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.

Sabino Canyon

It is hot and humid, and the high water in South Watuppa Pond is hiding the stone rows.  Time to revisit previous  vacations, such as this trip to Tucson, AZ, in 2011.
     Sabino Canyon is inside the Tucson city limits.  A creek runs through it, and stone structures indicate Native use.

There are flat ledges of rock along the banks.  In the hillside near the water is a large propped boulder.  To the right in the photo are a couple of stone slabs.

The view from the other side.

There is nothing inside.

On the ledges of stone by the water are mute testaments to centuries of hard work for survival

Manitou Cliff Dwellings

First I will start with a disclaimer:  This is not a real cliff dwelling, but a reconstruction that opened to the public in 1907.  The stones from dilapidated  structures in the Four Corners area were moved here, and reassembled into these buildings.  That said, it's still a great place to visit in  Manitou Springs, CO, because of one big advantage.  Unlike Mesa Verde, you can go inside every room in this structure, as long as you can squeeze through the openings! Once you get inside, there are plenty of posted interpretations of the rebuilt structures.

 It was pleasantly cool inside.  Here are the metates arranged against a wall in a three-family house.

There is a large space between the back of this building and the cliff, where the inhabitants would have thrown their refuse.  While this sounds messy and smelly, they probably produced very little refuse by using every part of game animals.

This is thought to have been a storage container.

The reconstructed kiva had two very interesting features: a stone slab standing between the fire and the air vent, which was supposed to diffuse the air flow, and a sipapu or spirit entrance.

  The sipapu is on the floor directly across the fire from the slab.

Most interesting was this little niche with a basin built into the floor of a small room.  This was described as possibly used for ceremonial preparation of bodies for burial.

Here in the museum, mugs from about 1300! These sure look like modern coffee mugs!

Saguaro National Park

These pictures were taken in 2011, at Saguaro National Park in Arizona.  My visit to Garden of the Gods (6/17/2013) reminded me of them, since there is also a propped boulder in these images.  It seems like wherever there are boulders, there are propped  boulders, especially on hilltops,  at sites with alignments, or along important trails.   Whatever significance they had to the Natives who constructed them is lost to time.
     At the East unit,  the Tanke Verde trail climbs into the pine forests of the Catalina mountain.

The southwest has many of the same structures we have in the northeast, and they are much less disrupted by farming and housing development.  The southwest also has something the northeast lacks:  poisonous snakes. Watch your step!

Luckily, this one is  harmless.

Balanced rocks near the Tanke Verde trail.

Here at the trailhead, an effigy and a propped boulder stand on an outcrop, surrounded by prickly pear and ocotillo bushes. The effigy looks a little like a bird.

The long axis of the propped boulder is parallel to the trail.  Perhaps it once meant "this way".
     Now we can go the the west unit.  The big attraction there is Signal Hill, a huge pile of boulders covered with geometric petroglyphs.

Many of these are spirals

Some are animals

There didn't seem to be any alignment with any other features.  Perhaps this rocky hill was simply a convenient place to carve petroglyphs.

Summer Solstice at Miantonomi's Cave

Last year, I missed the summer solstice patterns inside Miantonomi's  Cave because the show finishes an hour before sunset.  This year I arrived early.
    Summer solstice is the only time the face of the slanted boulder is illuminated by sunlight. The 318 degree bearing of the long axis blocks out sunlight the rest of the year. Here streaks of sunlight appear on the face and enter both windows of the cave.  This picture was taken at 7:05 PM.

 Unfortunately, Miantonomi's Cave is surrounded by trees that diffuse the light.  Here is the interior of the cave around 6:35 PM. Light is streaming in through the large window.

 The light entered the small window and the second sun dagger appeared at 6:40 PM.

 It got bigger and even took on a slightly birdlike appearance at 6:42 PM.

 Unfortunately, a cloud blocked the sun until 7:06, when this pattern appeared.

This is the final pattern, at 7:30.  A large  patch of  light appears on the end of the projecting stone. This was only a thin streak of light on 4/28.

Then the cave went dark at 7:35.  The time lapse video is at Youtube.
Here is the view from outside the cave.  The small blue box on the ledge is the time lapse camera. I wonder how many centuries passed with Native people watching this display.

This is a complex pattern of light and shadow, altered by surrounding trees and passing clouds.  Two markers of summer solstice may be the light on the face of the slanted boulder, and the large patch of light on the end of the projecting stone. There is also a faint mark on the wall that the sun ray follows as it travels up the wall.

The flat end of the projecting stone, which was illuminated at the end of the display, is shown above.

Garden of the Gods

I recently returned from a trip to Manitou Springs, Colorado, where I visited Garden of the Gods, Pike's Peak, and the Manitou Cliff Dwellings.  Luckily, I left before the Black Forest fire broke out.
     I had wanted to see Garden of the Gods since 1992, when I saw it while driving up I-25. It is a beautiful  area containing huge, jagged red sandstone spires.  The Utes revered it as a sacred place, and it is easy to understand why.

Although Garden of the Gods  has been a public park since 1909, some traces of Native use remain.  Here, near the Ute trail, rests a large stone with a smooth  top surface, suggesting use as a grinding slick.

The park also contains an impressive balanced rock, which looks like it was created mainly by erosion of  the softer stone supporting the rock.

The squarish shape of the "feet" suggests some human alteration.

However, the most interesting site is at the Siamese Twins.  Here a hole was eroded between two hoodoos.

The hole frames a view of Pike's Peak, which the Utes believed to be the home of the Sun. This view is to the west. The bearing from here to Pike's Peak is about 253 degrees, suggesting winter solstice sunset is visible over the summit of the Peak.

As I was walking around the site, I noticed this large propped boulder. From this angle, it looks a little like an animal head.

The "petroglyphs" on the upper left are English letters left by some hard-working graffiti artist.

It is clear that these stones were placed under the boulder. 

This is the other side.  The large cavity on the top center may have resulted from erosion, as these are common in other sandstone boulders in the park.

The shape is similar to that of  propped boulders in Rhode Island (11/7/2012).  I have seen propped boulders at other locations in the Southwestern US.  They were probably created by chipping away stone from the bottom of the boulder, and denote a sacred site.

A Shelter

Hidden deep in the woods of northern Rhode Island is this shelter built under an overhanging cliff.

This is a surprising sight along the trail. Below is a view from the side, with the wall visible in the center of the photo. This gives an idea of the scale of the site.

In the rubble at the cliff base are a few structures, such as this propped boulder.  It looks like someone carved a large gouge out of it to the right.

Here is a closer view of the stone work on the shelter.  Since the stones aren't covered with lichens and leaf litter, they probably have not been stacked here very long.

And here's what is inside. I have a bowl just like that one.

 This shelter is interesting, but not ancient like the Flagg Swamp shelter. The cliff's smooth rock face and broken granite at the base suggest that this was once a quarry, and someone built this shelter after it was abandoned. The site has no trash, so whoever uses it respects it.  Perhaps a camper or deer hunter comes here occasionally.