are all over the place.

Adding:
If you go back and watch the video of the large mound we just saw in Princeton, there is a moment just after I 'fall in', where some terracing appears - almost like little amphitheater seats. This is the side structure I am talking about above. It is like a "tail" on a grander scale. A screen grab:

3 comments :

Norman said...

I really don't know why archaeologists have ignored studying stone mounds, walls, etc, which are all around us, but this willful ignorance has been pervasive for many decades. Maybe Curt Hoffman can offer a reasonable answer.

pwax said...

Norman: I am also talking a bit about my colleagues in the amateur archeology and "spiritual" communities. I don't see much discussion of mounds. We'll see. This season is full of people giving walks, talks, and conferences about "Indigenous Ceremonial Stonework" and maybe they will talk about mounds.

Tommy Hudson said...

I wonder if the boulder fields are some kind of stone “pavement” that is outlined by the stone walls? Or the stone walls enhance the boulder field or pavement in some way. I like the addition of the videos.