Have mainstream scholars studied New England's megaliths?

[rako]

The line of stones with a meander / stone "row" has not been dated and looks like it could have been erected any time

This is why I'd like to have professionals examine this site. If it has lots of Amerindian artifacts, pillars from a loghouse, and then we find the stone row, it should be worth a real study.

One of the archaeologists of the mainstream CNEA said that the Dighton Rock and Bellows Falls petroglyphs are certainly authentic Amerindian ones.

[rako]

How about these "facts":

FACT: Indians in New England in both pre- and post-contact New England did indeed use sacred sites featuring structures built of field stones.

FACT: In Rhode Island there exists what has been called by some historians the Narragansett stony fort complexes. Queen's Fort, Wolf Rocks, Fort Ninigret, Great Swamp, Rolling Rock, and Shumunkanuc Fort are six examples. These sites were all either described historically as having been built using stone, or are still intact enough to this very day to actually see the stone structures. One of these forts -- Queen's Fort -- is on the National Register of Historic Places as a Narragansett site.
http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2009/09/g ... wrong.html

FACT: The historical evidence strongly suggests that Indians in New England built their sweat-lodges out of field stones. Often, they walled up the opening of a natural talus cave or rock shelter.
http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2009/09/g ... wrong.html

The writer implies that the hole at the top of Gungywamp's chambers served a practical Native American purpose (like letting out steam from a sweat lodge)


Part of Queen's Fort

[Tiompan]

There is no shortage of genuine Amerindian petroglyphs .

Note how there is nothing like these at Gungywump .

[Tiompan]

But none of the "facts " are evidence for Amerindians having built the the structures or provides a date for them .
Looks like the author isn't too impressed with the letter either .

[rako]

But none of the "facts " are evidence for Amerindians having built the the structures or provides a date for them .

This is why I think a mainstream team of archaeologists should investigate the site - we know it is a mix of Amerindian and colonial settlement and we don't know who built which structures or when, or even if the builders were Dutch or English.

It seems like a good place to have a real analysis done, don't you think?

[rako]

There is no shortage of genuine Amerindian petroglyphs .

Note how there is nothing like these at Gungywump .

The stone piles at Gungwamp are something like Amerindian stone piles elsewhere like at Queen's Fort, ie. piles of rocks in stone or circle formation. This is more reason for a real study to be done.

As to the petroglyph, Image 17/20:
http://www.damnedct.com/gungywamp-groton
The carving doesn't impress me.

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi Rako

I enjoyed the map of the distribution of nations which you posted, but it is post contact.

The best place to start is most likely with this article:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/n ... 14481/?all

Now to start off with few notes on general apparat:
There were no "Mounbdbuilders" as one distinct people.
Different peoples used earth as a construction material to build structures for a variety of different purposes.
"mounds" are the ruins of those structures after the passage of a time of abandonment or being driven away.
There were no "Adena" people; Adena is the name of a material culture.
Based on the physical evidence, the people who produced those material remains were Andaaste.
The were no "Hopewell" people; the term is generally used to refer to the material cultures of a number of peoples,
in very different and widely separated regions,
who adopted a general form of tribal alliance and laws of diplomatic interaction.

I do not know if your statement about solar alignments is correct.
I leave astronomical analysis to my colleague Fletcher Wilson, who is one of Ohio's best naked eye astronomers.

The R Y haplogoup allele distribution is interesting, but probably useless, based on Hardachre's Observation.
In Europe it has been found that mt DNA is about the only useful genetic diagnostic at this point of time in the development of genetic studies.

As far as any pattern in R Y distribution goes, if you place the Americas on the right side of your map of it,
and then remember that the Thule people pretty well died off at the time of Viking contact,
to be replaced by Inuit (as near as I remember),
then the northern distribution may make sense, but not the sub-Saharan African distribution.
IN general keep in mind that ANY proposed genetic evidence must be consistent with the archaeological evidence.

[quote="Rako"]
South America is quite a far distance from New England. It's hard to use that as a way to match up artifacts found in Northern US or Canadian sites.
[/qoute]

The "Solutrean " artifacts in question were found on the floor of the Chesapeake Bay, not in New England.
Yes, but we now know that man was using boats quite early, and can pretty well show that Clovis technologies
came from South America to the Gulf Coast of North America.

I'm not going to go into the differences between European dolmens and North American glacial eratics,
other than to note that there are a lot of nuts out there who try to build imaginary pre-Columbian European empires in the Americas.

Copper came from 4 sources:
First, Lake Superior,
Second, float copper from the mid-continent which was deposited there from Lake Superior by glaciers,
Third, Copper Hill North Carolina,
Fourth, a small deposit in the SE US, which I am not going to speak of.
I will simply point out that with the advent of metal detectors,
one of the finest collections of Old Copper Culture artifacts is in the hands of a private collector.

Rako, you have to remember that the money for archaeological work in North America is in general very very limited.
The colonists only interest in the native peoples was how to use them for profit,
get their lands,
and get rid of them.
The racism persists to this day,
as literal genocide is followed by cultural genocide.

The first researchers' interest was mainly in how to make the native peoples fit into a literal interpretation of the Bible.

A few argued that the natives were people, and deserved to be treated as such.

Then came nuts of other religious varieties.

[Tiompan]

There is no shortage of genuine Amerindian petroglyphs .

Note how there is nothing like these at Gungywump .

The stone piles at Gungwamp are something like Amerindian stone piles elsewhere like at Queen's Fort, ie. piles of rocks in stone or circle formation. This is more reason for a real study to be done.

As to the petroglyph, Image 17/20:
http://www.damnedct.com/gungywamp-groton
The carving doesn't impress me.

Rako ,

The non cairns I was referring to were in your pic (with a marker site 10 ) that is between the pics of the "row " and the erratic .
They are not like the "piles " and more like clearance .
There are continual mentions of petroglyphs at the site .I have only seen pics of one , and it is far from impressive , and of course even if it was man made it could have been engraved at any time .

[E.P. Grondine]

There is no shortage of genuine Amerindian petroglyphs .

Note how there is nothing like these at Gungywump.

The stone piles at Gungwamp are something like Amerindian stone piles elsewhere like at Queen's Fort, ie. piles of rocks in stone or circle formation. This is more reason for a real study to be done.

As to the petroglyph, Image 17/20:
http://www.damnedct.com/gungywamp-groton
The carving doesn't impress me.

The non cairns I was referring to were in your pic (with a marker site 10 ) that is between the pics of the "row " and the erratic .
They are not like the "piles " and more like clearance .
There are continual mentions of petroglyphs at the site .I have only seen pics of one , and it is far from impressive , and of course even if it was man made it could have been engraved at any time .[/quote]

Rako , tiompan -

The problem being that given the limited funds for archaeology,
we do not know the dates for anything.
The clearing could have been made for the line of stones,
which in themselves may be a natural formation used for ceremonial purposes.

But as we have no definite data,
people are free to form any speculations they want to.
Such fact free speculations are indicative of the individual's biases,
and nothing more.

That said, at Gungywomp(?sp) they have found
"...Native American artifacts include arrowheads, stone flakes and pottery fragments."

No statement as to the types of the "arrowheads", nor as to their chert sources,
The same for the pottery fragments.
No carbon 14 dates for the hearths.

[rako]

Hi Rako

I enjoyed the map of the distribution of nations which you posted, but it is post contact.

The map is not having a post contact R1-M173 population in the Americas

One reason is the question why there is so much more R1 DNA in north central canada than in Missouri, Texas, California, or Latin America, which were settled by R1B Euopeans?
Second reason - R1b of Post Contact Europeans is not R1-M173.

The best place to start is most likely with this article:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/n ... 14481/?all

Anything particular in the article you want to show me?

I do not know if your statement about solar alignments is correct.

Giovanni Peebles explained in her book about vermont that the colonists liked to line up their buildings toward the sun to warm them up.
Maybe there are other such mundane explanations.

I leave astronomical analysis to my colleague Fletcher Wilson, who is one of Ohio's best naked eye astronomers.

The R Y haplogoup allele distribution is interesting, but probably useless, based on Hardachre's Observation.
In Europe it has been found that mt DNA is about the only useful genetic diagnostic at this point of time in the development of genetic studies.

As far as any pattern in R Y distribution goes, if you place the Americas on the right side of your map of it,
and then remember that the Thule people pretty well died off at the time of Viking contact,
to be replaced by Inuit (as near as I remember),
then the northern distribution may make sense, but not the sub-Saharan African distribution.

That's a different issue in Africa that demands its own line of research. Until then I don't see it debunking the existence of the R1B group as a real group.

IN general keep in mind that ANY proposed genetic evidence must be consistent with the archaeological evidence.

South America is quite a far distance from New England. It's hard to use that as a way to match up artifacts found in Northern US or Canadian sites.

Actually there is a theory of Mesoamerican influence on the Mound Builder Culture of the Mississippi, like how they got corn. One can see similarity in their artiefacts too.
So if the Mesoamerican culture or even travelers could get to Cahokia in the Illinois-Missouri area..... one could post an offshoot or version going up to New England. Anyway, there was contact I think between Easter Island and South America before the time of John Cook's Arrival. The Mesoamericans could have gone north on their continent for exploration.

I am not particularly advocating that theory though.

The "Solutrean " artifacts in question were found on the floor of the Chesapeake Bay, not in New England.
Yes, but we now know that man was using boats quite early, and can pretty well show that Clovis technologies
came from South America to the Gulf Coast of North America.

Maybe it's hard to show the direction in which they went?

I'm not going to go into the differences between European dolmens and North American glacial eratics,
other than to note that there are a lot of nuts out there who try to build imaginary pre-Columbian European empires in the Americas.

Copper came from 4 sources:
First, Lake Superior,
Second, float copper from the mid-continent which was deposited there from Lake Superior by glaciers,
Third, Copper Hill North Carolina,
Fourth, a small deposit in the SE US, which I am not going to speak of.
I will simply point out that with the advent of metal detectors,
one of the finest collections of Old Copper Culture artifacts is in the hands of a private collector.

Rako, you have to remember that the money for archaeological work in North America is in general very very limited.

[/quote]
OK, well Upton spent 400,000$ to buy the Upton Chamber, and Massachussetts or the Federal Government paid a ton of money and competed with a private NY organization to buy the land of Dighton Rock.
Stonehenge USA probably makes alot of money from tourists.

PEACE.

[rako]

That said, at Gungywomp(?sp) they have found
"...Native American artifacts include arrowheads, stone flakes and pottery fragments."

No statement as to the types of the "arrowheads", nor as to their chert sources,
The same for the pottery fragments.
No carbon 14 dates for the hearths.

David Barron, founder of the Gungywamp Society in 1979, led the excavations and consulted with Connecticut State Archaeologist Dr. Nicholas Bellantoni, who estimates that this Native American ledge site's oldest artifacts may possibly date as far back to at least 1,500 to 2,000 BC. Mr. Barron recorded his findings at the Vogt Indian Ledge Shelter Site:

Late Woodland type of Iroquois pottery (1,200 to 1,600 AD) and cedar stokes were found at the 25 cm level within the eroded 'apron' soil. Early Woodland projectile points and kiln-dried, grass-tempered pottery, bones, and lithic tools were unearthed just within the shelter itself. Archaic times are represented by crude, dentate pottery tempered with sandy pebbles, projectile points, hammer stones and fired hearth stones. At the 35 to 50 cm level laboratory samples of charcoal match the known age of several unique projectile points (Susquehanna Points circa 500 to 1,500 BC), giving radio carbon dates as early as 770 BC.

http://www.dpnc.org/gungywamp/

[E.P. Grondine]

HI Rako -

Well, it is good to know that better archaeology was done at that site.

But all of this is far from my interests.
If you find any indication of impact phenomena,
be sure let me know.

Based on what evidence of impact tsunami has been recovered so far by archaeology,
I expect evidence for a major one from coastal sites may be found about 1,000 BCE.
See the end date for Canadian Red Paint.

Remember that the US and Canada did not exist in the ancient past,
and the division of archaeological reports by modern governmental boundaries
meant/means nothing to native peoples.

Since there is now a Center for New England Archaeology,
I suppose that someday they'll have at least the basic occupational sequence
sorted out.
But be sure to read my note on very very limited funding.

You may enjoy spending your time trying to sot it all out as well.

But all in all, I' myself would rather by toweling through tsunami deposits on Crete.

[Ernie L]

The holed stone of lancaster NH reminds me of the well cover stones I have seen. I live in rural New England. http://oldwoodworkshop.com/salvaged_antique_stone.htm

hmm that link didn't last long..try this one http://www.oldenewenglandsalvage.com/st ... ne148.html

[rako]

Dear EP Grondine,

If you find any indication of impact phenomena,
be sure let me know.

I found:

3270 BC: New England; Elm collapse

New England elm collapse: 4650 BP-1950+570= 3270 BC Cause remains controversial.

3250 BC: New England; Hemlock decline New England

Decline in hemlock pollen in 45 New England lakes. The date of the disappearance is 4650 yrs BP with a standard deviation of 300 years.

http://web.stanford.edu/~meehan/donnellyr/3000bc.html

How about it?

Based on what evidence of impact tsunami has been recovered so far by archaeology,
I expect evidence for a major one from coastal sites may be found about 1,000 BCE.
See the end date for Canadian Red Paint.

Interesting theory.

What do you think of the claim that there was a Vela Supernova that brightened the sky of Mesopotamia in 10,000-8,000 BC about the time that settlement agriculture began and it made an impact on their cultural development?

[circumspice]

@ Rako: A heads up for you... You won't be making any converts & you won't be gaining any advocates. Just sayin'...