Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Landscape with Propped Boulders, Part 2

Last week I posted a hilltop  alignment of propped boulders that seemed to form part of an enclosure.  This week I will show the long east-west line on the south side of the enclosure.  The red dots are cairns, and  the yellow dots joined by yellow dashed lines are the propped boulders in the enclosure. The blue dots with blue lines are walls.


Starting from west to east, the first waypoint is 599,   this impressive propped boulder that was shown 4/24/2013.


The next propped boulder is at waypoint 598.


The line continues west past some prominent boulders.  Some may be natural, and  I have included them because their striking appearances lend them to use as landmarks.  Perhaps boulders were propped as markers where there were no distinctive natural boulders.
Waypoint 636


Waypoint  637. This boulder looks like it has been chipped away underneath.


Waypoint  638.  A boulder broken into large fragments, with stones placed inside the splits. Since the stone in this area splits easily, it is hard to determine when this occurred.


Waypoint  462.  This massive boulder is cleanly split in half, with no tool marks. This may be a natural split.


The line ends at the structure at waypoint 457, shown last week.
      Propped boulders may have been boundaries of old Native campsites, villages, or fields.  Maybe these old borders  were used in land transfers to settlers. The original boundary of this old farm was close to the line of boulders.  Some bloggers have described stonerows that zig-zag from one boulder to another.    If the boulders  were used as boundaries in land transfers, the farmers may have walled in the spaces between the boulders. I have never seen this in northern RI.  However, at this site, it is noticeable how close propped boulders are to farm walls.  The boulder at  waypoint 599 is directly in front of a farm wall.  This boulder, further to the north, is also in front of the long wall that separates this site from other properties.


So is this one, 100 feet further to the north.


Those holes were drilled by a farmer to blow this boulder up.  Evidently, this didn't work out!


   






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