Crescent shaped rock piles - Rocky Hill Rd Groton, MA

I went back to explore around the fringes of the site I found a few weeks ago [click here]. I wanted to explore more across the street (where I saw that stone niche) but before that, I noticed a couple of extra ridges extending into the low wetlands on the same side of the road and adjacent to the original site so I decided to explore there first.

Recall that the unusual feature at the earlier site was "mound with hollow" that was triangular and, so, a bit different from all the other examples of mounds with hollows that I have been looking at. The hollow was not all that clear - as much something I wanted to see as it was real. So I am poking down towards the lowland's edge and see a rock pile that, upon inspection, seemed to be crescent shaped:And:And:This is unfamiliar - a crescent shaped rock pile - perhaps 3 feet high, 20 feet long.

To my surprise, I found another, slightly smaller, a few yards away:
And:Near these, as I poked around within an area no more than 50 feet across, I saw a couple of other piles. Perhaps more could be seen without the snow:Another:Let's remember that a triangular "mound with hollow" is pretty unusual (actually, unique in my experience). With these other unfamiliar geometric shapes (crescents) occurring no more than -say- 70 yards from the first site, I wonder if this is not something new. Certainly it seems a bit "Wachusetts Tradition"-ey but still quite unique. Searching this blog for the word "crescent" (click here and scroll down) brings up a large crescent shaped pile Norman reported, and a couple of very scrappy things from Boylston. So what gives? Is this new?

Something new?

Have we seen examples before of crescent shaped rock piles this size?
I'll post more later - a bit busy at my new job.

Snow Melting on a Stone Mound

A Turtle emerges,

Remnants of a stone row lead westward behind it

and join a zigzag row by a four foot long stone box turtle

under the big oak and hickory trees...

Some more views at http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-years-day-2011.html

Retouched Flake from Nevada

Found very little while exploring around Las Vegas, Nevada. My son found this at the entrance to a canyon about 40 miles north of the city. I think the material is called chalcedony ("cal-said-nee"):
At first I thought it was just a nice flake, then I looked more carefully and noticed additional flaking and use wear along one edge:Here is the back.
At this point you start noticing the dark line across the top of the item, opposite to the used edge. Looks like residual staining from where the item was hafted: a small sharp edge inserted and glued into the lengthwise crack of a stick?

Niche in Serpents Tail Tale - some more pix

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2011/01/niche-in-serpents-tail.html

Granite Tourmaline - a localized ceremonial material

I have written about granite with tourmaline before [click here] and I was going to show some pictures from the field trip I led this fall to the Manoosnocs west of Leominster, where we saw a lot of it. But those pictures are lost in the innards of a dead computer. Here is an older picture of the material, showing black tourmaline crystals embedded in a matrix of feldspar - a mixture I classify loosely as "granite":
The last site we visited at the Manoosnocs had a great deal of this "granite tourmaline", used in many of the rock piles and always placed in a key location: at the top of a pile, at the corner of a pile, or two pieces placed symmetrically at either side of the middle of the surface of a flat-faced pile, etc. Similarly in the past, when I have found this material used, it always seemed to be the focus of the rock pile's design. As such, in this part of the world, it seems to be used in a way similar to how quartz is often used strategically in rock piles elsewhere: as a key element of the structure.

This material is reasonably common in the glacial till around this area and presumably its ceremonial use is limited to where it was available: down-glacier from a source in the original bedrock to the north of here. I find it used ceremonially in rock piles in a region about like this:
So, mainly it is found in the ~10 square miles south Fitchburg, Leominster, and into Sterling.

Let's think about this some more: How did everyone in this region end up using this same favored material in this same way? Of course there is some quartz available in the same region and also other light, feldspar-rich rocks. But in that case, how did an agreement get made that this was the correct substitute for quartz in this region?

Consider some possibilities: was it one person or a small group of people that were in communication with each other and developed a consensus to use granite tourmaline this way? It seems like too large an area (and too many different sites and piles) for one person to have been solely responsible. Another possibility is that there existed a generalized concept in a culture which automatically took advantage of this material when it was available - and the material's local use was limited exactly by the material's local availability - a local manifestation of a general concept. So if it had been available somewhere else, someone else would have used it without the need for specific consensus via communication.

It is tantalizing to imagine any one of these alternatives and imagine how the specific ceremonial consensus might have been shared. It would take several hours to walk across this region.

Update: I guess another theory is that it might have been started by a single person who was then imitated.

Nevada Pictorgraph

...for example:

Stone tool from Greene county NY

Reader Sarah writes (in part):
Attached is a rock that I found on my property last fall...This rock was found around an area that we call a knapping station on our property. I reside in Greene county NY [near the] Athens NY Paleo Flint Mine. My question is could this rock be a point? You can see where flaking was done.

A Snake's Tale about a Niche

I kept thinking I had seen something like the niche photos and would like to show you one toward the tail end of the recent posts of what I called an Elusive Snake or Serpent. The above photo is Jan. 2009.

Dolmen in Jordan

[not rock pile related]

[Click here]

Large stone "arrowhead" from southeastern MA

Chris P. writes:
I stopped by a few places on Saturday morning. I wanted to look for arrowheads one last time this year before the snow came. I'm glad I did!

Niche in Washington, MA

Norman Muller writes:

Speaking of niches: That niche you located on an outcrop with the stone cairn nearby is similar to a striking combination that Philip O'Deane showed me in Washington, MA, some years back. Not only was there a niche similar to the one you found, with a cairn nearby, but below it was a single large slab supported at either end by small cobbles; this was not enclosed at one end as was the nearby niche. O'Deane referred to this triple combination (including a small niche under the boulder with the cairn on top) as "three wombs." This combination is unique, and I've never seen anything quite like it since. Within the same town was a marvelous cairn with a niche at the base and topped with a large piece of milky quartz.

I believe Philip passed away a few years ago.

check out this short stretch of wall

click here
What is with the spur on the left part way up?

(Excerpted from here)

The Society of Georgia Archaeology

(more backtracking of visitors leads to) [this]

Mysterious Stone Cairns in Big Canoe – Indian Rocks Park

A park in Georgia [click here]

Off to the desert

...with camera in hand.

Stone niche - in context

I want to show a few other pictures of the place, off Rocky Hill Rd in Groton MA, where I found the stone "niche" I posted the other day. It was adjacent to another small rock pile:This occured on the southern/western facing sides of a low ridge, looking over a slight valley to another parallel ridge a hundred yards away. Exploring that other ridge is for another day. Meanwhile, there were a couple of other piles in the same general position a bit down the (first) ridge from this niche. Here are some of them:The whole area was scattered with small clusters of ceremonial structures. Across the road was the older site I described here.

Odd Stuff - other curious shaped rocks

Norman Muller writes:

About six years ago, I had a tour of Track Rock Gap in Georgia. On the east slope of the Gap, opposite where the petroglyphs are (from which the Gap got its name) are a number of terrace walls and cairns, and on top of one wall, partially obscured by briars and brush, I found a stone “foot,” fashioned or weathered from a pink colored stone. Carey Waldrip, who showed me the site, had not noticed this before. I was reminded of this when I saw your blog and the curiously shaped anvil stone that was just posted. Certainly the Indians were intrigued by such oddly shaped stones, and probably set them in various places for others to see and venerate.

Split wedged rock - in context

Another small scene from Rocky Hill Rd Groton, with a solitary rock pile and a split-wedged rock:and behind itCloser:

Interesting rock from Acton

Reader Vin writes:

Here's an interesting rock for ya.
This is setting in a stone wall in Acton, I removed it for this photo and
have replaced it.

The base is about 12" x 12".
The height is about 12"
The center 'column', which is shaped like the profile of an airplane wing,
must have been carved out by running water.

Next to this stone wall there is a trench, and on the other side of the
trench there are a couple 6 foot high ledges or mounds of buried rock, with
a smaller rocks piled on top.

It looks like this rock came from an underground cavern, and it might have
come from those 2 mounds (assuming there's a small cavern in there), or it
might have been carried and placed here.