Interesting New England Sites

[MarathonTmatt]

Here is a pic of a lost site I stumbled onto ("found") the other month. It is a Native American stone shrine in Massachusetts. It is not located next to a trail, although the boulder it was worked into can be seen in a distance from a trail, but one has to walk up to it and go around it to tell what it is. It is on the side of a heavily-wooded hill (the "jungle" grew back) and to the other side is a swampy marsh/pond, and there is a housing development relatively nearby, but the swamp is between the site and the houses (thank god- better chance of preservation.) Here is the pic I took:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jPfLds2bxQ...7141845-00.jpg

There are also nearby Native American rock piles associated with this site as well. The other week I led a hike to the site, which included the Town Historian Joanne, Dr. Curtiss Hoffmann, professor of anthropology and archeology at Bridgewater State University, and several members of an organization called NEARA (New England Antiquities Research Association.) The NEARA members told me that they were going to run an article on the site in their next journal and that a pic of the shrine is going to be on the cover. They also told me that a couple of structures identical to this exist in a nearby town, except they are in a destroyed state, and it is only due to landowner's accounts that any integrity/ history of the other structures has survived at all.

Dr. Curtiss Hoffmann and others determined (with their fancy phones and gadgets) that there is a winter solstice alignment at the site, which was probably taken in to consideration when the structure was built. Other things I noticed were that there is room enough for 1 person to enter the shrine (probably the local Pawwow) and sit cross-legged or on their knees. Also, the stone on the top of the roof (center) is a bird-head effigy stone, looking up to the heavens. This is conducive with indigenous beliefs- when we pray we look up towards the sky, and the birds, especially the Eagle, are intermediaries between heaven and Earth, they carry our prayers to the Creator, they are the closest to heaven up in the sky. There are many First Nations tales that illustrate the interaction birds play between people and the Creator. There is also a Manitou stone to the left of the entrance of the structure. That is the stone that is standing up vertically. Manitou means "a spirit" so this stone would invite the friendly spirits to the site, or rather the spirits that were needed at that special place.

Although I know about many other significant sites in my area, and have even found some other things nobody knew about, this is my biggest "find" to date. I am stoked! Figured I would share. Education is good for all of us. It is good to think of where we come from, and where we live.

[SoCo KungFu]

Here is a pic of a lost site I stumbled onto ("found") the other month. It is a Native American stone shrine in Massachusetts. It is not located next to a trail, although the boulder it was worked into can be seen in a distance from a trail, but one has to walk up to it and go around it to tell what it is. It is on the side of a heavily-wooded hill (the "jungle" grew back) and to the other side is a swampy marsh/pond, and there is a housing development relatively nearby, but the swamp is between the site and the houses (thank god- better chance of preservation.) Here is the pic I took:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jPfLds2bxQ...7141845-00.jpg

There are also nearby Native American rock piles associated with this site as well. The other week I led a hike to the site, which included the Town Historian Joanne, Dr. Curtiss Hoffmann, professor of anthropology and archeology at Bridgewater State University, and several members of an organization called NEARA (New England Antiquities Research Association.) The NEARA members told me that they were going to run an article on the site in their next journal and that a pic of the shrine is going to be on the cover. They also told me that a couple of structures identical to this exist in a nearby town, except they are in a destroyed state, and it is only due to landowner's accounts that any integrity/ history of the other structures has survived at all.

Dr. Curtiss Hoffmann and others determined (with their fancy phones and gadgets) that there is a winter solstice alignment at the site, which was probably taken in to consideration when the structure was built. Other things I noticed were that there is room enough for 1 person to enter the shrine (probably the local Pawwow) and sit cross-legged or on their knees. Also, the stone on the top of the roof (center) is a bird-head effigy stone, looking up to the heavens. This is conducive with indigenous beliefs- when we pray we look up towards the sky, and the birds, especially the Eagle, are intermediaries between heaven and Earth, they carry our prayers to the Creator, they are the closest to heaven up in the sky. There are many First Nations tales that illustrate the interaction birds play between people and the Creator. There is also a Manitou stone to the left of the entrance of the structure. That is the stone that is standing up vertically. Manitou means "a spirit" so this stone would invite the friendly spirits to the site, or rather the spirits that were needed at that special place.

Although I know about many other significant sites in my area, and have even found some other things nobody knew about, this is my biggest "find" to date. I am stoked! Figured I would share. Education is good for all of us. It is good to think of where we come from, and where we live.

That's pretty neat. Those finds are always nice. Down south where I'm from you can walk across 12000 year old stone tools/debris and not even notice it if you weren't looking (yes 12k years old (or at least found in 12k strata), I'll let other people look up the significance of that). Its unfortunate though that so many of these are on private property and thus, no one knows they're there. That and the problems it causes when...sensitive...things are found. You may or may not know of Allendale, SC's Topper site. This was one of the more important sites in the south for a while. It was on private, industrial property. Unfortunately, a couple years back human remains were found. I believe in another post here I mentioned this site and something I couldn't yet talk of. This was that something. What should have been a huge find, ended up sinking the entire site. Smithsonian got there necks involved and botched the operation. I don't think they notified proper authorities (but could be wrong on that) and long story short, the site is now shut down and off limits. At least a half dozen individuals working on their PhD research got screwed out of their study zone after years of work. The remains, I believe but could be wrong, were covered back up and left unstudied. An ex gf of mine was the one who initially uncovered the body and was freaked she f'd up. Wasn't a fun month, should have been one of the best. Research can be a ***** like that.

[GoldenBrain]

Ya, very cool man. It looks a bit small for somebody to sit in very comfortably so when I hear about or see places like this which are aligned with the winter or summer solstice I wonder if they were more like calendar sign post markers rather than that of a spiritual nature. Either way, still very cool.

[Syn7]

Cool little story.

[GoldenBrain]

That was great! I liked the part at the end about the masking tape.

I really dislike looters, wether it be artifacts or somebodies property. As a youth I would happen upon things like arrow heads, pottery shards, and in NC civil war artifacts...etc., while out in the wilds of nature. After checking these cool pieces out I'd simply set them back down where I found them so that others could enjoy the moment as much as I did. When I grew up and became friends with some archaeological types I realized how important this practice was. For me, it was more about that stuff isn't mine no matter where I found it so why should I take it. For an archaeologist it seems to go much deeper. And for an archaeologist/anthropologist with a deep spiritual connection to say the Choctaw tribe it goes even deeper. One of my friends who heads the cultural dept. for the Choctaws often has to repatriate artifacts and bones when people accidentally dig them up. On tribal lands there are people on call 24/7 to monitor and investigate projects like road building, pipelines..etc., and when they find anything that resembles a bone or any type of artifact all work stops until it can be verified that it is or isn't part of some tribe from any time period. It's not like they shut the world down for long, but work will stop long enough to repatriate the bones or artifacts to another area approved by the tribe.

[MarathonTmatt]

Ya, very cool man. It looks a bit small for somebody to sit in very comfortably so when I hear about or see places like this which are aligned with the winter or summer solstice I wonder if they were more like calendar sign post markers rather than that of a spiritual nature. Either way, still very cool.

Yes, I have thought about what you have said too. I think it did serve as a marker like you say, but that their cosmology (and thus spirituality) was also inter-connected with that too. It obviously would have been a special structure one way or another- as for somebody sitting in it- I guess we will never know for sure, due to the very harsh suppression of Native culture. Here in the Northeast, it was long thought that such structures simply did not exist as they did in other parts of the country. The remaining descendent communities themselves largely forgot about their ancestor's stone constructions (but not completely) until more recently, and now tribal preservation officers as well as archeologists like Dr. Hoffmann who have good relationships with them are taking an inventory of these sites. As for me I am more of an "amateur enthusiast" of mixed ancestry (Canada/ Mid-west) living in the New England area.
Some things I did notice though is that one of the stones on the roof is loose, and that top soil and leaf-litter would have built up on the ground over centuries, for instance we cannot see the true bottom of the entry-way or the ground inside the structure as it would have appeared hundreds of years ago.

[MarathonTmatt]

Here are more pics I took of another site. A lot of natural boulders that were incorporated with indigenous stonewall/ stone row building to create enclosures. This site is near a brook that is a tributary to a major river. Also at this site were many Native American style "cairns" which is an English word used to describe rock piles of various origins- a modern hiking cairn may distinguish a trail path, a modern boundry cairn may distinguish a property line and so forth.

The truth is, the word "cairn" isn't the right word to describe Native American stone mounds, heaps, etc., but that is the word researchers began using to describe them decades ago and the name stuck. What they really are is various effigys, monuments, markers, donation piles and "prayers in stone", etc. Notice the symmetry and different patterns in the pics below. Also most effigys are on boulder platforms, with bedrock underneath the surface vegetation. I only got a few pics of the larger site in general. Hoping people will enjoy:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4mB0DyjwOC...llboulder1.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bPTylUw2N0...8141841-00.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FOVusZsWjH...s/s1600/A6.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0DKgHOvpja...2Rombazoid.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vl8fJnVHkF...600/cairn1.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fVW9_SBWTr...600/cairn2.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7IadxWp09S...airn5front.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uJpY5eUxLL...00/effigy3.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZiI9xwmX21...600/cairn4.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7_Q8RtMbzg...ngat-ledge.jpg

[MarathonTmatt]

I was hiking around a place called Echo Lake (in Massachusetts, west of Boston) last weekend. It is the head of the Charles River. The English named the river after one of their kings. The true name of the river in Algonquin is something like "Quennebaug," very similar to the naming of the Kennebec river in Maine, but in a different dialect.

Here are some pictures I took of some propped boulders, and some smaller "standing stones" which seemed to function as horizon markers. There were also some other features I noticed like a couple small petro-forms (some info on petro-forms here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroform) and some effigies (cairns) but for some reason I did not take pics of those.

Here are some of the pictures I took from Echo Lake:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Cm2qPCEdec...lakeprop7A.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Kc-yhkIIj8...lakeprop7B.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RKwYDcx_Uh...olakeprop3.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-evx77Iqi9U...olakeprop4.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0xKOcJuCCX...olakeprop6.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RUkPoU9jlX...tandstone2.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EDVU-ddTBH...andstone2A.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XhkAA_InUZ...tandstone4.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cXk1WTiGVI...stndstone1.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Cm2qPCEdec...lakeprop7A.jpg

[MarathonTmatt]

That's pretty neat. Those finds are always nice. Down south where I'm from you can walk across 12000 year old stone tools/debris and not even notice it if you weren't looking (yes 12k years old (or at least found in 12k strata), I'll let other people look up the significance of that). Its unfortunate though that so many of these are on private property and thus, no one knows they're there. That and the problems it causes when...sensitive...things are found. You may or may not know of Allendale, SC's Topper site. This was one of the more important sites in the south for a while. It was on private, industrial property. Unfortunately, a couple years back human remains were found. I believe in another post here I mentioned this site and something I couldn't yet talk of. This was that something. What should have been a huge find, ended up sinking the entire site. Smithsonian got there necks involved and botched the operation. I don't think they notified proper authorities (but could be wrong on that) and long story short, the site is now shut down and off limits. At least a half dozen individuals working on their PhD research got screwed out of their study zone after years of work. The remains, I believe but could be wrong, were covered back up and left unstudied. An ex gf of mine was the one who initially uncovered the body and was freaked she f'd up. Wasn't a fun month, should have been one of the best. Research can be a ***** like that.

Hi,
Ouch, yeah- I can see how things could be botched up at the SC site. Also, up here in the north east, especially in the Connecticut River Valley are a lot of artifact deposits (knives, projectile points):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYuK1...yer_detailpage