Monday, April 14, 2008

Finding a rock pile site at Rocky Pond Boylston, MA

This is public access land of the "Rocky Pond Community Forest" in Boylston, MA, a town west of Boston, and is a rock pile site that is in plain view as you walk along the yellow dot trail, accessed from the south of the pond. I am giving the location because the site is 1) public; 2) in plain view; 3) already damaged; 4) not containing burials (in my opinion) . As I came in I got off the trail to the right scanning uphill for structures and saw some piled rock that could have been part of a damaged stone wall. Then I saw this and thought: "at least there is this": This is the kind of view of the slope: Not too encouraging. But then this next thing had to be ceremonial:Then I turned back the way I came but higher on the hill, following another loose line of piled rocks, perhaps more a damaged wall. And then...Shazaam! Here is the view: Nice pile, looking down at the southern end of the Pond. At this point I was having trouble continuing to think this was not a rock pile site. In fact from then on, exploring for the next quarter mile along the eastern side of the lake, all one big breakout zone, there were rock piles in view most of the time. By a "breakout zone" I mean a place where water comes out of the ground and erodes soil away leaving a field of boulders and rocks. In this case there were hundreds of small man made piles mixed in with the tumble of rocks and boulders. Like this: There were many examples of split-wedged rocks and several split boulders with a rock pile next to them. I was seeing a pattern in Stirling of rock pile sites located on the eastern sides of lakes. Here in Boylston, a waterway or so to the southeast and perhaps 15 miles away, it might or might not be something similar. I'll show more pictures later.

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