Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Types of Structures in a Site

In a site, there may be several types of stone structures: propped boulders, split boulders, cairns and manitous.  Here is one long-forgotten site with all of them.
  
This is always good to find: a propped boulder along the trail to the site.
The rock here splits into thin slabs, creating these strange manitou shapes. Maybe these natural manitous were the inspiration for the propped boulders.

I think I am going the right way. This bent tree points to the site. More natural manitous are in the background.

Now I'm here.

On the slope of a small hill are two large slabs shaped like manitous (gray wpt 052).  The one in the foreground has a V cut out of the top.  I've often thought that the two represented some dichotomy, like male and female.  These are not part of a stone row, so this is probably not a modification created by a farmer, as I described before (3/27/13 ).
Here on the little hill overlooking a swamp, is a propped boulder (yellow wpt 042),

and nearby, a cleanly cut split boulder (yellow wpt 041).
At the base of the small hill is a stone row with a large quartz rock (blue line).
I've often thought these were placed by farmers as an aid in night travel.
The stone row continues about 350 feet to an outcrop.
It passes a low cairn (red wpt 050).
The stone row continues across the outcrop, and disappears into a swamp.
This site has a variety of structures, but what can it mean?  It is easy to imagine all sorts of ceremonial uses of the stones in directing the movement of spirits across the site.  The variety of structures probably indicate differing uses of the site over time, especially since old maps show this as part of a farm. I think the propped boulders were left by natives, perhaps as some sort of recognition of the natural manitous in the site. Farmers later cut the split boulder and others to create squarish stones for the walls.





1 comment:

  1. Catching up after crazy spring & summer do far....2nd photo looks like a double orientation if you go by the arrows. Got some great summer solstice photos. We should have coffee sometime.

    ReplyDelete