Nice Larry Harrop/Bob Miner Picture

[Click here]

Also visit "Waking up on Turtle Island"

Tim MacSweeney has added new posts recently (link at the right).

(Out here in Seattle, glad you folks are busy back east.)

Highland Boy's Blog udpated

Thanks to "Two Headwaters" for drawing my attention back to this blog (links at the right).

About Judaculla Rock

[Click here] - from "Ruminations from the Distant Hills"

Stonewall Jackson Lake walls - from the resort in West VA

Norman Muller sent this in. There was no additional information. My first thought was "ceremonial" then, on closer examination, I was thinking this might be anglo. Are those separate rock piles stone piers?

Laurels and Bobcats - Willard Brook State Forest

[Not rock pile related]

I was walking down a path through this and saw a small beige animal, about the size of a fox. I should have frozen and gotten my camera ready. Instead I walked on to get a better look. The animal - a wildcat - looked my way, showing rounded perked up ears and then it dashed off.All my life I heard there were bobcats around but never saw so much as a possible track in the snow. This was a once in a lifetime viewing.

Taking pictures of mountain laurel in lieu of small wild felines, there appeared to be two varieties, one white and one pink.

Light to no posting for the next week

I am going to Seattle for work. Let me leave you with this - a solitary rock pile I saw at Willard Brook State Forest.This rock pileis located near where the run-off water starts to accumulate and head downhill. Note the basically rectangular shape, and the height of the pile - damaged though it is. I wish there had been more than one but this is a particular kind of pile that I have seen in other places, so it is good to get the data point.

Nipsachuck back in the news - from the Associated Press

Lawsuit latest twist in dispute over suspected Indian site in N. Smithfield

By Ray Henry
Associated Press Writer
NORTH SMITHFIELD — As a boy, John Brown remembers traveling with his family to the wooded hills in northwest Rhode Island where his fellow Narragansett Indians gath­ered near stone piles they believe were left by their ancient ancestors.

That belief is now at the center of a struggle between this rural town and a devel­oper that wants to build a 122-lot subdivision on the land. The town sus­pects the piles are burial mounds, and has filed a law­suit asking a judge to declare the land a historic burial ground. But the developer contends the piles are left behind by farmers or loggers, and has been pushing since 2001 to build. Little is known for certain about the hundreds of rock mounds near Nipsachuck Hill and swamp. The piles of granite, slate and quartz rocks on hilly, forested land here range from about two­to nine-feet tall. Similar mounds have been found along the Appalachian Mountains and into eastern Canada.

Historians say the land was a crossroads for several American Indian tribes in southern New England, including the Nipmuc, Narragansett and Wampanoag tribes. Two battles were fought here during the 17th-century King Philip’s War, a bloody conflict between New England’s colonists and the Wampanoag tribe and their allies. Nineteenth century maps show that American Indian families continued to live and farm in the Nipsachuck area, said Donald Gagnon, chairman of the North Smithfield Conservation Commission.

“The land was in use by Native Americans and it contained these mounds,” said archaeologist Frederick Meli, who was paid by the town to survey the site. “Whether they’re burial or cere­monial, I think they go back at least a couple of thousands of years.”

Brown, the historic preserva­tion officer for the Narragansett tribe, said the stone mounds appear manmade and probably mark a burial or ceremonial ground common to several tribes. Narragansett Indians continued to gather here for sunrise cere­monies and other commemora­tions into the 1960s or 1970s, when conflicts with property own­ers halted the meetings, he said.

“We would meet there and dis­cuss that it was a meeting place of our ancestors, and that we come at this time to give acknowledg­ment of those people that have passed,” Brown said.

Although many in this rural town of 11,000 knew that the rock piles existed, they are spread throughout private land and out of public view.

The housing development, pro­posed by the Narragansett Improvement Co. and two other firms, was first rejected in 2001 by town authorities because the subdivision would have leveled the hilly landscape, among other reasons. (Narragansett Improvement is not related to the Narragansett Indian Tribe.) The developers filed a second proposal in 2005 but, after a lawsuit, it was rejected by the town in April.

Michael Kelly, an attorney for the developers, would not com­ment in detail about the dispute, but says the town’s most recent lawsuit is a ploy to block the development.

Town officials say they just want to enforce building laws and protect burial plots. Under state law, local governments must establish a 25-foot perimeter around historic cemeteries or even suspected burial sites. If enough burial sites are identified, it could make parts of the devel­opment site off-limits for building. In addition to the stone mounds, old property deeds refer to family cemeteries within the proposed development, Gagnon said.

“I think we’ve got a pretty strong case,” he said.

Each side has hired archeolo­gists to examine parts of the dis­puted land. Kelly’s clients paid a private archaeologist 9 years ago to exca­vate several areas on the property. Kelly would not say what was found, but he said the archaeolo­gist determined the area was not a burial ground.

“They were probably just stones being piled as the result of timber or agricultural efforts,” Kelly said. But last year, the town hired Meli, who owns an archaeological consulting firm in North Kingstown, to conduct several walking surveys of Nipsachuck Hill and swamp. He found multi­ple artifacts that be believes show the site was in use by humans thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived.

He identified a triangular boul­der that he thinks is a Manitou stone, an American Indian mark­er used to identify areas of spiri­tual significance. He also recov­ered a stone ax in the debris of one partially toppled rock pile. Elsewhere, Meli found several rock projectile points, including one that he dated back to at least 2500 B.C.

Still, none of these clues prove the mounds are burial grounds. No one is certain exactly what lies beneath the ground, but Gagnon said he thinks the court might require more excavations. The lawsuit is pending, and a Superior Court judge has not yet set a date for arguments.

Points and drills from Enfield CT, collection of Isaac Davis White

Sorry for the lousy picture, it was dark in my friend's parent's house, which he is cleaning out after their departure.

These are nice shapes although details are lost out in the picture. They are late paleo to Brewerton in shape bit I do not know these types of arrowheads. Here is a better picture. I doubt these arrowheads are all from Connecticut, at least not the one to the right of the piece of bone. That looks more western. (Identifications are welcome in comments.)Another lousy picture but of an interesting arrowhead in the middle. These are called "bifurcated-base" and are supposed to be very early, just after the fluted points chronologically. I never saw one before and think of them as rare. Lower left is a fluted point of some kind. Very "paleo". I don't recognize any of these except the white quart point might be a "squibnockett triangle". What are these?Some drills:Some little knives: Some larger blades:All kinds of "small stemmed small" points made from quartz:A nice Brewerton:Some other points that are square based or slightly fluted:I don't recognize the following, we do not have such things in Concord:Some beautiful little Hardaway-Daltons (in my opinion):There were also a variety of stemmed Merrimac points: Starks and Nevilles.

And then this, which is from probably from Concord, where my friend's grandfather collected, a gouge above and a "celt" or chisel below:

The "comma"

Here it is in parallel between upper and lower rock:
And then just some solo examples:

A link to an article by Fred Meli - from JimP

Finally some more information about Nipsachuck. JimP writes:

Interesting story on Dr. Meli's blog today. Have you read it?

http://stonelandscapes.blogspot.com/

Small Breakout zone site, Stow MA

A little site near Stevens Hill in Stow:
Here in the woods there was a dug out hollow with a stone lined well at the bottom, draining off down into the wetland northward. Getting water from the side of a hill seems to be a common practice in the Stow area.Downhill from this well was a "breakout zone" where erosion exposes a tumble of underlying rocks. And here, rather typically for this type of setting, were a few minor rock piles, some rock-on-rocks, a split-wedged rock.Another little glimpse:
Nice light under the new leaves:
The few rock pile were pretty beat up.
North facing sites are not common but these types of features in a breakout zone are common. Here it appears the topography is more important than the direction of view.

Catskill Park - Part 2

by theseventhgeneration
Standing at the edge of the rock pile and looking just to the right of the pile, the path of "green" that goes around the edge seems to be a spot where runoff flows. A stone row is on the opposite side, to the far right in this picture. But I barely noticed it compared to the size of the rock pile.Walking around to the opposite side, in relation to the photo above, is this view. Notice how the pile to the left is elongated, and there is another pile just to the right of the elongated one. My dog is in this picture and he provides a good size comparison:Looking to the left as if you're standing where the dog is in the photo above, there is some stacking on part of the rock pile:Then, walking to the base and center of the piles, and facing the elongated pile, looking up at it, I am guessing that it is between 2 and 3 stories high from this point:This is a shot of 2 stones at the base right near where I stood. These can be used as a reference point in the next 2 pictures:In this picture, I'm looking at the spot that connects the elongated pile to the second large pile:And this picture looks up at the second large pile. Notice there is more evidence of some stacking. Not all the stones are just carelessly thrown here, like they would be if this were a quarry. Yet, the structure is not stacked or formed neatly enough to be a foundation.I didn't walk around the entire structure. I started to, on the side where I first walked up to the pile, but then I got nervous about it. There is no trail around the pile and there are dips and holes here and there, and a steep incline. I didn't want to walk on the pile, fearing I'd disrupt some stones. I am trying to research the history of this area, but the only thing I've found so far is mention of a farm and mill in the area, which I think I've already found at a lower elevation.

How do you know a rock pile is man made? By the company it keeps.

People are often puzzled about how do you know a rock pile is man-made? And how do you know it is Native American and ceremonial or something boring, practical and Anglo? Both questions are related to how random the rock pile is versus how well built it is, but it is almost never a matter of a single isolated rock pile. They must be examined in a collection.

How does my eye know when a cluster of rocks is too clusered to be natural? Well I have trained my eye to recognize that degree of clustering. I could try to prove this in a statistical setting but that does not clarify the basic point: a rock pile that looks pretty random, found next to a more organized rock pile, gets the credibility of its better-formed neighbor. You look at lots of clusters of rocks, natural clusters such as when frost has broken up a larger rock, or where cobbles have accumulated somehow. And you learn that those are natural. But the exact same collection of accumulated cobbles, found next to a better rock pile would be seen as man-made.

More generally the sites can have more or less structure. Particularly when the piles are equally sized and spaced evenly within the area. Or spaced regularly in the area. The piles are not random but also the site structure is not random. Structured sites tend to be considered ceremonial.

So one bit of non-randomness builds on the next. Yes those are piles, yes this is a structured site, yes it is ceremonial. And it is much more common than you think.

Low ground piles with white rocks, in the Billerica MA woods.

I headed west out of a warehouse parking lot, quickly through the fringe of pine saplings at the edge, and down into the woods. Pretty soon I was with the wildflowers, the gaywings and the violets and, stepping across a small brook, I finally got into a woodland I have been wanting to explore since last fall when gunfire scared me off (as it was hunting season). Going westward and scanning the faint slope down to the wetland at my left and to the high ground more to my right, I began to see a few faint traces of ceremonial structures: a boulder with a scatter of smaller rocks on top, a couple of isolated rock piles, a split-wedged rock further down closer to the water. I stopped to admire and video this split along with its surroundings [Click here].

It is typical to come up to a rock pile site and not quite believe it. First I saw a clustering of cobbles on the surface next to a slanted rock. Could they have slipped off? I did not believe it until I saw a next pile and then a next. The site consisted of several acres facing south and sloping gently towards a wetland. These were ground piles almost entirely covered with forest duff.
Some had a noticeable white rock - and you know what that means.
In the end there were 18 or more low piles built on the ground, seen here poking out from between the cinnamon ferns.There was one small seasonal brook and perhaps a more permanent one. I looked for more piles beyond these small watercourses, wondering if the rock piles would all be restricted to the first little bit of woods but, no, there were still some other piles beyond. Here is a look back eastward at the site; the wetland is to the right.
There were three piles visible when I took this picture.

I kept going west till I crossed another brook and got into the woods rising beyond, at which point it got to be all white pine saplings and no rocks. One thing I saw on that far side before that and still next to the brook was another split wedged rock. You can see the drill marks along the edge of the split (and that is a white trillium growing next to the wedge).
I have to comment that here no split went un-wedged. On this last one it looks like the rock was split in order to be wedged. (Someone is going to tell me this is how they supported the upper rock in anticipation of collecting it later.)

After this, I did not see anything more, so I turned around. On my way back, I was cutting across through the site I found earlier and saw a few more rock-on-rocks. Then I went back across the first wetland and out.