Some interesting images from a folder of mine, entitled "Mendon 2019:"
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This is about rock piles and stone mound sites in New England. A balance is needed between keeping them secret and making them public. Also arrowheads, stone tools and other surface archaeology.
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- "Stone Mound Problem" in Ohio
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10 comments :
You are making me wonder if that wall is old or young. My post suggests there were Native Americans there *after* the wall was built. But I assumed that meant the Indians were there at a late date.
Separately: The town seems unaware of the stone mounds.
I'd love to see some photos of the "bar ways" and "culverts," see if there's some Iconography in the stacking or if it's "interrupted" or reworked using "bricks, blocks and bars" of quarried stone.
The hand drawn map is a little reminiscent of the Fort Devon stone wall map.
If you check the up slope area you should find a plow zone. This is a typical wide disposal wall. It was an efficient means to get rid of stones from a crop or hay field. Two walls in this case 10 feet part are built and then you use back a wagon or cart up to the wall and unload the stones between the two walls. These disposal walls are mentioned in 19th century farming literature.
Farmers would occasionally incorporate glacial boulders into walls if they were along the line the wall being built. It saved them a few feet of wall building. Native American incorporated boulders in walls are generally identifiable when the wall veers from it straight course so it can attach to the boulder. Many times it will from A "V" shape embrasure in the wall. In other cases, the wall wanders erratically from boulder to boulder.
In addition to James's comment above regarding field clearing I have some photos I've been meaning to post for a while and haven't gotten around to it. I'm not technologically proficient so can't figure out exactly how to post the specific images but for anyone wanting to have a look I'll give a link and an explanation. If you click on the link below and scroll down to the post dated December 3, 2012 10:37PM you can see some photos of field clearing from an old farm in Italy. There is no question that these piles are field clearing but what is interesting is some of the stone pile structures and the way the stones have been stacked. You'll note that some of the individual piles have been neatly stacked with vertical faces and what's really interesting is the enormous pile that has clear use of masonry technique in forming the outer wall to retain the mass of stones piled in the interior, most of which are smaller stones. Here is the link: http://frenchmystiquetours.proboards.com/thread/48/italys-riviera
Bruce McAleer
These would be some rather "soupy" cornfields: "On the southerly side of the Town Forest, not far from the lookout tower, there is a mysterious 10 ft. high stone wall that
appears to be part of a foundation for an abandoned road. A segment of this road stretches 8 to 10 ft. wide across the top
of the wall. There was a road abandoned by 1870, but it is on the northerly side of the forest, some distance away (the
1870 map figure 2 shows the old road). It would have taken a lot of human effort, without the help of machines and
power equipment, to construct such a wall.
It is speculated the wall was created to hold back water from the lower ground which tended to flood," was the belief of Shirley Smith, Bill Dakai and the Town Forest Committee on Aug. 9, 2013.
It's also speculated to be cow or Merino sheep related.
I can't find any good close up photos, but the view from the distance, whizzing by on a mountain bike, shows me many possible Ceremonial landscape features that include the snake-like rows of stones. Someone with an eye for effigies might want to consider closer inspection: https://youtu.be/5JM_hWvlaY0
I suspect a sort of causeway, knowing about "flood conditions" mentioned by Shirley, Bill et al. Deep snow conditions as well. A "causeway" sort of search: https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/search?q=causeway
The Old CT Path has segments much like the "Big Mystery," a raised causeway sort of thing.
The folklore says it's a colonial construction, this Great Wall of Westford, but what else would those colonials say about a virgin wilderness?
https://youtu.be/qLGQIy-UylY
Place that's never been plowed: https://youtu.be/4gyxzVZAJ0g
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