The Curious Case of Doctor Hives’ Parsimonious Razor Stones

 Wherein Sherlock Stones and Doctor Possum find evidence of field clearing (finally) at a Hilltop Farm

  Touring the early April woods on top of ______’s Hill, astounded by the vast amount of Indigenous Stonework, Sherlock Stones paused on the trail by the gateway into “FIELD,” as it was marked on the map. Retired Rocket Surgeon Dr. John Possum, his associate consultant partner and longtime friend exclaimed, “Just look at the details in the stacking of that so-called ‘Stone Wall!’”

   Sherlock Stones laughed as Possum began photo-documenting “turtle after turtle” and “snake over snake over snake over snake.” 

"With all the trees and brush, it's difficult to get a good capture," Possum was saying.. 

    The "Stone Wall Detective" stepped up closer to the Ceremonial Stone Landscape feature and said, “If you want some details, look here on top of our alleged aesthetic farm maintenance sheep fence and linear trash heap, my good Possum. One might find this an interesting small detail resting on top.”

   Possum chuckled, moving closer with the camera, remarking, “A small Manitou Stone! ‘Hidden in Plain Sight,’ as they say!”

   Sherlock Stones considered a moment and then said, “One can’t rule out the stone tool aspect of this one. Wear from usage, under close examination, might reveal that the stone rests on the working edge. It could be ground smooth from work as a “Muller Stone” as I like to call them, ground smooth processing some kind of plant material.”

   “Or battered from usage as a hammer stone,” Possum interjected. “It’s entirely possible that we aren’t all that far from  ‘Hatchet Harbour’ where the Regicide Judges hid out in the ‘wilderness’ around New Haven. The name comes from one of them saying “If only we had a hatchet!” and then finding an Indian stone hand axe ‘at their feet.”

   “Or perhaps on a similar sort of stone construction,” Sherlock Stones remarked. “We shall never know for certain.” He turned and headed for the gateway into the ‘FIELD.’

   “I say Sherlock!” Possum called to his friend. “You aren’t going to bother to look?”

   Sherlock laughed, “You yourself just called it a Manitou Stone as your first impression! I’m not about to disturb someone’s possible Stone Prayer, pointing upward and a little westward.” He pointed to a stone in the gateway, “I’d no sooner think of moving that much larger “head and shoulders” sort of Manitou Stone right there!”

   “Leave it to an atheist to respect what the religious consider pagan superstition,” Possum remarked.

    Possum quickened his pace to catch up with his friend and associate who was already a third of the way across the meadow. “This is what I remember of my childhood, passing through fields such as these, all too quickly disappearing,” Sherlock stones was saying. “The name of that kind of grass is on the tip of my tongue, introduced by the English, if I recall correctly.”

Looking Northeast from by the gateway into the FIELD,

an undulating probable Snake Effigy

  “Look at the contours, the sort of mounding or something, of the FIELD,” the doctor said, looking up the hillside from the path that stretched along parallel to the stone bordered roadside. “Is it “mounded” on purpose like contour plowing or is it something else?”

      By now Sherlock had stopped by another gateway, behind the ‘colonial foundation’ and the small house lot site between them and the old stone bound trail that had become the road, said to be named for the occupant of the now long gone house. Possum‘s attention was taken by the distinct multiple rows of stones. He said, “Well this to the right appears to be one of those trails assumed to be a “cow path” or a “cart path,” but composed as it is with obvious Indigenous Iconography, I’m going to assume it’s ancient and appropriated. It’s these other rows of stones that puzzle me. They seem to be unceremoniously, but rather neatly laid out in long lines at this edge of the field.”

    “Path of least resistance?” Sherlock pondered. “All downslope of the hill top, but gently angled…”

    “For Goodness Sakes!” Possum chuckled. “Here’s us finding and looking at Dr. Timothy Hives’ Hilltop Farm Clearing hypothesis – but in reverse, as that other Timothy McSomething-Or-Other claims!”

    "Well," Sherlock mused, "Like many others, Hives is recalling Eric Sloane and imagined "stoning bees" such as Sloane conjectured from a certain "Nothing Happened Here Before 1620" point of view, sometime in the 1950s. You might recall the drawing:"

   “If we are in an area of a great concentration of Ceremonial Stone Landscape features, where one cannot ‘swing a cat’ without risking serious injury to the cat on a stone feature, then we may well be looking right at evidence of his ‘Fellow Tim’s’ alleged delusion – as Hives calls it in his non-archaeological ad hominem attack masquerading as a "book" about the so-called (Disco Music Loving) Ceremonial Stone Landscape Movement.”

Timothy McFellow's 'Opposing Hypothesis' drawing,

 clearly plagiarizing Eric Sloane

   “Are these rows of stones sorted by size?’ Possum was asking. “Is this a stockpile of stones for sale? Would this colonial foundation and long gone home owner be the family member who became a stone mason, an architect in New Haven, and a later quarry owner? Here’s marks related to breaking stone with blasting powder! Is this a hand axe? Is that a –“

   But Sherlock Stones was headed toward more “heaps of stones,” those “rock piles” said to be stacked as reserves for stone fence building. Some appeared to be built on the ground while others rested on boulder. Stopping at a suspected glacial erratic with just one or two stones perched on it, Sherlock called out, “Look here Possum! Here on this boulder: a Cubist Turtle Effigy, one might say…”

Note: Dr Possum sends these images to me later this morning, so I include them here now:

"Looking toward the 'Stockpile' from way up above, at perhaps a modified segment of a row of stones," Dr. Possum writes: "A modification for wooden rails - a "bar way?" An Indigenous laborer's modification that doesn't compromise the Serpent Stacking? These are not far from contact era Indigenous settlements, known Paugussett settlements such as Chuse Town and others..."