New underground sensing technology

Sensor breakthrough paves way for groundbreaking map of world under Earth surface (phys.org)

I hope it is affordable and portable.

Not a pure rectangle

I was just out in the woods showing "rectangular mounds" to skeptical people. Every time I tried to argue that the thing was rectangular, I was forced to observe that one corner was slightly off. Three times in a row, looking at three separate mounds, I saw this:

I'll sleep better now. Now that I am telling the truth:) 

Apparently this is not entirely new information. See Figure 4 here: Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, Vol. 73, No. 2 (bridgew.edu)

Stone Turtle - out west

 Via reader Francis:

Any comments? 

See here.

Old Connecticut Path: Waters Farm & Manchaug Pond -- West Sutton, MA

Also known as the Nipmuc Path, Wikipedia tells us:

 "The Old Connecticut Path was the Native American trail that led westward from the area of Massachusetts Bay to the Connecticut River Valley, the first of the North American trails that led west from the settlements close to the Atlantic seacoast, towards the interior. The earliest colonists of Massachusetts Bay Colony used it, and rendered it wider by driving cattle along it. The old route is still followed, for part of its length, by Massachusetts Route 9 and Massachusetts Route 126..."

Some Screen Captures:

https://youtu.be/KgGKPzSn748

Related post: https://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2017/10/zigzag-prayer-walk-sutton.html

Afoot in Connecticut 29 - Glacial Erratics

 

Eric D. Lehman is the author of Bridgeport: Tales from the Park City and Hamden: Tales from the Sleeping Giant. He teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Bridgeport and his series Afoot in Connecticut highlights the Nutmeg State's natural and historical treasures. This episode finds Eric in Seymour, Woodbridge, and the Naugatuck State Forest, examining a few glacial erratics.

https://youtu.be/k18NFKNLaFo

Chili Verde's Flikr Albums

 Nice pictures (and thanks for the shoutout):

Chili Verde’s albums | Flickr

A Mystery at Canonchet

From "Small State Big History" via Tim MacSweeney

A Mystery at Canonchet: Who Built the Stone Piles in Hopkinton and Why? - Online Review of Rhode Island History (smallstatebighistory.com)

Creating Rock Walls (CA)

 “Tsektsel is derived from Yurok and means roughly "a place" (Wylie 1976).

Alyssa Alexandria photo

Paved Logging Road on U.S. Land Called Threat to Freedom of Religion

BY RUSSELL CHANDLER (AUG. 25, 1985) TIMES RELIGION WRITER

ORLEANS, Calif. — “… among the jagged rock outcroppings of the “high country” of the Siskiyou Mountains and along the banks of the rushing, salmon-filled waters of the Klamath and Trinity rivers--there is a quiet resurgence of native American tribal religion.

Ceremonial sites for traditional religious dances that had long fallen into disuse are being reconstructed in this pristine corner of northwest California at spots with exotic names like Ishi Pishi Falls, Weitchpec, Hoopa and Kota-Mein. (The latter, in the Karuk language, means “center of the world.”)

Alyssa Alexandria photo

    The death and rebirth of the world were reenacted by building sacred structures, such as dance arenas and underground sweat houses, and creating sacred fires and rock walls related to acquisition of power by shamans (priests) and their assistants…At the extreme east tip of Chimney Rock is a tsektsel , a rock circle forming a rudimentary “prayer seat.” There, a meditator can survey the entire landscape. On a recent clear day, one could see the tip of Mt. Shasta to the east, Preston Peak to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the west..."

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-08-25-mn-24849-story.html

Artic scene, opening credits of- "Chloe & Theo"

 

John Stilgoe, Thorson, Ives and Sherlock Holmes

Something I was thinking about this morning:

“The Art of Looking - It can be taught, but it’s hard for people to accept the fact that there’s a visual way of knowing,” Stilgoe says...

 https://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2022/01/john-stilgoe-thorson-ives-and-sherlock.html

Portable Manitou?

 I rescued this from a sandpit, long ago in Concord.

I think that is a well-defined flake scar.

The material looks like it might have been pecked here below the "arm". 

This stone might have been used for something practical, to produce the uniform polish over the whole object. The only place that it is not shiny is the surface that was exposed when I found it. Any guesses?

CT Stone Walls

By Mark Star, via Norman, via Larry Harrop:

https://vimeo.com/666947993

About that Neanderthal DNA

[Not rock pile related] I was enjoying watching this and recommend watching some of it:

Tales of Human History Told by Neandertal and Denisovan DNA That Persist in Modern Humans - YouTube

At around 7:25, he more or less proves that Neanderthals were in the New World. 

I watch B-grade movies, so you don't have to

Watching free movies on TUBI, I dropped into Once Upon a Time in the Apocalypse at random, a few moments before this scene at 32:28. 

I doubt the director invented that line of small rocks pointing towards a rock pile (or is that just an outcrop?) 

It kind of looks like the Sierras.

Ripple Effect

    The Ripples Timothy Ives is creating are spreading, distorting further his own distorted point of view about Ceremonial Stone Landscapes. 

     This morning I find another article in yet another online magazine: 

A cairn circle.(Ethan_Doyle_White via Wikimedia Commons)

Stoned In America

 Bruce Gilley  January 12, 2022

Dr. Timothy Ives has written an elegant and scholarly work exposing the academic fraud and political larceny of the "ceremonial stone landscape" movement.”

 "While there are many confluences of academic misconduct and racial anxiety in the contemporary West, few are so fun to read about as the phenomenon of “ceremonial stone landscape” activism in contemporary New England, especially in the gentle hands of Dr. Timothy Ives, principal archaeologist of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission.

He has written an elegant and scholarly work exposing the academic fraud and political larceny of a movement that seeks to have stone piles left behind by early American farmers redesignated as pre-European spiritual temples built by Indians. It is a warning..."

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/stoned-in-america/

I keep trying to comment:

Ives seems to be unfamiliar with the Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dates that are emerging in the scientific literature for some of these sites, some of which go back thousands of years. The age of the sample from the Site of Hopkinton, Rhode Island is in the range of 1570-1490 C.E (or 490 ± 40 years ago). The ages of the samples from Pratt Hill near Upton, Massachusetts, at a site that was recently desecrated by being scraped off the boulder foundation it was originally built on, are 1475-1375 C.E. (595 ± 50 years) for the top sample and 1315-1835 B.C.E (3,595 ± 260 years) for the bottom sample. These samples were obtained from dust or loess that had blown into the structure and collected in the scooped out hollow of the boulder foundation. https://www.usgs.gov/data/optically-stimulated-luminescence-osl-data-and-ages-selected-native-american-sacred-ceremonial

Rediscovering Kequasagansett

Backtracking a visitor, found this. Thanks, Mike for the shoutout.

Rediscovering Kequasagansett. Possible Sacred Stone and Water Works… | by Mike Luoma | Jan, 2022 | Medium

Iniskim Umaapi - Canadian Medicine Wheel

 Iniskim Umaapi: Is this Canada's 'Stonehenge'? - BBC Travel

Possible Manitou Stone

Sent by reader Colin, who writes:

This stone is located in Tyngsboro, right by the Merrimack river on the property of first settler Edward Tyng.

Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) data and ages for selected Native American Sacred Ceremonial Stone Landscape features--Final Project Report Submitted to the Narragansett Tribal Historic Preservation Trust

Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) data and ages for selected Native American Sacred Ceremonial Stone Landscape features--Final Project Report Submitted to the Narragansett Tribal Historic Preservation Trust | U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov)

Stone Tube Pipes of New England

[Not rock pile related]. I found this interesting for several reasons. It has to do with burial practices at some period in the past.

Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, Vol. 3, No. 2. January 1942 (bridgew.edu)