Occam's Razor; "Effigy Mounds" & "New England Stone Walls"

 

Ryan Howell writes:

Explanation (1)-"Native Americans who lived in Wisconsin at or around A.D 1000 built the Effigy Mounds that date to this period. Native Americans were present, there are Native American artifacts in the mound fill. The mounds occur next to Native American villages of the same time period."

Explanation (2)- "The mounds were built by the Lost Tribes of Israel because they just were. Everyone knows this who has read the Bible like I have..... I want to believe in the Bible, its how I interpret my world, and I, personally, do not think Native Americans could do it. There is no "real" evidence to support my claim, but I can probably find some if I scwint real hard, interpret the Bible "properly" and don't look at or for any physical evidence that contradicts my pre-formed assumption."

I write:

Explanation (1-A)-"Native Americans who lived in Connecticut, well before the contact period built the Snake Effigy Rows of Stones that date to an as yet undetermined time period. Native Americans were present for 12,000 years or so, there is Native American Iconography, similar to that found in other Indigenous media, present in the rows of stones that may have functioned as fuel breaks for controlled burns as well as management of water features. The rows of stones occur next to Native American villages of the same time period, such as the Nonnewaug Wigwams. The rows of stones along trails or paths that often became modern roads connect, yet separate, many different stacked stone enclosed resource zones that include but are not limited to “blueberry barrens” and wetland gardens such as “cranberry bogs" that may still contain survivor plants.”

 Explanation (2-A)- "The ‘stone walls’ of New England were built by settler colonists and their descendants because they just were. Everyone knows this who has read the Stone Wall Books like I have..... I want to believe in the Stone Wall Books, it’s how I interpret my world, and I, personally, do not think Native Americans could do it. There is no "real" evidence to support my claim, but I can probably find some if I squint real hard, interpret the Books "properly" and don't look at or for any physical evidence, such as vertically and horizontally undulating rows of stacked stones that begin with a snake head, in a number of variations, that contradicts my pre-formed assumption, passed down from the earliest of settler colonists who claimed that Native Americans in what became known as “New England” were too lazy and not intelligent enough to stack stones.

 A complicated series of events is presented as a timeline for the "Yankee Stone Wall Myth:" Field clearing stones tossed into piles against legal wooden rail fences four to four and a half feet high, later used to build stone fences by farmers and their families as well as their slaves, indentured workers, and hired laborers, culminating in a short lived Great Merino Sheep Craze when a number of wealthy people hired trained masons to build Sheep Fences.”

  The simplest solution may well be that pre-existing Native American enclosures became private property, appropriated by the addition of split wooden rails that met the legal height requirement to become "improved" with a minimum of effort compared to that of building rather useless animal containment or animal prohibiting “stone fences.”  

Parsimoniously, it's much easier to leave a row of stones alone than to build one...

It's also said that:

"If the scientific explanation is too hard to understand,

then make up a deceptively simple fable."

It's also said that:

"Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic or racial groups from a given territory by a more powerful ethnic group, often with the intent of making it ethnically homogeneous.The forces applied may be various forms of forced migration (deportation, population transfer), intimidation, as well as genocide and genocidal rape.
      
Ethnic cleansing is usually accompanied with efforts to remove physical and cultural evidence of the targeted group in the territory through the destruction of homes, social centers, farms, and infrastructure, and by the desecration of monuments, cemeteries, and places of worship." 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing

So does claiming that "New England Stone Walls" are almost all post contact constructions, without scientific investigation,  seem to fit the definition of Nationalistic Pseudoarchaeology, quite similar to the case of the "Lost Tribes" & Wisconsin (and other) Effigy Mounds??

Hmm...