Ekonk And Yawgoog - Another View

by JimP
Here is a photo of the features on the largest of three boulders believed to have pecked petroglyphs at the Ekonk Hill site:
A team of experts headed up by Connecticut State Archaeologist Nick Bellantoni studied the Ekonk Hill site. They determined the features in the photo above to be pecked petroglyphs. They further concluded that the grooves of the petroglyphs were outlined with ochre stains.

Dating tests determined the site was likely in use anywhere from 1,000 to 3,500 BP. For more information on who was involved with the field research and the methodologies used one would have to contact Nick Bellantoni, David R. Wagner of the Quinebague Community College, the U.S. Geological Survey, or the Narragansett Indian Tribal Historic Preservation Office -- all of whom were in some capacity involved in research at the site.

Ekonk Hill is on private property and the site's exact location is highly guarded. Everyone is discouraged from attempting to visit it.

For an archaeogeodesic perspective of Ekonk Hill, see John Q. Jacobs's paper at this web page: http://www.jqjacobs.net/rock_art/ekonk.html

A few miles from Ekonk Hill on the property of the Yawgoog Scout Camp sits this petroglyph that the Boy Scouts have named Symbol Rock:Deep inside the narrow grooves of this petroglyph can be seen some of the same ochre staining found at Ekonk Hill. Some of the staining is so deep and sheltered from the elements that it has remained preserved and still retains a bit of its original deep red color. The sharp eye of Rhode Island NEARA coordinator Jim Egan was the first to point that out to me.

Roughly 50 feet away from Symbol Rock sits what the Boy Scouts have named Millennium Rock:It also exhibits some of the same ochre staining as found on Symbol Rock and at Ekonk Hill. But are those features the result of natural causes? Geologists who have studied this area since the 1920's say no.

Within the same town as Symbol Rock sits the Miner Farm where I first came across this circle:The circle does indeed appear to exhibit some of the same ochre staining that can be found at Yawgoog and Ekonk Hill. Or is it the result of natural causes? I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever know for sure.

It's very hard for me to argue with those experts who have field studied Ekonk Hill and Yawgoog. But it's equally as easy for me to see the obvious similarities between some of the features on those sites and those on the Miner Farm.

More on geoglyphs

This is a subject about which there is dis-agreement. However, Norman Muller wanted me to add this.

Here is an explanation of what those curious weathered formations at the Miner farm and elsewhere are called. They are not geoglyphs but autoliths. Herman Bender provided me with the following explanation:

It took a bit of digging in my geology library, but I found it! The best term used to describe these rounded masses that weather out is : autolith - 1) an inclusion in an igneous rock to which it is genetically related Cf: xenolith, Synonym: Cognate Inclusion. 2) In a granitoid rock, an accumulation of Fe-Mg minerals of uncertain origin which may appear as round, oval or elongate segregation or clot. What it all means is that the 'round segegration' can be so close to the parent rock in lithology that it is barely indistinguishable and weathers out with Fe or iron present.

Hermann adds:
I as a geologist, have seen hundreds of these in nature and instinctively knew they were natural, a product of magmatic differentiation (i.e. an autholith) and in some other cases rheomorphic flow.

International acclaim

From [click here]
Rock Piles Блог на тему мегалитов Англии c массой интересных ссылок [x]http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/Языки: EnglishОбъекты: all

Southern Michigan Orienteering Maps and rock piles on Prospect Hill

[Click here]
If anyone lives nearby maybe you could go check this out?

East of Willard Brook SF in Lunenburg, MA

Went for a long drive and then ended up not being able to access the woods as I had hoped. So I drove around for a while until I got to a place I could get into the woods, maybe about where the "N" appears in the word "Townsend", and headed east uphill. Mostly it is class B moutain laurel and at one point I spotted a rock pile at the edge of some class C laurel, and managed to get a few pictures. There were maybe five small structures.

Here is a first one with a detail showing some quartz material in an incorporated rock:
And as I dipped into the laurel, here is a second pile with a similar quartz(ite) detail:That was all that was there - three or four very minor piles. There were a few other piles I noticed scattered about on the hill. I made one little video as I headed back down to the car.

Petroglyphs or Natural Geology?

Norman Muller writes in:

The Ekonk "petroglyphs" are only one part of the story. That entire area of CT and RI seems to have a type of stone with iron oxide veins that promote the development of circular or figure-8 "petroglyphs." There are some on the Miner Farm (see above, particularly the boulder with the figure 8 on the side), and also on the Yawgoog Scout Reservation, such as Millenium Rock. Jim says geologists have looked at this and have said they are manmade, but these geologists need to be re-educated. Also, the channels are too narrow and deep to have been made with stone tools. I have an article somewhere by Bednarik, an Australian rock art expert, who described xenoliths, and then showed an image of a circular one that looked exactly like the ones on the Miner Farm.

Lunenburg Brook

Why Dr. Meli Deserves Our Appreciation

by Jim P.
Last night, the North Smithfield Town Council passed a resolution to halt all development in the areas of the Nipsachuk Swamp and Hill. It was accomplished with the help of Dr. Meli's tireless efforts. His survey of the property was an important element in the fight to save the site from the bulldozer. He lent his name, credentials, and reputation to the preservation of this important stone structure site.

For many years we have wondered loudly why archaeologists and anthropologists have largely ignored and dismissed this area of research. No matter what we ultimately think of each one of their conclusions, when we look back on these days in 10 or 20 years we will remember names like Dr. Curtiss Hoffman, Dr. William S. Simmons, and Dr. Fred Meli as those men who dared to step boldly from the mold and pave a new path for their fields of study. We will remember them as the pioneers they truly are. We will appreciate them for finally listening and taking an active interest in a subject that we've all been working hard to get them to notice for so long.

Burial mounds or not, Dr. Meli deserves our appreciation. We, of all people, should be able to clearly see the forest for the trees.

Rock piles in the laurel

New articles by Tim MacSweeney

I don't have much for this week, but Tim has a number of new posts over at "Waking Up on Turtle Island". Head on over there. [Click here]

More about Nipsachuk - from the Providence Journal

From Sunday's Providence Journal (thanks to Larry Harrop for the link):
I find Adjunct Professor Meli's certainty that this is a burial site disturbing. Read how, in the course of a couple of paragraphs that certainty becomes an established fact. Comments on this topic are most welcome, especially from anyone who knows Meli, or has information about the site.

"...“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said William S. Simmons, a Brown University professor, chair of the anthropology department and expert in New England tribal folklore. “These are definitely human construction. Whoever built these built them carefully. ... One thing you can say about it for sure is that it’s old.”

Frederick F. Meli, an adjunct professor in anthropology at the University of Rhode Island, has toured the area four times. He said he found more cairns in the surrounding woods. He said he is certain they mark a burial ground.

“That type of burial mound is consistent with peoples in this area,” he said of the burial styles of New England’s native tribes.

THE ACADEMICS were brought to the woodland site by Wilfred Greene, chief of the Seaconke Wampanoags, whose tribal name is Eagle Heart. Greene and his 250-member tribe have appointed themselves the spiritual caretakers of the site in hope that the rediscovered burial ground might help the rebirth of their tribe...."

This really bother me, so I offer Meli a challenge: instead of lecturing innocent Indians and reporters of the Providence Journal, come over to this blog and explain yourself to the real rock-pile community. How do you know this is a burial ground? What research or scholarship do you have to back up your claim? What is the basis for your expertise?

from Scotland

[Click here]
I know I didn't link to this beauty before.

Nice rock pile photo

[Click here]
I don't know if I linked to this before. I cannot decide if it is obviously a field clearing pile or whether the component rocks are too uniformly sized.

Some burial cairns in the Arctic

[Click here] (Warning: it is a PDF)

Russian Cairn

[Click here]

Google returns a number of results to explore [Click here]

Fenton Rd - extending knowledge of the sites in Leominster State Forest

Last year I blogged and publicized the locations of some rock pile sites along Fenton Rd in Leominster State Forest, corresponding to locations B and C in the map fragment below [click here and look down the page a ways]. This account it about sites at A and a more extensive site on the hillside between B and C at D.

I was thinking all winter about going back out to the end of Fenton road and trying to explore more in the northerly direction. In the end, I got over to the landfill area where the woods are full of blown in plastic bags, before turning back to the eastern side of the slope and ending up exploring downhill from where I was before. I turns out that what I thought was a minor site near a foundation hole (C) is actually a quite extensive site with multiple acres of rock piles in little clusters. At times it seemed to be a marker pile site, and at other times it seemed more like an effigy site. There were some of the intimate groupings of rock-on-rocks that I associate with brookside sites. Maybe one pile in ten has some of its original structure. The rest apparently are knocked down. Water is coming out of the hill everywhere on this slope between two streams flowing east (D).To get to this site you walk in from Elm Rd on Parmenter - it is maybe 1/2 mile to the foot of Fenton and then 1/2 mile or so to the end of Fenton. Right at the beginning, you pass the outflow from Rocky Pond and then start up a little slope. I was thinking how much it was like a spot on the way up Horse Hill in Groton and was thinking that at Horse hill there are rock piles on the left - so I looked to the left and, sure enough, there was what looked like a rock pile. There were actually several piles and at a casual glance they looked to be the result of a roadside dirt disturbance. But I went over for a closer look and discovered there were several other rock piles on the slope (A) all overlooking Rock Pond to the southwest in an eminently suitable location. So that is quite a lot of rock piles sites along Fenton Rd.

Here are some of the piles I found at (A).
And here is a view to the southwest towards the pond:I felt like I had already accomplished something finding this site, which I walked right past several times without seeing before.

Then I continued slogging up the road and eventually passed the brook at (B) and continued along the trail that begins where the road ends. I followed that right along through several patches of dense mountain laurel, taking digressions where I could. I passed the site at (A) and took one picture and then continued along the trail till I got to a sign "DEAD END" indicating that I had come all the way through to the edge of the landfill. Everywhere you look in there there are bits of plastic bag that have blown in from the landfill; and it starts to smell a bit funky too. I had hoped to explore to the north and then circle back around to the east below (A) but actually the mountain laurel prevented exploration to the north. However when I got back around to the east I started finding rock piles at the edges of the laurels and I poked around happily for a half hour or so, taking pictures of the piles in there. Some of them look like marker piles:There were also numerous rock-on-rock groupings - suggesting either lines of sight or else a sense of containement and grouping:I cannot resist a nice rock-on-rock picture:
Lonesome colors.

In a couple of spots that seems like clusters of marker piles, I tried to locate a high point from which to view down the lines of piles. But there were numerous different clusters and a much too complicated situation for me to resolve.

I also noticed some little groupings of piles, so intimate as to suggest a concetration of effort at a single spot. Here is one group and a couple of details.
(By the way, this steep sided pile, badly damaged as it is, was the least damaged pile I saw. Given the notion of "rock pile 1/2-life", this makes this one of the older sites I have seen.)

Some of these rocks looks selected for by shape. This one, with its bird-like symmetry, suggests and effigy.I conclude it is an extended, multi-purpose site.

As I video blogged a couple of days ago, there were also the beginnings of stone walls (or "rows" for Tim M) starting in some of the gullies and heading off downhill into the impenetrable haze so typical of Leominster State Forest.I am deliberately making these sites on Fenton Rd public, so you can go to Leominster State Forest and see what I mean. It is a fascinating place. Also, although I do not think Fenton Rd is a random cross-section, look at how many sites are along just this one road. It makes me believe there is still a lot more to be found hidden in this forest of laurels

Stone wall beginnings off Fenton Rd, Leominster State Forest

When I made these videos I thought they were examples of short stretches of stone walls. But in both cases I later saw that the wall was more extensive and led off into the impenetrable depths of the mountain laurel, downhill. Yet I doubt that these walls are particularly "agrarian", they seem to be celebrating the same water flow out from the hillside as are the rock piles, which are clustered about on the same hillside.



And this is the way it is, so far, off of Fenton Rd. There is always a little further you did not yet explore, and there is always a reason for going back. It is wonderful to be able to explore -essentially- a wilderness; like the guys going into the Honduran jungle to find Mayan pyramids. Who knew you could do the equivalent in Massachusetts?

Golden Run Rd - Bolton, MA

...on the way home I decided to take Sugar Rd north and turned onto Golden Run Road only to spot several rock piles next to the road at A.

Here is one I saw from the road.
Across the street at B there were some interesting short stretches of wall - one of which was part of a pentagonal enclosure of low walls. Another was part of what looked like terracing, and there was at least a third short fragment in there. Here is part of the pentagon, looking back towards the road to the right.I made a video of this here.

A little higher on the same road, I saw another rock pile out the car window to the right. When I walked down at C to explore, I found a small marker pile site.A few details:Pretty nice piles for a winter's day.

Sunk Meadow - Bolton MA

I saw some rock piles in the woods on the right heading south on Rt 495 after Rt 117. Went to try to find the place and did find a small site but did not see the piles I saw from the road. I parked where I could and walked up along the edge of the highway. After a difficult swamp crossing, I passed a wall and was immediately rewarded with a boulder with a rock pile on it (right (right rear in the picture).
Here is a closer view.
I explored around more and there was a level area beyond with a few rocks and one wedged rock:
This is the wedged rock I video'd here.

As I continued exploring, I came to another boulder with a rock pile, similar to the first one and also next to a stone wall. I realized later that the stone wall next to the first pile goes northwest for fifty yards, turns northeast and goes -say- a hundred yards, arriving at the second boulder and rock pile.
Here is a closer view:
Over to the right of the main pile, there is an anomaly in the stone wall:
Then out beyond this there were a few more rock piles on a knoll and a bit after that I discontinued the exploration.

Previewing the weekends finds

I have a couple of sites from Bolton and one from Leominster to describe this week. I do love the Leominster State Forest aesthetic:

Rock piles at the edge of a pasture

Video Clip: Highway Noise 2: a Small Pentagonal Enclosure

Video Clip: Highway Noise 1

Rock piles in Nolalu Ontario

[Click here]

Marker piles

I saw this picture again. This time I think I see some lines of piles ion the photo - you see them?
[Click here]

Isla Raza - rock stacks, gulls, and guano

Another reason for building rock piles?
[Click here]

Cape and Island Paranormal Research Society - Anawan Rock

They take an interest in some of the curious stones in Massachusetts.
[Click here]

Glover's Rock in Pelham, NY

A large erratic with historical associations.
[Click here]

Solstice viewing in Boxborough

Surfing the web so you don't have to...Remember this one? Jim Salem's account of a solstice viewing at George Krusen's Sudbury Valley Trustees land.
[Click here]

Nancy Bryant's Missouri rock piles etc.

You may not have seen this. It is an old NEARA web page article from a contributor in Missouri. Nancy Bryant had, at the time, developed her own observations and vocabulary.
[Click here]

More marker pile sites

I'll post other pictures later. Here are some views of a nice site I saw last weekend with Bruce McAleer:

"Prayers in Stone" - more from the USET Resolution 2007:037

Interesting classification implied here:

"...whether these stone structures are massive or small structures, stacked, stone rows or effigies, these prayers in stone are often mistaken..."

I continue to think that some or even much of this knowledge has been lost. The Indians do not want to admit that it is lost - nor should they. Nonetheless there is still room for the amateur non-Indian to seek, see and, perhaps, discover.

Update:
I think it is important for the Indians to state their intentions with respect to the land ownership. The concept of "ownership" is with us whether we like it or not; so what are the landowners' rights?

Native Americans fully acknowledge Sacred Stonework

Here is a bombshell (thanks to Geophile for the link) from the Native Americans. Not only do they claim resposibility for stonework in the woods, they bring out the big guns and demand that state preservation officers and state archeologists be trained to recognize ceremonial stonework - if they are to be involved in any federally funded or related development activities.


"The USET Board of Directors recommends that the Federal departments and agencies facilitate regional workshops between Tribes, State Historic Preservation Offices, archaeologists and Federal Departments and Agencies to facilitate a better comprehension of these concerns and a correction of these dismissive and destructive local policies...."

Here is the full USET resolution:
http://www.usetinc.org/images/images_res/2007037.pdf

I think this is big news. It means our retarded State Archeologists are going to have to learn something if they want to make pronouncements about development projects with any federal funding components.

A couple of odds and ends from Ashland

Came across this uphill from the spring of the previous post. Someone collected all the downed trunks of cedar trees, collected them, then leaned them all up against the stone wall so as to touch the largest of a few remaining cedar trees in the area. Kind-a looks ceremonial. In other words not obviously practical.

Still higher on the hill was a stone seat built on top of the ledge:
This detail of the back shows deliberate work:
The opening faces approximately magnetic south.

Why are springs special?

Approaching the west side of a hill looking for rock piles, I saw one rock-on-rock and then my eye was led naturally over to this spot. It is a place where water is coming out of the ground.It looks like it might have been dug out slightly. And you notice the strategically placed rock pile. I cannot imagine this is a coincidence. So what is that pile for? Why is it there? Clearly there is something important about this spring. Based on past experience, I believe there is something important about springs in general.

I think the most sacred things would probably be the most basic: food, water, life, death, the sky, the earth. At a spring, the below-ground world is offering up a refreshement to those of the above-ground world. I suspect there may be some basic energy associated to this. Out in the un-disturbed woods many springs are marked with rock piles.

Appetizer