An ultimate headwater of Falulah Brook - what I was "just sayin"

A few weeks ago I posted a map fragment of the woods just east of the Fitchburg Reservoir. The  article title was "Just Sayin" - my way of hinting that such woods are obviously a good place to look for larger mounds (I might as well call them "Fitchburg Mounds"). On one hand, there are lots of other sites in this area near the top of Falulah Brook but also, there were several additional spots where minor tributaries of the brook begin. [Go take a look in acme mapper at the Fitchburg Reservoir, and look at the many tributaries everywhere around  the reservoir. Here we are east of it.]
I had not been there before and I went out rain or shine. Here is the plan I made - wrinkled and smeared now from being out in the rain

I park where West Ashby Rd meets Rindge Rd. My plan was to start at A (just right and down from the "CO" of "Worcester CO") and follow the brook up to B and then over to a ridge at C, and to continue, zig-zag'ing back to swamp at D, another brook source at E, and then over to the hilltop at F. After that I was going to get out to Rindge Rd and head back to the car. This all would be about a 1.5 mile walk, except bushes.
Here is the summary:

• At A there are piles I have seen before
• Just before B there was a cluster of large mounds
• I did not go to C but got out to Scott Rd. Could not get to D behind "No Trespassing" signs, and walked west out to Mayo Rd. Turned north thinking I could sneak into D from behind but the landowners make a point of letting you know there is video surveillance, so I gave up and went further north thinking about cutting towards F. Well that was too thick going and I was already wet, so I went back south along Mayo Rd towards E.
• At E there were more rock piles - older, smaller, almost invisible.
• Back to my car along Rindge Rd. Of course there are several kinds of sites on the west side of Rindge Rd between Mayo and West Ashby.

Here are some photos of these exploits. At A a little bit  sequence of rocks:

A more typical mound with hollow. I did not try to take decent pictures, cuz I know this one.

Then about a quarter mile up the brook, I saw piling along the side of the watercourse that was messy and consistent with field clearing.

But in one place, a sense of an empty cyst:

And within this framework, adjacent to the "cyst", was an upright triangular stone (seen on the left in this next picture).

I was not sure what to think about this pile. But continuing up the brook, more piles appeared on the left, or west side of the brook. Leading to the concentration below B, just below Scott Rd.
First was this marvelous plant covered stone mound I showed the other day:

Pushing though the thick undergrowth in northern Fitchburg and coming across something like this is as close as I am going to get to that Angkor Watt feeling. How far down do you suppose that mound goes? There was a little bit of structure at one end:

Here is a last panorama, before we move on upstream:

At the next pile, I took a selfie. I am looking more and more like Capitaine Haddock:

The pictures aren't too good in the rain:

This is an elongated pile, with a faint sense of corners and the first that might be considered as a "rectangle with hollow". 
It is on the west side of the watercourse, as are all the piles I found. I glanced over at the east side of the brook and made brief sallies over there but it was thick and I was not encouraged. 
Back on the west side, there was a smaller pile:

And then two more at the top, a few feet downhill from Scott Rd. 
A big one, almost angle of repose. With a bit of corner retaining wall, and a white quartz blaze on top:

Next to another low one made from large rocks:

Look close, it is the shape of a number "9". 
The characteristics of these piles are consistent with field clearing. I have to admit it. However they are more consistent with ceremonial locations at the headwaters of brooks. Which is what sent me to this spot looking for them. So you know which hypothesis I prefer. Some other pictures of the pile with quartz:

An awfully nice pile of rocks. Just a quick mention of another site I found down at E on the map on the way out. It was right in the wetland. I noticed a rock-on-rock then another small pile:

 

A couple little cysts:

All in all, a good fit between plan and reality. A nice walk in the rain.

Two Rhomboidal Stones

These two stones, both with diagonal striations I thought Peter would find interesting, lead me to this:

 http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2014/10/reading-lesson-2.html

Modern Stone Pile with Hollow

...I was just saying...

(coming up)

Update: I have been thinking about how this pile is very overgrown. Not only that. It also has  an unusual style, with steep sides, a domed top, and no hollow. Finally it has an oval outline. Taken together these are unusual style characteristics and there is no reason to decouple them (at least not at first) from the amount of deposited plant debris.

This is not a common thing, maybe a bit like this.

This pile is only a few feet from several of the more typical rectangular "mounds"; and they had little or no debris on them. I wonder if maybe this one is old?

Little Mulberry Park (GA)

More: http://commonplacenature.org/blog/2013/12/28/the-mysterious-stone-piles-of-little-mulberry-park-part-one-discovery/ (and two other posts as well). 

And another place also in GA:

Anne Shenk & Rock Pile

      "Going cross country up the hill we stopped at one of the 29 rock mounds around the top of the

hill.  Ann Shenk briefed us on Mark Williams'  ideas on these possible indian relics.  The thought is that they were some kind of marker for a place they came.  The boulders along the river below this point would have been a place they could tell each other they would meet.   Perhaps it had religious significance. Other people think that the rocks were piled up by farmers who cleared their fields growing crops, but the hill is too steep for crops.  On this morning we were attacked by mosquitos, and decided to move on..." 

http://naturerambling.blogspot.com/2014/05/may-8-2014-ramble-report.html

    Another bunch of photos here:

https://www.facebook.com/don.hunter.56/media_set?set=a.864183020264931.1073741917.100000197224342&type=1&l=60ca476047

Friends Of Howe Park In Spencer State Forest - Conference on Conservation

From Mike Toomey of theFriends Of Howe ParkIn Spencer State Forest:

I serve as one of five facilitators for The Friends Of Massachusetts State Forest and Parks Network

We have two social media sites between Facebook 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Massachusetts-Forest-and-Park-Friends-Network/407853915950756

and 

Linked in

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Mass-State-Forests-Park-Friends-3787601?trk=groups_item_detail-h-dsc&goback=%2Egde_3787601_member_5877817209518067714

We will be holding our annual conference in December. I invite you to attend and enjoy the event. 

The Friends Network 2014 Annual Conference: Focus on Conservation Saturday, December 6, 2014 9:30am to 3:00pm VFW Post 5594 15 Milford Street Upton, MA 01568 Registration is Open!

Meanwhile please feel free to post any discovery you find about our parks and the significance of the stones. As you can see by our group's topics and events we are like minded in favoring protecting these great assets.I hope you will be able to join us in person as well as in posting any information that you would like to share with our members.

Crude tool in the Stark Tradition

"Stark" is the name for an arrowhead style from 3-5K years old. That's one on the right:

On the left is a crude tool I think was hafted in the same way. The edge is distinctly serrated:

The back side is faintly polished and still greasy after all those years - even though I washed it.

Just sayin...

Nooherooka Monument

     “The Nooherooka Monument has been designed collaboratively between the Tuscarora Nation, Greene County Museum and ECU sculptors Hanna Jubran and Jodi Hollnagel-Jubran. After pulling together many design elements featured in themes from Tuscarora history and heritage, Jubran designed and supervised the construction of the monument…

      The Neyuheruke Wampum:

Was created in 2013 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the tragic battle at Fort Neyuheruke on 21-23 March 1713

Was also made to commemorate the return in 2013 of the Tuscarora Nation to North Carolina for the first time in 300 years

The wampum tells a story in carefully crafted and arranged beads of the two historic homes of the Tuscarora Nation–the current location of the Tuscarora Reservation in western New York State and the North Carolina homeland where the Tuscarora People lived for a thousand years–between the two rectangles located at the two ends of the wampum is a zigzag line representing the travels of the Tuscarora people between the two homelands …”

     

More: http://blog.ecu.edu/sites/nooherooka/

NEARA FALL 2014 CONFERENCE

50th Anniversary Gala Celebration

Looking Back, Looking Ahead:  

Where We've Been, Where We're Going

When

  Friday October 31, 2014 at 12:00 PM EDT

-to-
Sunday November 2, 2014 at 3:00 PM EST

Where

Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites, Nashua, NH
9 Northeastern Boulevard
Nashua, NH 03062
Nashua, NH

Click  here for info

Futility

     It has been more than two months since I have posted any arrowhead finds here. I haven't found anything to post.
     August was really dry. Cool, but very little rain, and no heavy rain at all. Weeds grew and covered the earth. No storms came to expose rocks on the ground. I spent long hours wandering in dusty places poring over the dry earth. I hit it hard, I put in the time. At the beginning of the month I found one tiny fragment of an arrowhead, not worth showing. I could never have guessed that I would not find another artifact of any kind at all for nearly two months despite countless hours of careful searching.
     For a long time- years- if I had enough free time in a weekend, I could more or less feel certain that I could find some sort of artifact. For weeks now, that has not been the case for me. I have despaired. I look at frames of arrowheads in my room and it seems inconceivable to me that I once found objects like that on the ground. This has been my worst year yet for arrowheads. It's the weather- no rain. Plus I have lost some sites to development, in one place where I once found nice tools there are brand-new homes. In other places, weeds have grown so dense and tall, there is no chance anymore. New places I searched did not bear fruit.
     September was the same story. Hours of looking, no rain, no luck. Here is the sum total of everything I found in September. Tips of two quartz arrowheads. I found these at the very end of the month after 2 months of zero.

     I'm hoping October will be better. I went out yesterday for a couple of hours in the sun. I encountered this little guy on the way in.

      In an area dense with chips and flakes I found this crude arrowhead. The tip and one edge are nice, the base is very crude. I don't know if it was never finished or was used this way. It's fairly thick, perhaps used as a knife.

     These fragments of quartz arrowheads were easy to spot. The corner of a very nice large triangle, and the base of another triangle. That corner is really nicely flaked and it would have been a great point.

     Not much, nothing to get excited about- but better than nothing at all, certainly.

No exploration last weekend

Had family matters one day and rain the other. Have a good plan for next weekend but I am afraid I have nothing to post this week.

Proctor Hill - shimmed boulder next to old road

This is on Proctor Hill, across from the entrance to the Beaver Pond Brook ("Rocky Pond Brook") land in Hollis, NH.

Rocky Pond Brook - Hollis NH

I have been up to Hollis NH before, with lots of finds around Dunklee Pond but disappointing results at Rocky Pond Brook.  
This is essentially the same woods as before and I probably should not have gone back. But I followed a different trajectory - starting at A going north and circling around the back side of the brook and back along a old road to B.Through most I my walk there was little except an occasional stone wall and I was happy to see signs of the "hand of man" and followed them. I didn't see much. 

Just before stepping out of the woods I did a bit of hunting that I am proud of. There is a historic period homestead right at the road and, approaching from the north, there were numerous stone walls along the road. Thinking "don't stop looking just cuz this is the end of the walk" and I was craning my neck to see into the woods. Then there was a slightly different, wider, stone wall going left (east) down into a brush covered area. Thinking "I wouldn't have passed up that invitation earlier, especially heading down into a wet spot". 

So I went and looked closer, getting down into the bushes to a seasonal stream bed. Here a fallen tree reveals a well that presumably belonged to the homestead.

I continued through to the other  side where the bushes thinned and there was a ridge in front of me. Thinking "wait, go look in the bushes along this side of the brook" and I found this mound, tucked in there:

According to some people, the presence of a nearby historic period homestead and walls make it unlikely this is a Native American mound. By contrast, I think it simply adds to the possibility the homestead was occupied by an Indian family. Let's take a closer look:

A piece of white glassware here.

A saucepan there. 
Thinking "what does this mean?". Since these (colonial?) artifacts are superficial, they could have been added later, not necessarily built in the original pile. But I also think it's significant that someone felt connected enough to this mound that they had a ceremony here. Original builders or not, the suggestion of a connection between historic times and mound building cultures is important. Real or not, I believe the connection existed in the mind of the person leaving the glass and saucepan.
Some other views:

 

Looking back from a few steps away one sees there is more to the pile. I did not chase it any further into the bushes. After that, I walked over to the ridge and saw a familiar structure, which I have photo'd before somewhere:

More hints of recent ceremony. The connection to the mound, at least in in someones mind, is most interesting. A last look:

NOLUMBEKA PROJECT'S DAVID BRULE TO SPEAK

From the Nolumbeka Project:
NOLUMBEKA PROJECT'S DAVID BRULE TO SPEAK
Saturday, October 4, 10:00 a.m. to Noon

David Brule presents some basic information about the Native American presence at the Great Falls, then describes the events of May 19, 1676..., including the awarding of a National Park Service American Battlefield grant to study the event. Historian Ed Gregory will then present his archival photos about the villages of Montague from 1900 to the present.

Great Falls Discovery Center, 2 Ave. A, Turners Falls, MA.

Admission Free.

http://nolumbekaproject.org/

Preview: Beaver Brook - Hollis NH

The Hill of Naked Men

Went to climb Little Blue Hill and I was wondering if I could see a view of downtown Boston from the top. As I got to the  summit, I was surprised to find it covered with naked men - not the view I wanted. Although I had a brief photo-blogger impulse to photo the exotic sights, I left the summit quickly. 
Before that, on the southwest foot of the hill:

I think it is a prayer seat because fireplaces are not usually built on a slope. 
Before I got to the summit, a shoulder: