Beehive Shrine Found

Stone Shrine Has Winter Solstice Alignment

Last May I was exploring a area of woods that was new to me.  I decided to explore this area because I noticed some nice Native-style stone-wall terracing.  I started out noticing "cairns" at this site (Native American rock piles, or effigies, stacked in symmetrical patterns, usually on a boulder platform, with many distinct features).  

As I rose in elevation I saw more awesome-looking cairns and many charred tree stumps/ trees on the ground from lightning strikes- which in my mind (and is conducive with Native beliefs) tells me that this is a place of natural energy, for so many lightning strikes to have happened here.  There is also a nice look-out spot on a nearby ridge, where one must have been able to see quite a distance without the modern tree line of newer growth.  

Anyway, I found what some researchers with NEARA who I later took to the spot (in June) called a "Beehive Structure" which is a type of Native Shrine.  The NEARA members, who included Holliston Town Historian Joanne Hulbert, NEARA cordinators Walter Van Rogen, Peter Annick,   and State Archaeologist Dr. Curt Hoffman determined the shrine had a Winter Solstice alignment (and perhaps other equinox/ solstice alignments.) 

Here are some pictures of the site: 

   The 1st and 3rd pictures are of the Beehive Shrine.  The 2nd picture is an interesting part of a stone wall/row that runs through the area (with "standing stones") and the 4th pic is a cairn (with a split) that is directly nearby to the beehive shrine, which I do not think the NEARA researchers got a chance to look at.  There were more cairns nearby in the general area, I will have to take pictures of them another time.  This site is around an area near the Medway/ Holliston town line, some of the features are in modern-day Holliston, some in Medway.  The Holliston town historian Joanne Hulbert thought strongly that the site is associated with Pout Lane, an old American Indian path/road that went through this area.  No one seemed to have any prior knowledge of this structure before I noticed it.