Tuesday, May 23, 2023

The Intersection of Rock Piles and Arrowheads

Noticing out-of-place rocks and non-random rock arrangements are visual skills that are helpful for looking for rock piles here in the East. When I go hiking out West, these skills automatically kick in and I notice things that, in the end, seem closely related to animal "flow control" and hunting. It is easy to infer a practical significance to the western structures and this makes me wonder if some of our eastern ones might have a practical function we are not aware of. In any case, skills for finding rock piles are related to skills for finding arrowheads - or at least for finding hunting sites.

Let me give a few examples. In Nevada I explored a hill looking for arrowheads, found barely visible rock piles, and learned something interesting about how hunting worked at this site. In the Boulder area of Colorado, I noticed many subtle stone walls arranged on hillsides - making funnels, blocking off spaces, and covering the entire slope in such a way that they might work differently in different wind conditions. I see on YouTube that animal "funnels" are a good place to find arrowheads but it is hard for me to get to the top of a steep slope (just like the poor animals that went that way) and, in eastern Colorado, there is enough topsoil that you would have to excavate to find arrowheads - or get lucky with the erosion. 

I have written a bit about Nevada here and here is a link to one of the sites from Colorado. If you are impatient, take a very close look at this slope just north of the "Flatirons".

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