First Zigzag

The first zigzag stone row I ever came across, sometime in the 1960's, that got me wondering, "Why a zigzag?" was in a wooded area of my neighbor's farm.

This 1955 map shows my parents house as a barn, which it was then, later to be converted to a house by my grandmother's brother.

I used to follow the brook that runs through the property and then take that old dirt road that led to what looks like a house but by the mid-sixties was just a chimney and an old out house in the woods. Other roads led to more places to cut firewood, a bunch of fields, and what my family called "Lost Lake."

Today it looks like this, a soon to be developed parcel of land, to the east of the Hamburger and Car Lot Edge of Town:

The swamp that became Lost Lake must've been dammed when I was a baby, maybe - this recent map above shows it as a body of water.

This is not the actual row below, but there are many up there that look just like this pattern.

Eric Sloane in Our Disappearing Landscape offered this explaination, echoed by many other writers:

I've really wondered about that explaination in the last 15 years, following these sorts of stone rows that seem carefully made, that seem to be something else entirely, rows that may have already been there long before 1700.

By the way, this row travels across an outcrop:

It continues on the other side; here I'mlooking back at it:

In another place, at a right angle and to the west of a very long zigzag row, an immense linear wall meets up with another zigzag row, blocked sort of by the big fallen tree:

I would have stitched these three together, but somehow that panorama function has dissappered from the program it used to be in...

I'll meet you by the old chimney - it's there still, but the outhouse is gone....

Stone Snake Scales (Watertown CT) ~ 2008

Jan. 28, 2008

Seeing it as a Great Serpent Petroform, Aug. 3, 2016

"Lost Lake" Collection:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157671128700881

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/search?q=lost+lake

The Differences (West/East)

I woke up thinking about the differences between Shastina and Nonnewaug, after two or three weeks of thinking about the similarities (Shastina – little Shasta? Like my Grandmother Rose, whose real name it turned out was Rosina, little Rose in Italian on her birth certificate. What is the real name of Shastina?).


I just called the place I’ve been thinking about, so much I feel like I’ve been there, “Shastina” as in Lake Shastina, not even a lake until the 1930s. It is a name that isn’t even an Indian name. It is Indian based, Shasta an anglicized version of one of many Indian names for Mount Shasta, but Nonnewaug is different, the old Native American place-name for a ‘fishing place,’ possibly “in the middle” of, and this is just a guess, the floodplain fields.

Shastina (the area, I mean, having no other name to call it right now) is a place with Mountains All Around it – or at least dominated by views of one of the most beautiful mountains on Turtle Island, Mount Shasta. Nonnewaug is a floodplain valley surrounded by hills. There is no Big Mountain.

Alyssa Alexandria photo of Mount Shasta

http://www.relicsoftheancients.com/images/Shasta%20Valley/Lake%20Shastina%20Area/Alyssa%20Alexandria/Lake%20Shastina/055.jpg

There may be camps up in Shastina, places where people stayed while making use of the places there, oak groves, patches of prairie, and all that was lost when beavers were trapped and trees were cut down, when the burning was stopped and the cows and sheep came in, changing the ancient places, places with names. Nonnewaug was a village site, the Nonnewaug Wigwams at the end, but it was probably well known and well used, revisited, the waterfall making it a special place. It may have ended up a village site because the Falls was a special place of Spiritual Power, the music of the water, perhaps the Great Manitou’s Tears in that time of epidemics and the Pequot Massacre. Some say just a tenth of the population survived and perhaps the power of the Falls drew the survivors here.

And there’s the evidence on the landscape of glacial lake shores. What was the ancient name of that lake, still a fishing place but what other descriptive pieces were there to that word?

The stone rows here are a smaller web, defining and connecting smaller sections of land, many more springs and streams. The trees have grown back in here, a wounded forest where there once were groves of ancient trees, like on the hill above me to the west. The same devastation by the trapping and the tree cutting, trampled as well by sheep and dairy cattle browsing for food. That happened here much longer ago, the second half of the 1600’s, the early part of the 1700’s, Shastina in the 1850’s.

https://thetrustees.org/content/monument-mountain-history/

      There are special high places here along the Housatonic River, some close by and not-so-high, some at a greater distance - but what’s a great distance when the Great Spirit moves you? If I followed the Great River into where the Berkshire Mountains begin, I could and would (and have) stopped at Monument Mountain, the Giant’s Stone Pile below it on the east side, massive boulders covering a Giant whose name I don’t know, a story my Grandmother Rosina told me about when I was seven, as we stopped and walked around a little, on our way to Montreal. Somewhere on the west side is a stone pile I’ve never visited, but that I’ve heard and read has been visited in the past by a group of Native people who live in (Brotherton?) Wisconsin now and back track their own trail of tears to visit a monument to the ancestors left behind when these Christianized People slowly migrated along a route marked by Moravian Missionaries, towns named Bethlehem and Brotherton in what became states as the western frontier pushed farther and farther westward.
 

Norman Muller photo from: http://indianrockpiles.weetu.com/articles/RockPileTypes.html  (by P. Waksman)

The wounded and untended forest grew back here as the little farms began to vanish and the manufacturing migrated elsewhere. The beavers, decimated in Connecticut they say by 1500, once gone are returning, getting back to their jobs of creating ponds and, I like to think, restoring the richness of the landscape, packing mud into the fallen trees they make their dams with, just like that beaver in the Creation Story plopped down some mud on the back of the Great Turtle – when all the world was water – and created the soil of Turtle Island, the tree, perhaps a Great Oak – civilization around the world was tied to the presence of acorns as food – sprouting from it, giving birth to the first man and woman of the Turtle Clan, sprouting from root and branch tip of that tree…

Below: one of the first photos of what I call Turtle One, taken on 35mm film in June of 1997. This box turtle petroform was the first of all the other turtles and turtle forms I have found since. I respectfully disagree with the professionals who have looked at it and determined it was not enhanced by human hands or placed  as I believe it had been originally had when it was created. I don’t know the name of the person who created the petroform, but I know the name of this turtle is “Grandfather Turtle.” I heard about it from Trudie Richmond first, at a Pow wow where and when she told it from the circle of her heart  by the stone circle where the fire burned in the center of that circle inside the larger circle of tents, surrounded by the circle of the sky in the circle of the solar system inside the circle of the universe.

Take a walk around it:

I'll "doodle" a Turtle Vision for you:



Describing While Destroying an Indigenous Cultural Landscape (NY - 1779)

CONTINUATION OF NATHANIEL WEBB'S JOURNAL

---

As Published in the Elmira Republican of Sept. 11th and 12th, 1855.

---

Note—In the volume containing the "Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779," prepared by Frederick Cook, Secretary of State, and published by the State in 1887, on page 285 et seq, is published part of the Journal of Nathaniel Webb, and a note says that a portion of the Journal cannot be found.

In a scrap-book originally kept by Thos. Maxwell, Esq., which was recently bought in an old book shop in New York, I find the missing Journal, and give herewith the portion supposed to be lost.

WILLIAM WAIT.

Note—In Col. Gansevoort's Journal of the same expedition, the entry is as follows:

"31st.—Decamped at 8 o'clock,—marched over mountainous ground until we arrived at the forks of Newtown—there entered on a low bottom, (Tuttle's flats), crossed the Kayuga branch, (Newtown creek), and encamped on a pine plain. Much good land about Newtown. Here we left the Tioga branch to our left."

September 1.—The army moved at 8 A. M. Several defiles and a large swamp occasioned our Brigade to encamp about three miles in the rear of the army. The army encamped that night at Catharine's town. The enemy had all fled from this town the night before and left an old squaw.

2.—Our brigade joined the army at Catharine's town. Lay the remaining part of the day for refreshment, &c.

3.—We destroyed some five fields of corn and decamped at 8 A. M. Marched this day about 11 miles. Encamped that night near the banks of the Seneca Lake. Marched this day through a remarkable country for timber.

4.—Decamped at 9 A. M. Burnt a small town on this day's march. Encamped at 7 P. M. The country still remains well timbered.

5.—Decamped at 10 A. M. Marched this day about six miles. Encamped that night at Conoyah, a beautiful town situated between the Seneca and Kengah lakes—distance between those lakes 8 miles. (Gansevoort writes it Kandaiah.)

6.—Lay in encampment. This town is beautifully situated in several respects—a fine level country—some fine fields of corn, a fine apple orchard, about twenty houses—situated about twenty miles from Seneca lake. One white man deserted from the enemy that had been taken prisoner last summer from Wyoming. Several horses were captured at this town. Decamped at 4 P. M., moved about 4 miles. Encamped in a beautiful piece of woods near the Lake. Col. Gansevoort, of our Brigade, was sent to destroy Kengah town joining Kengah lake, where they burnt several houses, got about twenty horses, &c.

7.—Decamped. Marched to Kanadesago, a town situated about three miles from the west end of the lake, the capital of the Senecas. (This was what is called the old Castle near Geneva.) Crossing the Seneca creek (or outlet) and several large defiles occasioned our not arriving in town till some time in the evening. This town consists of about 60 houses. Several large fields of corn. We found a white male child the enemy had left behind.

8.—The army was employed in destroying corn, beans, fruit trees, &c. A detachment sent to destroy a town about 12 miles from this town. (This was Cashong, Kashonguash, on the west side of the Seneca.)

9.—All the sick and lame sent to Tioga. At 11 A. M. we marched, following the road that leads to Niagara. Marched about 13 miles. Encamped near a brook that night.

10.—Decamped at 6 A. M. Marched this day about 13 miles—part of the day through a swampy country, abounding chiefly in beech and maple, some remarkably large white ash trees—latter part of the day through a grassy country. Passed the end of Connandockque lake. Encamped near some fine fields of corn. This town contains about 20 houses.

11.—Decamped at 4 A. M., after destroying the town and vegetables, &c. Marched this day to Hannayouya (Honeoye). This town is situated at the end of a small Lake of the same name—contains about 15 houses—a large flat of excellent land.

12.—The provisions and superfluous baggage of the army were left at this town, with a guard of about 200 men and two field pieces. The army decamped at 11 A. M. and marched towards the Genesee flats. Marched about 10 miles and encamped in the woods—passed this day a small lake called Konyoughojoh.

13.—Decamped at 6 A. M. Marched about two miles and halted at Adjustah. This town contains about 26 houses. While we halted at this town, Lieut. Boyd, with 20 men of the Rifle Corps, was sent to the next town to reconnoiter the enemy. On his return about 700 of the enemy ambushed him, killed and took 18 of the party. After the corn, &c., was destroyed and the town set in flames, we moved off to the next town. Our brigade marched some miles around to gain the rear of the enemy, but as usual they had fled before us. This town contains about 18 houses, situated at the southern end of the Genesee flats, on the banks of a small river that leads into the Genesee river.

14.—9 A. M. the army decamped, passed the river, entered the Genesee flats. This flat is judged to contain near 6,000 acres. We passed the Genesee river. This river runs with a strong current out of a hilly country. Three miles below where we forded, is navigable to lake Ontario. We burnt a small town on the bank of the river and marched that night to Genesee castle. There the body of Lieut. Boyd and one man was found murdered in a barbarous manner, too horrid to mention. This town is the metropolis of that nation; contains about 140 houses. Some fine buildings in it; situated about 40 miles from Niagara, on the south side of the Genesee river. The soil is exceedingly rich for 10 or 12 miles along the river. In and about this town, it was judged there were 800 acres of corn, beans, and vegetables of every kind.

15.—The whole army was employed in destroying the corn, &c. Now the general having completed and fulfilled his orders, after destroying the corn and setting the town in flames, the army passed the river and encamped upon the flats. One woman and one child made their escape from the savages and came to us that evening.

16.—Lay by to destroy corn along the flats. Decamped at 10 A. M. Encamped at Aojuhtah.

17.—Decamped at gun firing. Encamped at Honeoye.

18.-Decamped at 10 A. M. that day to Canandaigua. Encamped on the east side of the Lake.

19.—Marched to Connadasago.

20.—A party of 900 men was detached under command of Col. Butler, to destroy the Kengah tribe, and a party of 100 men under command of Col. Gansevoort to destroy part of the Mohawk tribe. Decamped at 3 P. M. and encamped on the east side of Seneca Lake.

21.—A party of 100 men was detached under Col. Dearborn to destroy the towns on the west side of Kenkah lake. Decamped at 8 A. M., passed Candiah about three miles and encamped at 4 P. M.

22.—Decamped at 7 A. M. Encamped that night within seven miles of Catharine town.

24.—(23d.?) Decamped at 7 A. M., passed Catharine town and encamped near the Big Swamp that night.

24.—Decamped at 5 A. M., passed the swamp and halted some time for refreshment. Encamped that night at Fort Reed, where we met provisions and stores for the reception of the Army. Upon our arrival at this place, (now Elmira), 13 cannon were discharged from the fort and was returned from one of our pieces 15 times. The latter was discharged in the space of one minute and a half. Dried provisions, &c.

(Colonel Gansevoort's Journal notes the proceedings of this day as follows: "Passed the swamp so much dreaded from its badness, without any difficulty and arrived at the forks of Newtown, where Capt. Reed with a detachment of 200 men had thrown up a breastwork to guard some stores and cattle brought forward from Tioga for the army in case of necessity. Saluted by 13 rounds of cannon from the breast-work, which number we returned from our artillery.")

Fort Reed was on the west side of the Newtown creek and on the north bank of the Tioga, where the creek falls into the river. It was a breast-work and was surrounded by palisades including some three or four acres. The western line of palisades can be traced on the west side of the junction canal and on the east side of Water st., a little south of the Fair grounds. The Journal continues.

25.—All the loaded muskets in the army were discharged at 5 A. M. The army was drawn up in one line and fired three rounds per man. After the discharge of 13 cannon, for our new ally the King of Spain, several oxen were killed for the officers and men.

(Col. Gansevoort's Journal thus describes this affair: "25.—This morning the small arms of the whole army were discharged at 5 o'clock. The whole were drawn up in one line, with a field piece on the right of each brigade, to fire a feu de joie—1st. thirteen rounds of cannon; 2d. a running fire of musketry, from right to left—repeated twice. Fifty oxen were killed on this joyous occasion, one delivered to each Brigade and one to the Artillery and staff. This was done in consequence of Spain having declared war against Britain.")

26.—At 12 A. M., the party under command of Col. Dearborn came in after destroying a fine country on the west side of the Kengah Lake. They brought in two squaws with them.

27.—400 men under the command of Col. Courtland, was employed in destroying corn up the river. 30 boats arrived from Tioga.

28.—All the sick were sent to Tioga. The party under the command of Col. Butler, returned from destroying the Kengah tribe. They found a most beautiful country abounding in vast quantities of corn and vegetables of all kinds; the same party under command of Col. Courtland, was employed up the river; also, 500 men were employed down the river, towards Tioga, destroying corn and vegetables on the flats.

29.—Decamped 6 A. M. Encamped that night 3 miles below Chemung and within 3 miles of Tioga.

30.—Decamped at 6 A. M., arrived at Fort Sullivan at 1 P. M. Upon our arrival the garrison discharged 13 cannon and we returned the same. Pitched tents on the ground we occupied before.

October 3.—A party of 500 men turned out to load the boats and demolish Fort Sullivan. The army drew 6 days' flour to carry them to Wyoming.

4.—Decamped at 6 A. M. Passed the river and encamped that night within 5 miles of Standing Stone, near the river.

5.—All the cattle, stores and horses were sent down to Wyoming. The whole went on board the boats. The fleet got under way at 6 A. M.

6.—The fleet got under way at 9 A. M. Arrived at evening at Shawney Flats.

7.—The whole fleet got under way at 9 A. M., and arrived at Wyoming at 2 P. M. When it hove in sight 13 cannon were fired by the garrison and returned by the fleet. The army encamped near the garrison.

8.—Two hundred men were detached to repair the road from this post to Easton and to remain there until the army arrives.

10.—Gen. Sullivan set out for Easton, leaving the command to Gen. Clinton. Decamped at 11 A. M. Encamped that night at Bullock's tavern.

11.—The rear of the army came up to camp at 9 A. M. Marched this day and encamped between the Shades of Death and the Big Swamp.

12.—Decamped at 7 A. M. Encamped that night at the White Oak Run.

13.—Decamped at 8 o'clock in the morning. The army moved that day to Brink's Mills.

14.—Decamped at 10 A. M. Passed the Wind Gap and encamped that night within 12 miles of Easton.

15.—Decamped at 6 o'clock in the morning and arrived at Easton at 2 P. M. Encamped in the Forks of the Delaware on the bank of the Lehigh.

17.—Our Brigade mustered. The Rev. Parson Evans delivered a discourse to the army in the German church.

In the same volume is given a table of distances as traveled by the army from Easton to Genesee Castle, as surveyed by Mr. Lodge, Surveyor to the Western army:

From Easton to	Wyoming	65	miles
"	Lackawanna	75	"
"	Quelutinack	82	"
"	Tunkhannock Creek	93	"
"	Mesupin	102	"
"	Vanderlip's Farm	107	"
"	Wyalusing	115	"
"	Wysaching Creek	129-1/2	"
"	Tioga	145	"
"	Chemung	157	"
"	Forks at Newtown	165	"
"	French Catharines, or Evoquagah	183-1/2	"
"	Condiah, or Appleton	211	"
"	Outlet of Seneca Lake	222-1/2	"
"	Canadesaco, or Seneca Lake	226	"
"	Canandaigua	241-1/2	"
"	Honeoye	255	"
"	Adjustah	267-1/2	"
"	Gasagularah	274-1/2	"
"	Genesee Castle	280	"

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Proceedings of the New York Historical

Association [1906], by Various

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51218/51218-h/51218-h.htm

River Where the Sacred Stones Are Made - Oceti Sakonwin

 The force of those two rivers coming together formed a great whirlpool where perfectly round stones were created that are considered to be sacred to the Mandan, Arikara, Cheyenne, and the Oceti Sakonwin.

A friend thought I “might find the attached document from the Society of American Archaeology Government Affairs news update interesting.”

And I did.

As one of two solicited pieces on the crisis over the Dakota Access Pipeline in the Cannonball/Lake Oahe area, SAA asked Mr. Jon Eagle, the Tribal Historical Preservation Officer (THPO) of the Standing Rock Tribe of Sioux, to draft a column presenting his perspectives. The other solicited piece was that from Fern Swenson, Director of the Archaeology & Historic Preservation Division and Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer, State Historical Society of North Dakota, published in the November 2016 Government Affairs Update. Mr. Eagle's viewpoint is presented below. As with all solicited opinion in the Update, SAA provides a forum for the dissemination of knowledge and discussion. Views expressed are solely those of the writers, and the Society does not endorse, approve, or censor them. My name is Jon Eagle Sr. I was appointed Tribal Historic Preservation Officer by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Council on February 8th, 2016. The SRST/THPO manages and protects cultural resources, sacred areas, and sites within the boundaries of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe according to original boundaries of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 and 1868, and aboriginal homelands of the Oceti Sakonwin, or the Great Sioux Nation. Our language, creation stories, star knowledge, oral histories, and sacred knowledge are the database that allows me as a THPO to properly identify and evaluate a sacred site without having to disturb the ground.  The confluence of the Cannon Ball River and the Missouri River is a site of religious and cultural significance to the Oceti Sakonwin. The Cannon Ball River is known as Inyan Wakan Kagapi Wakpa (River Where the Sacred Stones Are Made). The Missouri River is known as Mni Sose (Turbulent Water). The force of those two rivers coming together formed a great whirlpool where perfectly round stones were created that are considered to be sacred to the Mandan, Arikara, Cheyenne, and the Oceti Sakonwin. This area was once a place of commerce, where traditional enemies camped within sight of each other. The tribes who visited this area had such reverence for the land that no blood was spilt in this sacred place. It contains sacred stones where the people to this day go to pray and ask for good direction, strength, and protection for the coming year. Several Sundances took place in this area because of the sacred nature of the rivers and the land. The Lakota/Dakota Oyate have seven sacred rites, and the Sundance is one of the most sacred. In the area is a sacred stone where our ancestors went to pray and ask for guidance. As a Lakota, I am fortunate enough to have traveled there with elders who are no longer with us, to pray and leave offerings, asking for good direction, strength, and protection on behalf of our people. The site of this stone is confidential and protected by this office. This place of prayer is still in use today. Today, Lake Oahe is where eagles nest. Eagles remain sacred to the Native American people. A Standing Rock spiritual leader, Everett Jamerson, once told me, "The eagle is considered sacred to our people because out of all the winged, they fly the highest. They fly so high they can see the curve of grandmother earth and know what's coming." It's common among the Lakota to make offerings of tobacco when eagles are sighted. An eagle feather is one of the highest honors of an individual's deeds. People still go to the water to pray and make offerings so that all life sustained by our river may live. All life is considered sacred and is dependent upon the Missouri River. Water defined our ancestral territory. Stone features, burial cairns, and stone effigies can be found near water on hill tops, along ridges, hillsides, and drainages.             The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' hydroelectric dams in our grandparents' time adversely affected our Traditional Cultural Landscape without even bothering to inform our people. It wasn't until the water came that they realized the river was flooding. Relatives and communities who lived on the river bottomland tell many sad stories about the deep spiritual wound this caused. Those two rivers no longer produce the sacred stones. When people lost the river bottom, they lost traditional foods and medicine, and diabetes, heart disease, and obesity grew among our people. Without meaningful consultation, archaeologists lack the cultural awareness and sensitivities to identify sites of religious and cultural significance to tribes. Only the tribes themselves have that ability, as acknowledged by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in its Policy Statement Regarding Federal Relationships with Tribal Historic Preservation Officers of November 6, 2014. September 2, 2016, SRST lawyers filed an emergency injunction in Washington, DC, based upon former THPO Tim Mentz's survey August 28-September 2, documenting over 80 stone features and 27 ancient burials. The 2015 Cultural Resource Survey prepared for the Dakota Access Pipeline by the contractor mentioned no sites along the construction corridor. Archaeologists would have literally walked right over these sites and not seen what was on the ground. On September 3, DAPL knowingly destroyed sites of religious and cultural significance to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, violating the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, North Dakota state law, and the terms of the permit issued by the Public Service Commission. The SRST/THPO sent a letter to the North Dakota State Historic Preservation Office asking for a Stop Work Order, so our office could evaluate the damage to our sites. I followed up with an in-person meeting, where we discussed our request. The ND Deputy SHPO agreed to conduct an on-site investigation in conjunction with our office. We learned later that ND SHPO and the State Archaeologist conducted an investigation in September 2016 without consulting with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Also in September 2016, the Natural History Museum [an alliance of natural history museums, Ed.] sent a letter signed by over 1,200 archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and museum personnel[1] to the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice, Department of Interior, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, condemning the destruction of our sacred sites and burials. Another, from the American Anthropological Association, said, "the US Army Corps of Engineers granted environmental clearances and construction permits without consulting the Standing Rock tribal government in a meaningful way."[2] Section 101(d)(6)(b) of the NHPA requires that federal agencies carrying out their Section 106 responsibilities consult with any Indian tribe attaching religious and cultural significance to historic properties that may be affected by an undertaking. The confluence of the Cannon Ball and Missouri Rivers is a Traditional Cultural Landscape containing ancient village sites, burial cairns, stone features, stone effigies, and sacred sites with religious and cultural significance to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Our people still travel to these sacred areas for prayers and ceremonies. The Dakota Access Pipeline will have an adverse effect on this. [1] [Ed:  http://thenaturalhistorymuseum.org/archaeologists-and-museums-respond-to-destruction-of-standing-rock-sioux-burial-grounds/] [2] [Ed: http://www.americananthro.org/ParticipateAndAdvocate/AdvocacyDetail.aspx?ItemNumber=20656 ]

http://www.saa.org/

A Developing Situation (Watertown CT)

 

3 X's mark the spot slated for development...

I knew the place well, once a neighbor's farm, 

A short walk from my parents' house,

A place of wonder both back then and now...

I first learned to read the landscape there,

Fields and wetlands and of course stonewalls,

Bedrock outcrops and farm junk and of course stonewalls,

Earthen dams and wildlife,

Turtles and Herons and Beavers,

And of course stonewalls...

Especially if they were "zigzag stonewalls:" 

Flickr Album "Lost Lake" Collection:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34580529@N04/albums/72157671128700881

By 2008, I'd unlearned  a certain bias against the thought that all "stonewalls" were of post contact origin and that a zigzag row of stones might not be an accidental construction of field clearing stones thrown up against a Snake or Virginia Rail fence made of wood...

Zigzags and linear stone rows on a LiDar image,

Some are quite massive and are easily seen, 

While some others don't show all that well,

Especially those bordering former Indigenous "wetland gardens"...

This photo below was taken facing north/north northwest,

A probable Snake Effigy on the outcrop behind it:

The Distribution Center would obliterate the Indigenous Stonework Effigy:

Another spot along the massive row of stacked stones,

A Qusukqaniyutôk, a ‘stone row, enclosure’ Harris and Robinson, 2015:140, ‘fence that crosses back’ viz. qussuk, ‘stone,’ Nipmuc or quski, quskaca, ‘returning, crosses over,’ qaqi, ‘runs,’ pumiyotôk, ‘fence, wall,’ Mohegan, Mohegan Nation 2004:145, 95, 129) wall (outdoor), fence, NI – pumiyotôk plural pumiyotôkansh.) - Nohham Rolf Cachat-Schilling

Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, Vol. 77, No. 2 Fall 2016

https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1202&context=bmas

Stones stacked on a boulder,

A "Stone Prayer," 

A káhtôquwuk:

A kind of stone pile,

Or a stone heap,

 something that is heaped high,

 ceremonially,

 religiously, 

by placing one stone above another stone, 

“Invested with prayers for the balance of the universe.”

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2022/03/kahtoquwuk-stone-prayers.html

I'm pretty sure that this "site" is included in the Nonnewaug or CT Cluster #3

in Dr. Curtiss Hoffman's inventory of suspected Indigenous Stone Constructions:

https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/products/9781634990493

I'm not a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer

and can't give this an official designation as a

Ceremonial Stone Landscape site

but I'm very reasonably certain that it is...

Possibly, a Turtle Effigy:

A smaller Snake or Great Serpent Effigy:

An overlay with an eye and some horns:

  Certain features, such as the linked outcrops and boulders etc., are reminiscent of features found in the Oley hills of PA, some of which are quite possibly thousands of years old, once thought to be "colonial or post colonial field clearing stones:" 

"More than 5000 rock structure sites are found in northeastern United States, but their cultural attribution has long been debated. Some argue than many are prehistoric in origin, while others maintain they all date to colonial times. Few have been dated, and of those that have, the association of the dated material and the rocks can be challenged. Here, we provide luminescence analysis on the rocks themselves at a large site in eastern Pennsylvania. Our results suggest an age coeval with the Adena culture of the Ohio Valley."

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0197693120920492?icid=int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.3

Added Monday, December 04, 2023

To the Watertown CT Planning and Zoning Commission:

   My name is Tim MacSweeney, a former Watertown Resident from 1956 to 1974 who has spent a great deal of time exploring the stone walls, trails, ponds, fields, and woodlands of the Panilaitis Farm, now a proposed site of development that includes a 767,000 sq. ft. distribution center and 150 units of residential housing.

  In 1990, I became interested in what has since become known as Native American Ceremonial Stone Landscapes and have spent the last 33 years as an Independent Researcher of these types of Cultural Landscapes. My particular area of study is the stacked stone structures that are often misidentified as “Yankee Farmer’s Stone Walls.” It was in fact on the property in question, the former Paniliatis Farm, that I first observed what are known as Zig-zag stone walls, conjectured to be remnants of colonial agriculture, the stone remains of field clearing stones tossed against wooden Virginia Rail Fences that have since decomposed, an idea popularized by the artist and writer Eric Sloane in the 1950s.

  In recent years, similar stone constructions, also long believed to be related to farming by European Americans over the last 400 years, have proven to be far older. One such Ceremonial Stone Landscape in Pennsylvania has been dated by a process known as Optically Stimulated Luminescence to 500 B.C. according to a study by James Feathers and my friend Norman Muller.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0197693120920492?icid=int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.3

  Another site in Massachusetts appears to be about 3,595 years old, according to a study by Shannon Mahan of the Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center.

https://www.usgs.gov/data/optically-stimulated-luminescence-osl-data-and-ages-selected-native-american-sacred-ceremonial

  On the landscape that was the former Paniliatis Farm, these rows of stones border the wetlands, pass over out crops of bedrock, and sometimes become linear rows of stones, all characteristics that are very similar those found in the sites in PA and MA, as well as at a Preserve in Hopkinton, Rhode Island whose age is in the range of 1570-1490 C.E (or 490 ± 40 years ago).

 I'm neither a credentialed Anthropologist/Archaeologist nor a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer and can't give this an official designation as a Ceremonial Stone Landscape site but I'm very reasonably certain that it is...

  My question to the committee would be:

Has an Archaeological Assessment been performed that includes consultation with Tribal Historic Preservation Offices regarding these irreplaceable Cultural Resources?

Sincerely,

Tim MacSweeney

timmacs@yahoo.com

29 Nonnewaug Road

Woodbury CT