Beaver Brook Pt 4- "Alpha" Mound (Mound C) & More Terraced Wall

Beaver Brook Pt 4- "Alpha" Mound (Mound C) & More Terraced Wall 

Mound C which I have decided to call "Alpha" Mound because it is the largest, and on the highest elevation compared to the other stone mounds along the upper banks of Beaver Brook.  Alpha Mound also has the most interesting and noteworthy features.  The mound is terraced, or perhaps spiraled in a "pyramidal" design, capped with an obvious pyramid-shaped Standing Stone at the top center of the mound.  There are also several hollows within the different terraced levels of the mound.  Here are the pics-

Top layer and Standing Stone-

Close-up of the pyramid-shaped Standing Stone capping the top center of the mound.  Do I detect a worn-out petro-glyph on this stone?  Even without modern environmental problems, New England's rain is slightly more acidic than most other places-  

The back of the top center Standing Stone reveals it to be worked-out in a classic "god-stone" or Algonquin Manidoo stone shape (Mavor and Dix, in "Manitou" compared this shape to the god-stones associated with Earthen Mounds in Ohio and other places) -

A cairn directly behind the Stone Mound C.  Did this function as an offering/donation pile?-

Stone Mound C from a distance-

Stone wall features, terracing a rocky ledge-

 Stone wall terracing-

Level 1 terrace, perhaps retaining the water from the brook, and Level 2 terrace running horizontally across the hillside-

Terracing levels-

Stone wall terrace 3, running vertically up the rocky ledge, w/ stone mound c in the background.  This is also the same stone wall section I posted here- http://www.nativenewenglandstones.blogspot.com/2015/03/college-rock-in-snow-pt-2-ancient.html 

Native people with an ancient stone-building tradition did this.  Same wall as last pic, running into the brook-

Stay tuned for Beaver Brook Pt 5- Water-works!  It only gets better...

Beaver Brook Pt 3- Stone Mounds A & B, Some Stone Wall Features

Beaver Brook Pt 3- Stone Mounds A & B, Some Stone Wall Features

Stone Mound A, in six different angles:

(you can see across the stream from the mound, the two layers of terraced stone walls.  the first level was probably for retaining the water, as water levels were higher in pre-colonial times; the second level, if you can make it out on this cheap camera, is at the top of the hill)-

(stepping back a bit- again; you can see the terraced walls on the other side of the brook)-

The brook & the terraced stone walls, creating a pyramidal terrace effect along the whole bank/ hill of the brook-

Stone wall near mounds A and B.  Also a view of the other side of the brook-

Same as the last pic-

Upstream from Mounds A and B:

Stone wall running into a boulder outcrop along the banks of the brook-

All along the bank of the brook-

Stone Mound B-

Hollow in Stone Mound B-

Beaver Brook Pt 2- Collapsed Structure & Hillside Cairns

Beaver Brook Pt 2- Collapsed Structure & Hillside Cairns

On the bank along Beaver Brook, is this jumble of knocked-over stones strewn about.  There are no modern quarry marks on these stones yet this is not a glacial dumpage.  These stones have been worked-out in different sized shapes and I am of the impression that these stones have been knocked over, indicating this is the remains of a pre-colonial native stone structure.  There are even shapes of stones that appear to be roof slabs for a Chamber.  After seeing photos of some of the structures at America's Stonehenge that were in a totally ruined state before restoration, I am pretty sure this is what I am looking at here-

Knocked over columns, possible roof-slab in the right corner of the pic (shown towards the center in the last pic)-

Roof-slab in the center-

On one of the sides where the entrance to the structure would have been, this Standing Stone is still in place, vertically in the ground-

Niche spot in the stone wall leading up to the knocked over chamber/ structure (a sacred object may have once been placed in such a niche, stolen by early explorers).  The tip of the standing stone is seen in the right corner-

A view from across the brook-

The adjacent hill-side.  Nice cairn marker-

The side view of what may have once been a stone effigy, perhaps the head of a turtle or a snake, over-looking the site-

View B of the head-stone-

Another adjacent stone-work, possibly another reptillian/ snake/ bird effigy profile over-looking the site with a knocked over stone/ column in the fore-ground (only the stone ruins remain, sometimes scarcely at that.  All the paint, adhesives and sometimes inscriptions are gone, either due to perishable material use or weathered away)-

Another cairn marker example-

Beaver Brook Pt 1- "Sachem Seat" & Over-look

Beaver Brook Pt 1- "Sachem Seat" & Over-look 

Beaver Brook is the brook that runs behind the College Rock/ Rocky Woods hiking trails in Hopkinton, Holliston and Milford, MA.  These conservation woods are immediatley down-hill from Echo Lake, and are loaded with stone-works.  To put this series of posts on Beaver Brook into better perspective here is a link to a post I made about the Echo Lake Chamber/ Stone Lodge- http://www.nativenewenglandstones.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-echo-lake-stone-lodge-chamber.html 

So, this is all a part of the "Greater Echo Lake Area", land that native people in the area held on to up through 1715, well after the last Indian war of this area to break up the native nations, the King Philip's War of 1675/76.  What is today Echo Lake is the headwaters of the Charles, Sudbury and Blackstone rivers, a very ceremonial place to pre-colonial native people, obviously remembered into colonial times, perhaps one of the places that was heavily populated thousands of years ago after changes to the landscape happened such as flooding and earthquakes.  Here is a link to Dr. Jack Dempsey's timeline for more information on these catastrophe's/ changes to the New England landscape that native people experienced thousands of years ago-  http://www.ancientlights.org/tl1.html

In pre-colonial times Beaver Brook was navigable by canoe/ mishoon (dug-out).  As we will see in the later posts in this series, the sides of this river are terraced with stone walls, a great feat of ancient engineering design, probably to prevent flooding and /or to direct the flow of water.  We will also see that there are terraced water-falls and worked-out boulders within the brook, creating a fountain effect, also to direct the flow of the water, as well as a stone fishing weir.  There are also stone mounds on the upper banks of the brook, as well as a collapsed stone structure of some sort, possibly a chamber, with a standing stone still in place.  All along the hill-side are cairn fields over-looking the brook.

For this first post, hitting it hard-core on Beaver Brook I've decided to focus on what some researcher's would call a "throne" stone, or as I put it, a "sachem seat" over-looking the brook on a high ledge and some of the surrounding features.  Check it out-

On a high elevation over-looking the brook is this worked-out boulder and placement arrangment, the "Sachem Seat".  A placce where Earth, Sky and Water meet-

Another angle-

Stone wall meandering up the ledge, going right up to the boulder-

The boulder in the distance w/ the stone wall meandering towards it-

A cairn a few yards away from the boulder, probably an astronomical alignment-

Standing Stone-

Stone circle next to a propped boulder on the ledge-

A platform that has been placed on the ledge, over-looking the brook-

Stone wall spiraling up the ledge-

People would tell you that this old backroad is an old colonial path.  Well, seeing as how this place was Indian territory until 1715, it was obviously a Native route/ path long before colonial times, at least in parts.  Note how the street spirals, which is a classic Native feature-