Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Wachusett Street (site 3)

************[Continued from previous post, see map]***********
From there we went back to the car and continued west until the Country Club fence ended and we parked on the south side of the road, at 3 on the map. We walked downhill under the pine trees in an area with newer and older stone walls.

I came across an interesting site, with piles very deeply buried and what seemed like a clear and deliberate placement of piles with respect to small standing stones. Here are three views of the first standing stone, looking at it over piles from two directions. In the first, the line from pile to stone is roughly south.
Here is a detail of the stone:Right next to this was another small standing stone with a pile just north of it:
To me this seemed like a little calendar site. One way or the other, it is something different from what I am used to. All the other sites of the day fit into one or another more familiar pattern.

There were some other low piles, which looked like ground piles (not supported on a larger base rock).
The second photo, Bruce's has peeled away a thick layer of duff from a hollow in a boulder. I think he was hoping to find a bowl but instead he found a little rock pile in there. After a couple of photos, he put the layer of duff back in place.

Since this was a third site and we had seen plenty, we headed back uphill towards the car. Passing an outcrop, there were several more deeply buried piles, and also a carefully built rock-on-rock:
Then as we came back to a flat are in the woods right along the road. Since we could see out east towards the open space of the Country Club it was clear that this was a place with a very commanding view and a horizon slightly below the horizontal. There were a number of piles scattered in the woods here, just a few yards from the road.
These were not such spectacular piles and I was getting hungry and tired, so we went back to the car and I urged Bruce to dis-continue further exploration so we could head back the way we came.

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