More Nature than Archeology

A couple of weekend walks netted more flowers than rock piles. 
Here are the flowers:
violets and cinquefoil:

 Early lady slipper:

 I forget the name:

...and some beasts:
a newt:

A [box or blandings] turtle:

I thought is would be easy to come home and look up "Massachusetts turtles" but no picture in Google shows a turtle with so little yellow on the back. Some photos of Blanding's Turtle show a smooth shell like a typical terrapin (painted or spotted turtle). Others show a corrugated shell, as in the first photo above. 
Seems a lot like this but how do I know if that is correctly identified? Searching on the appearance of the belly plates, seems like my find is clearly a Blandings turtle. Rather rare. Found near Wolf Swamp, Boxborough.
(Update: I asked a local expert if it was a Blandings Turtle. He wrote back:
"Yes!  Nice find.  That's a juvenile, looks to be about 9 years old (counting growth rings).")

Also these beaver stumps:

Holliston Reporter describes Waksman talk

A description of my talk in Holliston [here].

Outlet of Rocky Pond - Hollis NH

Just a quick note. I went back to explore the Birch Hill/Rocky Pond area where I have been before [click here] and discovered more piles in one location where previously I saw a few tumbled down rectangles.

This time I realized the place is more extensive with a very nice small rectangular mound on the high points and several very descrepit walls leading to a vernal pond with an artificial outlet - all surrounded by small and broken piles. But the nicest one I saw was a treat:

 another angle:

 another angle:

It had outliers in several directions:

A couple others:

 Note the small rock to the right in this one:

and the "headstone" at the other end of the pile:

Norman frequently comments about 'Manitou Stones' leaning up against a rock pile this way.

Azaleas

Another site on EMC Land north of Gillmore Rd in Southborough

You can see earlier posts about this hill here. I took a quick walk there and decided to examine a more western part of the hill. Rock piles as soon as you enter the woods.

For example:

See the rocks in the background?

Gillmore Rd in the background

Part of a large area owned by EMC (is, or was, at risk because of their planned expansion):

Walkup and Robinson Memorial - Sudbury Valley Trustees

I want to blog an extremely minor find on a hill in a conservation land whose signage indicated it was the Sudbury Valley Trustees Land. But I got turned around and I cannot figure where the heck was this conservation land. Nothing matches the map. I followed Flanders Rd. Saw Gillmore Rd to the side, went under the Mass Pike and didn't see another familiar feature. That was it. So I can only say this was about 1/2 mile from the 495 Mass Pike crossing - I cannot tell in what direction from there.

To cut to the chase, there was a noticeable structure on top of the hill:

 Note the outlier in the foreground:

But what caught my eye later was a possible 2nd one. It was even harder to see than this first one so I skipped it, until an adjacent feature caught my eye. Probably the smallest split-wedged rock I have seen:

The other things are too hard to see to be worth passing along. Mention in passing that this little "wedge" is white feldspar. It is indeed rare for the wedge to be white and, at the risk of projecting, I am going to say I think this rock had a friendly little spirit in it.

Interesting stone pile in Pachaug (not the hoax site)

From reader Steven C.

I "accidentally" found a stone pile in Pachaug State Forest a number of years back. I finally found it again today after years of looking for it, this time I was able to get some GPS coords. This is in the Voluntown, CT area.

I hadn't seen it listed on your blog, so I'm passing it on in case you're interested. I do not believe this to be the "Pachaug Hoax" site.

 Location: N 41.617426, E -71.857484

Easiest to get here by entering Gardner road from Rt 49.

What I found very interesting when looking at it from Google Maps, is that it appears to be dead-center between a brook and a stream that join just south of it, and it's exactly at the southern tip of an evergreen tree stand that starts as a point in this location, and broadens as it goes north.

I'm also including a few other photos from a different location in the park. I can't tell if this is man made, a natural formation, or some accidental happenstance that occurred while perhaps blasting the road through the area.

Location: N 41.594012, E -71.898799

Easiest to get to this location from "Trail 2" off of Rt 201 in Griswold.

This is one very large stone that's been split, with another large but narrow stone cradled in the split, and another large and narrow stone sitting on top of that one. The two narrow stones are pointing the same direction. Looking at it in a certain way, I believe it could appear to look like a turtle (carrying something on its shell.) This could be a bit of a stretch I suppose, but I've seen others mention the "turtle" representations, and I know from my tribal history that we believed we lived on the back of the "Grandfather Turtle". I just can't for the life of me figure out how they could have lifted these all together.

I believe all three stones are of a different type of material, although the top and bottom might be the same. Looking back at the pics I took, the top one looks like it's a composite with rose quartz in it.

I wish I could have stayed around to do a more thorough investigation of both areas, but I had my dog with me and he was overheating bit and I also didn't want to bring attention to these areas- you never know who's going to vandalize something "interesting".

Spring arrowhead finds: Part 1

     So, it has been a month since my last post. I still don't have a job, and it's been very strange for me, trying to adjust to not having a set schedule. I used to work in an office and I had time there to sit and think and plan to do things like write blog posts about arrowhead finds. Now, I'm out doing things constantly, trying to make the most of my time. Of course I have made time to search for arrowheads, and I'm pleased to say that my long run of bad luck seems to have come to an end, I'm finding stuff once again. In fact, I have found so much stuff since my last post, it is too much to put in one new blog post and so this will be Part 1, with a second part to follow soon.
     I mentioned in my previous post last month that I had identified 10 new spots to search. Here is how that happened. I was out searching for arrowheads one day and a lady came by who knew what I was doing, she asked about my finds. She knew that people had lived in that spot in prehistoric times and she told me about another place, in a different town, where she knew arrowheads could be found. She said it was a place near a particular chain restaurant in this particular town. Well, back at home, I learn there is no such restaurant in that town. So, now I'm looking at Google Maps looking for areas around other restaurants in that town, also looking at other locations of this chain restaurant in other towns. And I don't know if I ever could identify the place that this lady was talking about, but I did identify all these new potential places, in towns where I have not looked before. I wrote them down in no particular order and then my friend Dave and I set out to start trying to get in to these places and search. Place number one on the list looked real good. Right on a river, a little high dry place. Unfortunately, no house nearby, no obvious way to get in touch with the landowner to get permission. We drove around the neighborhood, finally pulled into a driveway to turn around and a man in a truck pulls in right behind us. Amazingly, it was the landowner; he was friendly and happy to let us search. He told me that arrowheads had been found there before which was no surprise to me. At this point I am feeling really optimistic. We got out of the car and I started searching in the highest place closest to the river. Right away, broken chips and flakes of quartz and felsite tell me I am in a good place. Dave was the first one to find a worked piece of quartz, possibly an arrowhead fragment. I spotted this:

      It's tiny. So small, I thought it might just be a flake that happened to be shaped like an arrowhead. But, it is what it is.

     This is the smallest arrowhead in this shape (small stemmed, Squibnocket Stemmed, Wading River or whatever you want to call these narrow points with weak shoulders) that I have ever found. Here it is with another find from that afternoon, same area:

     That's a nice stemmed point missing the tip and the stem. You can see the shoulders, perhaps it was a Neville or Stark, an Atlantic, or something else- no way for me to know. This is a heartbreaker for me because I really like this material (red felsite, perhaps from Attleboro) and I don't have a whole point like this in this material. Heartbreaking, but also tantalizing. I will return to this place.
     On a sunny day, I went to a favorite place on the coast. This was a place I had been hitting pretty hard since the fall but usually going home empty-handed. I just wanted to take a walk and didn't want to deal with the hassle of knocking on doors to get permission to search a new place that could be void. I knew I could get some fresh air in this place so I decided to go there even though I had not found anything on my last couple of visits. Very quickly I had the thrill of spotting a whole arrowhead totally exposed and waiting to be picked up. A sight for sore eyes, to be sure. I was elated.

     It's nice. A typical shape for this site.

     Not far away, a base sticking out of the sand. Will it be whole?

     Well, not this time. But most of it is there. This shape, with these side notches, is unusual. I really like it.

     Here they are together. It was a thrill to find two decent points in one day, and I was not out very long, probably less than an hour.

     I also found these. The piece on the left is probably a broken crude point or knife. The piece on the right, I believe, is a hafted scraper. Not as impressive or pretty as the others, but that scraper is an unusual find, I am pleased with it.

     The very next morning, I got up early to go back and search more in that same spot. Incredibly, when I got there, there were two other guys already there, doing the same thing! I hate that, I don't like the competition and I really prefer the solitude of being in a place alone so I decided to search a different area nearby where I had never looked before, within sight of the first spot but separate from it. It's close enough to the first spot that I consider it the same site, it's just on the other side of the road and I thought it was further from the water and less likely to produce lots of tools. Also, the conditions are not as good, lots of weeds and rocks, not as sandy. But... what I hadn't realized, having never looked over there, is that there is water that comes around on the other side, too. And there is a sandy area there, near the water, where you can see the ground, the weeds are not too bad. So, a couple of minutes there, and...

     A broken base of a stemmed point made of a nice transparent quartz material. Pretty. Here's another broken base of a lanceolate or stemmed point nearby.

     Here's a whole one. Small, but all there. Perhaps worked down from something bigger.

     Yet another broken stemmed point, missing the tip.

     All of the above finds were from 30 minutes of looking in a productive spot. Here they are together with another little fragment I also found in that time. The broken point on the right is really cool, narrow with an incurvate base and interesting shoulders. I love mornings like these. It is really affirming to find things when you are looking for them.

     I crossed the road and stopped to chat with the two other guys out looking. They were friendly, one had found a projectile point tip, the other had a nice whole stemmed point. They were leaving, going to look somewhere else. I knew that there were productive areas there that they had not searched but I went back across the street to keep searching in this different spot- I'm glad I did. I bent down to pick up what I thought was just a chip, there was more to it under the ground and when it came out... wow!!!

     I love it! Nearby, a large and well-flaked point, sadly broken (and with a very fresh-looking break, too).

     I looked for a while longer but found nothing else. I'm not complaining, though. This is a really good haul for me. That large broken point from the photo above has one shoulder and I really wish it was whole but the big ones are almost always broken.

      This one, though... I'm just thrilled with it. One good rock can make my whole day.

     Now, for my last hunt report for this installment. A hot, dry day; bright sun. A sandy place near water. Lots of exposure. I have a number of points from this site, but it can be hit or miss. Today, though... a hit.

     Two visible corners. What's under the ground? Something broken maybe? Let's take a look..

     That's a nice triangle. I am very happy with this find.

     Nearby, another triangle is sticking out of the ground. But I can see that it's broken. A shame- well made, big, with a sharp point.

     Here it is out of the ground with the rest of the day's finds.

     I'm definitely feeling like my luck has returned. That's it for part 1. Lots more to show in part 2. I think this week it will rain and I will be able to get out and search again. I'm feeling good about my chances.