This blog is simply a place for me to share 3D models of the Native American ceremonial stonework I have been documenting over the years. These structures, some of them dating back 4000 years, are rapidly disappearing as today’s forests continue to fall and destroy them. The models I make and the still photographs I take are my attempt to preserve something of them for the future. As the local tribes have asked that locations not be shared, I can only say that these features are generally located in Connecticut and Rhode Island, but of course, these types of structures are found throughout all of New England.
At the moment, there are about 340 structures in the videos below. I will be adding models to this site as I create them, and the new models will always be at the top of the blog should you decide to revisit this page. Most new models will be added during the upcoming winter of 2022/2023 once the leaves fall from the trees. If you have a particular structure you’d like modeled, feel free to drop me a line on my email below. I hope you enjoy the models and thanks for visiting!
This cairn was built on top of the section of boulder that split off and fell flat, forming a table for the builders. I have seen quite a number of cairns built in this way, although this is by far the most elaborate example. 344
As with the example three below this one, this effigy also runs along the rim of a rift valley and comes out of ledge at its tail end. The head boulder appears to have been propped up in this position. Below this serpent are a few cairns, and another possible effigy wall coming up the very steep banks of the hill towards this one. Another wall accompanies the one on the slope, both built in a spray of boulders covering the landscape.
This cairn is the stand-out construction in a grouping of cairns built in a swamp, below one of the three or four greatest serpent effigies I’ve seen in Southeastern Connecticut. The others surrounding it are much lower, although generally built using the same type of stone.
While typical of the cairns found throughout Rhode Island, what is unusual about this cairn grouping is that they are just a few hundred feet away from cairns built in a distinctively different style. These utilize heavy, rounded boulders while the others are far more delicately built with smaller stones. When on site, the contrast is quite striking.
As is typical for the area in which this serpent lives, it crawls along the top edge of a rift valley, with its tail starting at a raised section of ledge, almost as if it is coming out of the ledge itself. There are about 5 others that do the same thing within a half mile radius.
This is a typical example of a sloped cairn, where it appears as if you are meant to view it from one side. While archaeologists continue to insist these were field clearing piles built by local farmers, they never wonder why the farmer didn’t stack as much stone here as possible in a column, but decided to slope the backs instead.
This is one of the two possible serpent effigies going head to head in a boulder field on a valley floor. The model below shows both together.
These two separate walls are in a valley floor filled with boulders dumped there by the receding glacier. They could represent serpents, heading towards each other, and are in an area with many other serpent effigies, most of which reside on the top edges of the rift valleys in the area. This site is a great example of Native work in an area that couldn’t possibly have been farmed.
This is a little more elaborate construction on top of a long boulder. Note the shelf on the far end that was also built upon. This sits on a steep hillside covered in cairns.
As can be seen, this isn’t the only cairn in the area.
This beautiful cairn and others like it were shown to me by Bob Berglewicz, who kindly gave me a tour of his yard. It is exquisitely constructed and surrounded by many others like it.
This boulder, about 10′ in length, is held in place on top of the stack with one that acts like a wedge. It is on the side of a cliff, just below the top, and appears to me like it was at least manipulated by human hands. In most cases we will probably never know. This was brought to my attention by Kelly Parsons.
One in a field of many, this split and filled cairn is rather distinctive from the side.
This cairn sits in a rock strewn plain with a number of others.
Not far from the two constructions below, this little structure consistists of what was probably a naturally split boulder that formed a table, upon and in front of which were placed stones in offering.
This structure sits not far from the wall below, in company with a handful of cairns. It appears to have a rather deliberately built niche on one side, perhaps acting as an artificial earth entrance or a place for offerings.
This very short wall, now largely decayed, is soon to be fully destroyed as there is a large, overhanging tree that is about to land on the tallest section on the right. It is a race against time and nature at this point to document as many of these structures as possible before they are gone.
This short wall, perhaps 40′ overall, runs parallel to a stream some 100′ away. One end starts on ledge that has stones piled on top of it, as well as a possible standing stone. Typical of Native walls in the area, it is built primarily with fractured ledge stone, which allowed the builders to incorporate the lacy openings into the structure.
Like the horseshoe below, this example also uses projecting ledge go form the back end of the structure. With much lower walls, it has slowly degraded over time with nobody left to care for it. Note also the small cairn in front and to the right of the structure.
This beautiful horseshoe was shown to me by my friend Carl Tjerandsen, and sits in the middle of a wetland by itself. Built onto the face of a short ledge outcrop, it is in relatively good condition and fairly representative of its type, utilizing the face of the ledge as its back wall.
This small enclosure was built utilizing the wall behind it as part of its form. Resting on projecting ledge, it is a short scramble to get up to the space, which is only large enough for one person to sit within. I imagine it was a meditative space, being too small for any practical purpose.
This small and delicate enclosed space sits on top of a cliff edge overlooking a valley below. The slope up to this space is a jumble of fractured ledge stone. As can be seen in the model, the days are numbered for this structure, limited to the moment the trees now flanking it fall.
These five cairns are part of a small cairn field of a dozen or so. They are all quite beautifully built, and rather different in their construction, suggesting different builders or different time periods perhaps. They sit all alone in a wide expanse of forest without additional stonework by either culture.
This type of cairn reminds me of the false front building you see in westerns. Like those, this is beautifully built on one face, and rather casually built on the other, suggesting that there is a particular place one should stand to view this. I have found that this often occurs with Native built walls, where one side is quite artistically arranged whereas the other is rather mundane in appearance. I have also seen many cairns that are simply sloped on one side, giving the structure the appearance of facing a particular direction.
This small enclosure, heavily damaged over the years, was built against a boulder and had a formal entrance to it.
Note that the builder propped up the piece of loose ledge this cairn is built upon. It sits on the edge of a drop down a steep hill, and was modeled as snow began to fall.
This is one of a group of cairns found together – note the different construction styles among them.
This is one of a group of cairns found together – note the different construction styles among them.
This is one of a group of cairns found together – note the different construction styles among them.
This is one of a group of cairns found together – note the different construction styles among them.
This is one of a group of cairns found together – note the different construction styles among them.
This is one of a group of cairns found together – note the different construction styles among them.
This is one of a group of cairns found together – note the different construction styles among them.
This is one of a group of cairns found together – note the different construction styles among them.
This is a closeup of the spring found near the serpent below.
This effigy is on the edge of a swampy area, and has a stone-lined spring inside of it. It is in an area with many other Native constructions.
The third boulder with petroglyphs on it has the fewest markings of the set, mostly located towards the pointy end at the right. One looks like a cartoon duck, and the other circles the pointy end. There may also be a horseshoe carving near the tree closest to the stone.
This is the second of three boulders in the same area that have petroglyphs on them. The symbols, pecked into the stone with harder stones, don’t seem highly representational to me, and often consist of circles and other curious shapes.
A closer look at the petroglyphs on Boulder 2.
This is the cairn at the horseshoe listed just below. It is unlike the other cairns in the local area that I have found to date.
This large and now greatly degraded horseshoe faces a tall and rather unusually built cairn. Unlike most horseshoes built in the area I have investigated, this one has a curved back to it rather than squared corners.
Large cairns like this I have encountered often have what appears to me to be random shapes, but I believe they are following the ledge outcropping below them. If they were not built on ledge, or a deep prepared base, they would have toppled long ago. The slight toppling this one has taken is most likely due to tree damage.
This short example also has a tail that starts in ledge. Note the interesting and much heavier stonework at the head-end of the effigy. This is in an area with many other effigies of serpents, but curiously, very few cairns. It often seems in my experience that the more walls built in an area the fewer cairns are generally found.
Another of the thousand examples I’ve seen of this type of construction over the years.
This is one end of a very large encircling boulder row. The row, fairly circular in plan view, defines a very large, flat area above a valley. The other end of the stone row has no boulder, and merely ends one stone tall. Note that the stone row continues after the boulder and runs down the cliff to become the large triangular-headed serpent two videos below. I think of this as two serpents in-line, but what the original builders thought will never be known.
This example sits nearly by itself in an area with many other boulders that went untouched. I imagine the reddish tint of this particular boulder, as well as its unusual form, was what drew attention to it.
This wonderful serpent effigy is on the side of a steep slope above a deep and empty valley. It’s tail starts in ledge, and the body becomes serpentine just before the head. The stonework is smaller and more delicate at the tail end, and becomes heavier towards the head. This example was shown to me by my friend Ernie Beckwith, as well as many other structures on the property.
I don’t know if these are just wall sections or if they are intended to represent serpents passing each other. Note the stonework built into the ledge at the right end of the structure. This area has a lot of Native walls built on ledge outcrops.
This elegant little platform cairn is set just above a drop in the ledge it rests upon. About 24′ long and relatively low in height, it makes a rather quiet statement on the landscape.
I’ve never really known what to make of this construction. It is built on what appears to be a Native pile of stones, but is unfortunately alongside a trail and could represent a new construction. It is also near an enormous erratic, which often drew the attention of the indigenous peoples.
This little example sits on top of a huge heap in an area of many other cairns and other Native constructs.
In an area with many others.
This is a very interesting structure in many ways. Like others I have seen, it is womb-like in shape and cut into the earth. It has a long, tapered entryway. It does have a fireplace or niche on one side, that was split using feather and wedge technology, placing that portion of it after 1815 or so. However, that section introduces a flat into the generally circular outline, making it look to me like a later addition. Note too the hump of earth now blocking the entryway. I wonder if this was repurposed at a later date as a temporary shelter for Colonial use? Adding a fireplace and blocking the entryway, and then covering over the the structure with a temporary roof of some sort. I guess we will never know what happened here, but it is in an area of intense Native stonework. 292
This short wall runs down from a ledge outcropping. Although slightly battered over the years, it is typical of Native constructions in that it clearly served no function that Colonials would consider useful.
Another very short serpent effigy wall. This one is heading towards a stream, and has a rather unusual head boulder. It is also very low in height, causing it to nearly disappear into the landscape.
This enclosure is incorporated into existing ledge. The back right corner has what looks like a little entryway into the enclosure, but I am unsure whether this was intentional or simply a case of missing stones over time. Note that the structure is not square, but more of a parallelogram in plan view.
While near an abandoned farm foundation, I believe this is a Native wall as it looks nothing like the other walls in the area. Colonials seldom built freestanding, curving walls, and this one is built with huge stones compared to everything else nearby. It has a gateway, and does’t perform a useful function in terms of farming. Additionally, there are other Native structures in the area.
This small bit of stonework high up a cliff wall leads to a cave-like room above and around the big tree behind the stonework. I assume this is more likely not ceremonial like nearly everything else on this page, but rather, was used as shelter.
I consider this one of the more important serpent effigies I know of. The triangular stone at the head suggests to me the idea that this represents the great horned serpent, a most feared and dangerous creature. The setting for this one is perfect. There is a swamp pond behind it, and the tail of the structure comes out of water – the stream draining the swamp. This is the type of place where these serpents lived, and its coming out of water can be seen as specially significant.
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These two certainly exhibit different construction qualities despite being side by side. The one on the ground was built incorporating the projecting stone, which might suggest a turtle’s head, but that is one thing we will never know – was that the intention of the builder?
I have no idea if this was meant to be a seat but a person can quite easily sit inside of it. It is next to the stone circle mentioned below and all of the other Native work.
This very odd structure is in the middle of a large diameter (60′ or so) circle of stones that also contains a well and some earth works – either humps or ditches. Around the circle are cairns, a stone seat-like construction, a womb-like in-ground enclosure and many other curiosities. Like most of these structures, I have no idea what it was for.
This structure is on a very steep hillside in a small rift. There is a stream below it in the little valley. The first time I came across it I had only thought of it as a wall, but now wonder if the boulder at the top represents a serpent’s head.
This little cairn is below a group of others on a steep hillside and is in as good a shape as the day it was made I think. In many cairn fields there is often one that stands out from the others for several reasons. Either the workmanship seems better, the materials seem different, or the construction technique varies from the others. I’ve always wondered if it was just the individual building it was more talented or if these standouts had a purpose of their own.
This little enclosure is built against ledge and is nearly swallowed up by Mountain Laurel. It has suffered some damage by a tree recently. The most unusual thing about this is the linteled stucture at the doorway on the right. I only know of a handful of enclosures with this feature, making it a rare construction.
This example is in an extensive ceremonial stone landscape in Rhode Island.
Although partially tumbled in two places, the high level of workmanship still shines through. 278
This cairn sits high above the ground on top of a split boulder. It also has a section built up against the boulder, and the whole structure is part of an extensive ceremonial landscape. It is one of may favorite pieces in the area.
This odd enclosed space is also near the tiny foundation near the niche two videos below this one. Could it have been a foundation for a shed? Possibly, but its construction seems to be a little loose for that and its location suspect, given it could have been built 20′ away in a flat area not entangled with ledge. We may never know who built this or why.
This boulder-filled ravine is filled with Native stonework, concentrated in this particular area but also running throughout much of its length. While somewhat hard to see due leaf clutter, there are a number of enclosed spaces formed between the boulders. The video gives an overall look at this section and then circles three particular enclosures.
This small structure sits behind a colonial foundation, but is certainly not a typical bit of work for farmers. The abandoned farm itself is in the middle of an enormous ceremonial landscape, and I guess may be a remnant of the earlier culture’s work.
This is the same area as the video below but shows a wider area, incorporating more of the site in one video. Special thanks go to Joni Light for steering me to this area to record some of the structures to be found there.
This giant serpent effigy is heading downhill into a stream inside a major rift. As can be seen, it wends its way through some massive boulders. Not seen in the video are other constructions among the boulders and a long wall at the top-right portion of the video. There is a long wall there that may be part of the serpent’s body. Special thanks to Joni Light for alerting me to this area – an area I never would have visited without her direction.
This effigy is in the same area as the structure below and the one above, and I have Joni Light to thank for alerting me to their existence, making these models possible.
I was steered to this enormous structure by Joni Light, who was kind enough to share its location with me. It encloses a space about 30′ across and 30′ deep, and the walls run between 5′ to 6′ tall. It could be a horseshoe or perhaps a serpent effigy, either with the large boulder as its head or perhaps the small boulder on the right, with the serpent emerging from the large boulder, something quite common in other areas I’ve explored. Although the area it covers is relatively level, it drops off quite precipitously on the right side into a deep ravine. It is a most remarkable construction, and has only suffered minor damage to the wall on the right where a tree punched a hole through it.
This rather well-known set of stones has been the focus of a lot of speculation as to its origin and possible use. In the middle of a huge ceremonial space as well as near a post-colonial foundation, it presents a lot of questions. I doubt its true origin will ever be known given that it has been widely tampered with over the years.
This type of wall is very rare in my area, and in all the years I’ve been looking for stonework I’ve only encountered three examples. Many of these stones look like Manitou stones, but if they are or what this wall was meant to represent or function as is unknown to me. There is, of course, a lot of speculation out there by others, but in my mind, it is nothing more than speculation.
This short serpent effigy crawls down the spine of a ledge outcropping below a huge erratic situated above. While the erratic was most certainly placed there by a glacier, it may be the reason the serpent wast built where it was.
This is a rather dramatic example of a propped boulder. It is about 7-8′ tall, and the builders used a piece of ledge to hold up the stone by jamming it under a shelf in the face of the stone.
Another common type of stone construction in my area is the linking of boulders with short sections of wall, as in this case. Linking can also occur with ledge outcrops or even with walls running past boulders, where a short wall links the two.
This short wall build on a ledge outcrop features vertically placed stones in its construction. The area it occupies is full of other Native stonework.
This enclosed space was actually a chamber, but the roof stones had collapsed and individuals removed the stones. The entryway opening to the chamber faces the winter solstice sunrise, as is common to many chambers in New England. The sun would have just skirted the boulder on that day to illuminate the small room.
This serpent has a built-head rather than the more typical boulder style head common to the area. Unlike most others, it is also built multi-stones thick, rather than a single stone thick. The head head end of the serpent rises up onto ledge as it heads to the valley a short distance in front of it. Its tail suggests that of a rattlesnake to me. 263
This short serpent comes out of ledge high above the valley floor on a shelf of ledge, so that you have to climb up the cliff to get to it. It is in an area with a number of other short wall sections also built partially up ledge faces. There are quite a few serpents like this in the general area that emerge from ledge in this way.
This may look like a pen to the casual passer-by, but it doesn’t take much thought to begin to wonder about the reason for penning in a bunch of boulders. This type of work is found throughout the area I live in. Although difficult to see in the model, it is just as hard or harder to walk around the outside of the pen as it too is all boulders, and most of the boulders on the outside are covered in stones placed there by human hands. This is in an area with a lot of other Native stonework – a very large ceremonial landscape.
While I have heard of others and seen photos of them, this is the only stone disk I have actually been to. It is possible that this was intended to be a grinding wheel, but the initial layout seems far out of round. An expert on stone cutting examining the way this was cut could possibly tell the age of the work, or this could be another mystery that may never be solved… .
This long and curved wall is in a low-lying wet area, and is bounded by two small streams. There is a built-in break in the wall at one end. Colonial wall builders very, very rarely built curved walls, and of course this wall serves no purpose in a landscape where only logging would have occurred.
This little spring doesn’t look like much but it feeds a stream below that runs through a site with Native walls such as the one right above this video. I don’t think they were using this spring as a water source, but rather for spiritual reasons.
There are a handful of serpent effigies that suggest they may represent the Great Horned Serpent, or an Uktena. This fearsome creature was armored and covered with dazzling jewels and was not something you could see and live to tell about it. The curious way the stone just behind the head rises above makes me wonder if this was meant to represent the horns of the creature.
Just before this wall ends at another, it jogs out to form this horseshoe-shaped space. Note the interesting layup in the stonework at the back of the horseshoe.
Another possible serpent effigy. In the area this is found, it is quite common for serpents to start with their tails coming out of ledge outcrops such as this – seems to be the favored style in this section of very rugged landscape.
This possible effigy crawls across the top of a projecting hump of ledge with the head end overlooking a short cliff. There are major boulders of quartz behind the head incorporated into its construction. The head boulder is rather low complared to the wall of the body, but sitting as it does on top of the ledge the whole construction makes for a dramatic view.
Unlike colonial wells, these springs are quite shallow and often near water. This one is between two streams in a very rocky area. Note the stones placed on the boulder above the spring. These springs are simply cleared out to a short depth and then stoned up to the surface. I certainly can’t know either way, but I think these springs were for ceremonial purposes rather than for drinking water, given they are often set right next to streams.
This wall sits by itself on a short piece of projecting ledge in a relatively flat landscape. There are a number of similar walls in the area, just decorating ledge with short walls, although most are in much better shape. Note the stacked stones on the right end – that is what I believe to be a bird effigy. There is a video of just the effigy below – about 11 videos down.
This is, I believe, two serpents passing each other, with the larger one on the left being one of the more extraordinary examples I’ve seen. The low serpent on the right comes out of a smooth piece of ledge, as is common in the area. While hard to see in this video, the heads for both effigies are where the small wall meets the large, and the heads are offset from each other as they begin to pass. The larger serpent is built with huge stones and its tail end comes out of a split in the ledge on which the serpent resides. It is a very impressive structure.
This short effigy comes out of the upper wall of the rift and heads to what looks like a boulder when viewed from the top of the rift, but what turns out to be a substantial piece of ledge from the bottom of the valley. Like with most Native work, the sensation of the overall landscape when actually standing there is hard to replicate on a flat screen. These structures can only fully be appreciated in person.
Frankly, I can’t make heads or tails of this structure. The wall ends at an exposed ledge face, which seems to be covered with stones like a cairn. There is a hollow shaft on the side of the ledge nearest the wall. Not sure I’ve seen another structure like it. It is in an area with two, long abandoned colonial foundations, and some very significant Native serpent walls.
This is a section of wall that stitches its way through the landscape, creating two walls like this that block off two valleys with steep cliff walls on either side. In-between the valleys the wall runs on top of the cliffs. The start of the wall is quite distant and starts on a very narrow ridge. After closing off this valley the wall runs a short distance more on top of the cliff before abruptly ending. The landscape surrounding this wall is just amazing for its ruggedness.
This is the wall blocking the next valley to the blocking wall above. The valley itself is less dramatic than the one above, but is a continuation of the same wall as it stitches itself across and thru the landscape.
This section of hillside is completely covered in boulders, which seems to have attracted a lot of attention. There are walls running through the mess, and this propped slab of stone makes for what is perhaps a ceremonial shelter or earth entrance. Part of a much larger site, it is an extraordinary place to visit.
This chamber utilizes a split and spaced section of ledge for the two side walls. They then built a back wall out of tumbled stone and capped it over with long, flat stones for the roof. On top of that they built the wall you can see in the video. It is a very shallow room. It was totally covered in green briar when I saw it, and thus I didn’t make a walk-around model given the time it would have taken to clear the rest of the structure.
One of the few large cairns in the general area, it has suffered a lot of damage over the years. Locally, there are actually few cairns of any size, with most of the Native work consisting of structures built around the use of walls. It seems to me to be the case that if there are a lot of walls, there are fewer cairns, and if a lot of cairns, there are fewer walls.
This beautifully built enclosure overlooks a swamp below, and rests on a section of fractured ledge. There is also a small stream nearby, so water may have provided the reason this was built at this location. While there are no other stone structures close at hand, overall it is in an area with a lot of Native stonework.
I discovered this structure in an area I thought I knew very well, and am amazed I never saw something this large and obvious in all the times I had visited the site. While many people think this was a hunting blind, it makes little sense to be limited to one side of a boulder when you can use the whole boulder itself to hide, masking yourself in any direction. Additionally, this structure is in the middle of a very large Ceremonial landscape.
While this is certainly a colonial well, I include it here in the interest of showing how it differs from a Native, stoned spring. The water in the well, of course, attracted this tree, which will eventually topple and perhaps destroy much of the well. Colonial wells in this area generally go down to ledge, about 12-15′ on average. Native springs in contrast are generally about a foot deep, and just cleared up what Nature had provided.
I believe this is an effigy of a bird, although at first I ignored it thinking it was a new-age creation in the woods. It is near the end of a short Native wall built on a short piece of ledge in an area with no other stonework. Additionally, it is built on top of a very large, flat stone as a foundation, making its survival possible.
A nice example of a horseshoe incorporating a boulder into its construction. This structure is not far from the cairn below this video. There is a colonial foundation in the middle of this site, and I often wonder what they made of the stonework surrounding them.
This cairn is in a field of cairns and other Native constructions. It is a little more unusual in that cairns are generally on boulders or appended, but more rarely both in this area. It is quite striking given its relatively large size when compared to the others nearby.
These cairns and wall are from a few different sites, all within a mile from each other. Archaeologists from UVM declared them to be simple field clearings built by one particular farmer. Note that no two are alike in quality, size, or construction technique. They range in size from 3-4′ long and high to over 40′ long and 8-10′ in height. It is ludicrous to believe a farmer would have this much spare time on his hands and spend it building huge constructions such as these, carrying stones of hundreds of pounds up onto piles to neatly stack them out of his way.
This wall-like structure was built in front of a natural ledge wall. While much damage has been done over the years, enough remains to show what the builder had done. I particularly like these types of structures as it is hard to believe a farmer had the time to build something like this.
These two large cairns are in Vermont in an area with dozens of others. Una MacDowell was kind enough to share their location with me. The one built between two boulders has some stones with holes cut into them on the right side in the image above. They do not appear to be drilled holes, and their purpose is unknown. Note that this cairn is sloped on the back side – a common trait in many cairns throughout New England. While hidden under leaves at the time of modeling, it should be noted that many very small stones make up a portion of the structure – stones too small for farmers to worry about. This cairn is about 30′ long and over 6′ tall. The other cairn is quite a bit longer and even taller – perhaps about 8′.
This serpent has taken a few hits from falling trees but remains in pretty good condition, and was shown to me by my friend Carl Tjerandsen. There seems to be an intentionally created hole behind the head.
This video shows part of a very large ceremonial landscape, and is perhaps the central feature. There is an elaborate enclosure built on one side of the boulder, and a possible serpent effigy wall comes out of the other side of the same boulder. Note the water in front of the the enclosure entrance. There is a spring above this construction that flows down past the enclosure. Note too the little side addition on the right side of the boulder when facing the entrance. There is an opening into the rest of the enclosure from this little space. Also note the shelf or bench-like structures in the interior of the structure.
Like the structure below this example, these structures are usually thought of as fireplaces. No charcoal in them leads me to believe they are of Native origin, built for ceremonial purposes. this one is on a hillside with a number of other cairns and a serpent effigy wall.
This linteled structure is built onto the end of a ledge outcrop that overlooks a steep drop into the valley below. While fireplace comes to mind, there is no evidence that a fire was ever built in it. There is some thought that these types of structures provided a place to put offerings, or that they represent earth entrances. Often they open towards significant directions to the indigenous peoples who built them.
This effigy is at the drest of a hill, with Native stonework in the form of cairns, stones on boulders, horseshoes, walls, another serpent effigy and enclosures. It is about 100′ long and runs towards 108 degrees.
T-walls simply T into a cliff at roughly 90 degrees. There are hundreds of these in the area that I have covered, so I am certain they were not built by Colonials or their ancestors, as they serve no useful purpose to them and are found consistently in the worst landscapes. This one has been detached from the cliff by a tree, and took another huge hit with the tree currently resting on it. Once the tree rots off more of the wall will fall.
Using the term shelter of course infers that this was a shelter. I don’t actually think it was, but couldn’t think of a better name for it. This is in a very large ceremonial landscape and forms the lower boundary for the area. I think it was a ceremonial structure, although you can conceivably crawl under the boulder. Note that the structure itself is covered in stones, making it into a cairn as well, leading to the idea of a ceremonial purpose.
The largest boulder and cairn make for a very striking assemblage. These two are surrounded by dozens and dozens of other cairns and other amazing constructions, forming a large ceremonial landscape.
If an effigy, the builders certainly chose an oddly shaped stone for the head, although in Rhode Island this isn’t all that unusual. In the area where this is found there are a number of little serpent effigies on ledge, and one other with an equally curious head boulder. In this example, the serpent is on ledge which is split and filled on the other side, and near a small cairn field.
This serpent effigy, shown to me by Doug Schwartz, is made of quartz and is at the bottom of a very steep hill covered in scree. According to Doug, the serpent is coming out of one of the many faults in the area. It looks as if the tail end of the serpent has been buried by more scree sliding down the slope, which would indicate a long passage of time. 225
This short wall has taken a bit of a tumble, despite having been built on top of ledge. It is in the middle of a very extensive field of cairns, and below the structure seen in the video below.
This enclosed space is raised up off the surrounding landscape by the ledge outcrop, overlooking a large field of well-built cairns and the short wall seen in the video above this one. As I modeled this structure just after the leaves had fallen, it is a little less distinct having been partially filled with leaves.
Unfortunately a large part of this model didn’t come out in the due to vegetation but the structure sits on top of a ledge outcrop at the top of a huge rift valley. Perhaps it was built here to mark this significant earth-entrance. Sited high up on the ledge, it makes a rather dramatic statement to viewers below. There are cairns and other strange wall constructions surrounding this area.
This split headed effigy is next to the enclosed space shown below, and has a cairn field partially surrounding it as well. The structure has taken quite a bit of abuse from falling trees over the years.
This structure incorporates existing ledge into the whole. Note especially the left side of the structure and the stonework placed in and among the cracks in the ledge. I assume this was some type of ceremonial space defined by the work. There are a lot of cairns in this area, as well as a serpent effigy wall seen right above this one.
This effigy sits above a long drop into a rift valley. It rests on ledge, as is typical, and had/has a standing stone at the tail end that has been knocked out out plumb. This example is right on the lower edge of a very large field of cairns and other Native constructions.
Quite frequently I come across examples of short walls built on ledge. I am not sure if these are intended to be serpent effigies that are a little more abstract or not. This one is surrounded by cairns and near an enclosure built on top of some ledge above it.
Typically, in the area I’ve studied, you may find one example like this in 400 acres. This one is in an area with dozens and dozens of other filled or wedged boulders. I don’t know if this is because the area was used for so long that so many of them were filled, or that the people doing this were really into filling and wedging boulders. Another unknown… .
My wife found this one, and it is possibly a turtle effigy. It definitely helps to be there in person, as it is a little more subtle than what the video can show. The image on the screen before you click on it is the right side of the turtle, with the very thin head stone coming out on the right. If it isn’t obvious to you don’t worry, you are not alone. If nothing else, it’s a nice little cairn in a field of cairns above a wetland.
Beyond their location among the huge boulders, what is particularly noteworthy about these two is where the smaller one begins. The larger serpent at the top of the hill is heading towards a large boulder. The smaller serpent is heading away from that same boulder, going downhill towards a stream. While it looks like the tail of it starts at the smaller boulder below the large one, the end of the tail is actually under the big boulder, as if the serpent came from under it. This occurs occasionally in my area of exploration, where serpent effigies go through rocks or ledge to emerge on the other side. While you can’t see under the big boulder in this video, the tail is actually in the model.
This very subtle horseshoe was in the way of a trail so the trail blazers went right through it. Most people walk by and assume it is an old foundation for a shed, not knowing that foundations were not built that way. They probably also don’t notice the hundreds of cairns they just passed by either.
As can be seen, this beautiful cairn was the latest victim of another tree falling in the woods. Although I wasn’t there, I bet it made a sound. The cairn has a hollow structure built on the side of it, and is near the edge of a large field of cairns and the fourth video above of the split boulder. Note that too was hit. A rough neighborhood.
This wall is below two serpent effigy walls in a mass of boulders, as seen in the third video before this one, and is just above some wetlands and a stream. It could be a serpent effigy itself, or a linking wall of some type. Who really knows?
There is a lot going on on this hillside. The enclosure is beneath the large boulder roughly centered in the video. The video beneath this one is also of the same hill. This site has over 65 separate cairn fields that I’ve found so far.
This hilltop is covered with large boulders and Native walls linking them. Some may be serpent effigies or just linked boulders. This is the same hilltop in the video just above this one that has the enclosed space beneath a huge boulder.
This is one of a number of large structures on a site Norman Muller generously shared with me. The next 10 models below this one are also from the same area. The stonework covers acres and acres of land, and makes for a rather interesting walk.
Another cairn from the same area showing the general high quality construction found throughout the site.
Unfortunately, the body of the serpent has been partially disconnected from the head by a tree falling on it, but the connection that once existed can still be seen. The head boulder has been propped up into position and rests on three stones. This is on the edge of a good sized cairn field.
This cairn has two levels, presumably both on the same boulder.
While I didn’t actually measure the length of this one, it must be over 50′, and the largest one on this particular site by far. I have seen larger ones but this is one big pile of stone.
Another nicely built cairn in a field of many.
I was told about this site by Norman Muller, and the four structures below are all from the same site. This one is beautifully built and in relatively great shape still. The manitou stone leaning against may have been worked to form the shape you see. Norman sent me a photo of another large cairn with a similar stone leaning against it, but I have yet to locate that structure.
In this area it is far more common to have the cairn constructed on top of the the boulder, but in this case the boulder is over 6′ in height. Perhaps this is why it is simply appended to it, but there is no way of knowing if this was why.
This group of cairns is a few hundred feet from the structures below. As is typical in this area, the cairns are placed on boulders found naturally in the area. I just heard a talk about cairns in one area of Massachusetts that are often in a grid pattern, something I’ve never seen in SE Connecticut. To form a grid, the cairns there are not on boulders.
I was directed to this site by Norman Muller, and spent three days here modeling the structures I found. Well, only some of them, as it is a very extensive site. This large boulder with stones on it is wrapped with a cairn and is next to the long cairn that was unfortunately damaged by a recent tree-fall. 200
This cairn is in a field of many others all distinguished by the quality of the work put into them. There is nothing quite so wonderful as wandering into a site with such beautiful work you weren’t expecting to see.
This site of an abandoned center chimney home has three small chambers to the left of it. Two of the three are very small, and the third larger one has partially collapsed due to tree damage. I’ve not really figured out what is going on at this site, which is also surrounded by cairns. Given the huge cellar, there certainly was no need for tiny chambers as storage spaces, and I assume the home occupants built in the middle of a Native ceremonial site.
A very nice cairn in an area of hundreds of them. It took a rather good tree-hit but fortunately didn’t sustain a lot of damage.
These cairns all come from the same site, and this is the second video of cairns from that area. You can get a relative feeling for the size of these cairns by comparing them to the tree stumps in the video. They are quite large compared to most of the cairns in the area around my hometown. Special thanks to Norman Muller and Una MacDowell for their generosity in leading me to this site and for sharing their knowledge of it.
This cairn is about 18′ long and built on top of a ledge outcrop. It utilizes some fairly large boulders, and is in an area with a number of smaller cairns on boulders. Not far away is a formal heap that is probably over 40′ in length consisting of hundreds of tons of stone.
This was once either a linteled horseshoe, cairn or an open horseshoe, but is not too far collapsed by falling trees to tell. It stands partially atop a tall boulder on a steep slope just above a stream. It must have been a beautiful structure when initially built as much care went into its construction.
A cairn with a step-down section on one end.
This small horseshoe is somewhat unusual in that it has cheek stones in it – to borrow fireplace terminology for the moment. I always check to see if there is any evidence of fire in these structures as it is always possible that some may have been built as fireplaces.
Cairns come in all shapes and sizes and despite the fact there are hundreds of thousand of them in the area in which I live, it is still hard to pass up photographing the more beautifully constructed examples I come across.
Unfortunately, this tall cairn has been modified or “repaired” by no-doubt well meaning passersby over the years. It had the great misfortune of having a path put right alongside it, bringing its authenticity into question. It is an excellent example of what not to do:
1) Put hiking paths for the general pubic right through ceremonial spaces. As more and more people took to the woods during Covid, I saw more and more damage to structures like this. Most were people re-stacking them into precarious columns for fun, rather than for spite, but a loss to history nonetheless.
2) Repair cairns that have fallen apart. Once this is done, there is no real way to tell what might have been. Part of my hope with these models is to educate people and lessen the damage done in the future.
I assume the top of this stone split off naturally, but then was propped up off the base intentionally using small stones to make about a 6″ to 8″ gap. I haven’t seen this type of thing too often. More typical is to have the upper stone held up at an angle with just one stone. In fact, just yesterday I found two more examples where this was the case.
This is a beautifully built cairn, typical of the hundreds of them found in this spot. It is always quite a nice surprise to find fields of cairns built so meticulously. It is readily apparent that these structures meant an awful lot to their builders.
There is always the possibility that these structures were built in more modern times as fireplaces or were used by more modern people as fireplaces once discovered. The only thing I can do myself is to check to see if there is charcoal and soot left over from fires. In most cases I don’t find any charcoal, which is of course, quite long lasting.
This cairn and the five other structures above this one are all from a site I was directed to by Norman Muller. There are a number of very beautiful cairn sites with beautifully built cairns on this particular property, and I will be there modeling stonework for a while.
While I had this structure clearly marked on my gps, I didn’t remember ever having seen it before. I like to think that with having seen over 30,000 structures I am bound to forget a few, but it does make me wonder about memory loss….
This short wall section in ledge outcrops descends toward the edge of a cliff with an abrupt drop to the forest floor. There were certainly plenty of materials at hand to build the wall.
This enclosure is in an area with about 6 others, something I haven’t seen in my area. It is fairly typical – a very small enclosed space and very low walls. Many people ask if they were hunting blinds, but they are far too small to be of any use to a hunter. This is in an area of descending platforms of ledge, and as usual, has suffered some decay.
This short wall built of fractured ledge stone could be a serpent effigy crawling downhill, with the head at the lower end of the wall formed by the large, rectangular boulder. There is a dramatic drop-off on the right side of the ledge at the top.
This set of walls runs up to and circles the edge of a ledge outcropping on the perimeter of a swamp or pond. Although difficult to see with all of the damage to them, the walls extend all the way to the left of the screen as the video begins. This set of walls is in an area with many other Native structures.
I have no idea what this might have been. It is close to a long-abandoned center chimney farmhouse foundation, and if I had to guess the long wall was an addition to an earlier structure. Native and colonial/post-colonial work are often found together in Connecticut, where both populations were plentiful over time.
In my area there are these structures I call end walls. They are found on one end of projecting ledge sections, and look as if they generally finish bringing the ledge to ground. They are usually tapered, and are only found on one end of the ledge. The right end of this structure was in much better shape when I originally came across it 8 years ago.
The stonework in this enclosure has taken a beating over the years so is a bit hard to see. Note the surviving stonework on the ledge above and to the right of the structure. This is in an area with a number of other small enclosed spaces, most of which are also associated with ledge or large boulders.
This serpent with an enormous head has a fairly subtle cairn field in front of it. The body of the serpent is much longer than pictured here, but as is often the case, much of that has been tumbled over the years by trees falling. Additionally, there was a lot of growth covering the rest of the structure and being lazy, I didn’t take the time to clear it off….
This large heap is one of many near my home. As is typical, it has formal sections that look like wall construction with the rest looking as if someone just tossed stones onto the pile. There are several key features that distinguish these from farmer piles. Farmers wouldn’t expend the energy to stack piles so high that they had to carry stones to the top. Rather, they would just dump them from their carts and move on. Additionally, as this heap is on a steep slope to a swamp, they wouldn’t bother to build wall-like sections to hold the stones in useless land. In this area, if farmers dumped stone at all, it was generally in areas where their carts go stuck or to form quick bridges over streams. Once they picked up the stones, they tried to make their efforts of some use.
Typical of the hundreds of thousands of cairns I have seen in the small area I have traveled in Southeastern Connecticut and Rhode Island.
I call this type of wall a T-Wall. They are short walls that run squarely into cliff or ledge outcroppings. When I encountered the first few, it was impossible to see a trend, but after the 100th T-Wall I realized that this was an individual type of structure that could be categorized separately from the other types of constructions involving short wall sections. As is easily seen, this is not in an area conducive to farming.
These two serpent passing each other on a hill. The lower and longer of the two extends quite a distance longer than what can be seen here, but it becomes quite tumbled and buried in mountain laurel and so the total length of the body is not pictured.
This small cairn has a standing stone propped up on one face and held upright by another projecting stone at its top.
I refer to these not-quite-a-cairn constructions as SOBs, or stones on boulders. Credit goes to Doug Schwartz for the acronym, which is much faster to type into a gps in the field. What I like in particular about this one is that it has more than 20 pieces of quartz on it, although it is hard to tell from the model colors. As New England archaeologists have problems thinking Natives in this area built anything in stone, I like examples like this that bring up questions they can’t answer. In a boulder filled area, why were early farmers so worried about tiny stones that they picked them up and put them on boulders, and why would they pick up so much quartz for this one too? Must not have had much to do in those days… .
This very striking stone is shaped propped to stand atop a boulder about 7′ tall. I always wonder about the age of something like this, as it seems unlikely that it could have survived even a hundred years of trees falling. Most standing stones that I have seen and I think are quite old are well socketed into ledge. So I leave it up to you to decide. It is quite dramatic, regardless of who place it there nonetheless.
This large slab split in half and then was filled back in with smaller stones. One thought is that the placement of stones was used to block spirits from emerging from the split, but it also looks to me like they were making the stone whole again. I am not sure we’ll ever know what the builders were thinking.
This horseshoe may have had a lintel stone, given the large stone in front of it that seems too high on the ground to have been put there when the structure was made. Additionally, it is obvious that the left side has partially collapsed. The stone in the back of the narrow opening is reddish in color and has the manitou shape. As with most Native work, it is in the company of other Native stonework.
Being some of the most vulnerable and rare structures in my area, I have tried to model as many of these structures as I can before they are gone. This particular example has a deeply formed horseshoe shape to it and was the first example of the type I found.
I generally call short Native walls built along water sources water walls. With the very dry summer we just had, the stream was nothing more than a rocky bed when this model was created. As is typical, the structure is in a wetland area of exposed ledge, totally unsuitable for farming. There is a cairn field on hill face on the opposite side of the stream.
This structure sits on top of a hill above a swamp, a common theme in Native work in this area. A bit disheveled now, there is a serpent that heads towards this hilltop on one side and a wall that leads off on the other. I need to model the serpent when the leaves fall next month.
This is the tail end of a massive serpent whose very distant head is at the bottom of a huge cliff. The wall height at the tail is just under 6′. A serpent coming out of water was an important concept, and this one’s tail is at a shallow, stoned spring that feeds a stream in wet weather. I know of a handful of serpents who seem to be coming from water in this area.
This is by far the largest horseshoe I’ve seen. It rests on a steep slope to a stream below and has many other Native structures around it. The front corner that hasn’t collapsed yet is about 11′ tall. The site has two formal cairns and a short wall below it near the stream. (Wall not shown in model.) Another wall above this structure is part of a serpent’s body, and its tail begins at a stoned spring – a significant detail I believe.
I have watched this rather large cairn collapse over the past 5 or 6 years as trees and shrubs work against it. I think we are at the beginning of the end for many structures like this as the forests that have grown to maturity in the past 120 years are now taking their toll.
This construction is about 20′ in diameter but relatively low in height. It is near a few other large constructions that are less regular in form than this one.
This overhanging bit of ledge once protected a small enclosed space, little of which remains after centuries of trees growing up and falling over the structure. This was most likely a ceremonial enclosure rather than a living space, and is in a very swampy area.
While filling in splits in boulders is quite common in this area, it is quite a bit rarer to find splits in ledge outcrops that have been filled in this way. I can think of only a handful of examples I have encountered in my travels. This is in the area of the two videos directly below this one, along with cairn fields and other interesting structures that I will model when the leaves fall at the end of next month. 150
This large and elevated section of exposed ledge makes a dramatic setting for these two boulders. This area is surrounded with cairns and other Native constructions. The larger and lower boulder may be a bird effigy, an important animal to the culture.
This structure sits at the base of a cliff in a rift valley. There are many other Native stone structures in the area, including the propped boulders and the filled ledge splits just above this video. While these linteled structures look like fireplaces, they show no signs of soot, coal or ashes in their interiors.
This is the same effigy as pictured in the larger landscape below. All of these Native structures are meant to be seen in person and in the landscape surrounding them, and simple still photos don’t really do them justice or impart the experience of being there. If possible, get out and see them in person, as they are much more impressive when you stand in front of them.
This beautiful effigy is at the base of rising ledge, and was one located by Larry Harrup that I have always admired. It is relatively short – perhaps 40′ overall, and has suffered some damage over the years. It is on the edge of a cairn field and has a piece of quartz embedded in the wall just behind the head.
While its destruction has been proceeding slowly, it is inevitable. Many structures harbor the seeds of their own destruction within, as chipmunks, squirrels and mice carry in acorns and other nuts for storage.
This linteled cairn was built at the base of exposed ledge. There are stone piles on the ledge on both sides of the cairn, as well as other cairns in the general area. In fact, Native stonework follows this ledge outcropping for a long way in either direction.
This small enclosed space is rather hard to see in the clutter of the tumbled ledge of which it is a part. There is a stream on the other side of the ledge that is not in view, but may be one reason why the structure was built in this particular location.
This heavy cairn has partially tumbled, a fate all too common these days as the forests that have matured over the past 120 years begin to fall on them. I think in the not-too-distant future most of the smaller stone structures will have largely disappeared in New England.
Occasionally I come across linteled structures built against boulders, rather than freestanding. This one is wedged between a short boulder and a rather imposing one. While there is no other stonework right near it, it is in an area with huge cairn fields and many other Native constructions.
This heap is actually one of several in my yard. I differentiate these structures from cairns for a few reasons, although this is mostly so my friends understand what I’m discussing. Heaps are generally built on ledge with the ledge showing, they have formally built sections around the perimeter that look like wall sections and hold the interior stones in place, and the interior stones look like they were tossed into place, although they may not have been. Additionally, heaps often have hollow depressions on top or other negative spaces – i.e. – not filled with stones. These can be empty shafts, rectilinear or U-shaped openings.
I call short walls intimately linked to water sources water walls. This wall seems to have been built on a spring. It is typical of the Native walls in this area, from its location in inhospitable land to the use of fractured ledge stones from the nearby ledge. There is another shorter length to this wall to the left that I will have to go back to capture once the leaves fall. A short section of the wall has been destroyed over time.
This section of ledge and it’s stonework has been heavily damaged over the years. Trees either fall on the structures or even worse, grow up on or near them. When they eventually topple, their roots can do tremendous damage. I imagine that the stonework here was once as neatly stacked as the other examples on this hillside.
This steep hillside descends into wetlands, a common theme in this area for the location of Native stonework. Each piece of projecting ledge in this area has had stonework added to it.
The two ledge projections here had cairns built on top of them, but the leftmost cairn has collapsed, most likely after a tree fell. You can see where the stones fell below. These are on a hill with many others just like them – short projecting ledge outcrops with cairns built on top of them, as in the two examples above.
Platform cairns are structures built into hillsides that look like thrust stages. The rear of the cairn runs into the slope of the hill and the front part projects out and is retained by a wall. In this case, the structure is triangular, although around here they are more typically rectangular in form. This is quite a large structure, perhaps 30′ long on the shorter sides, and represents the placing of an inordinate amount of stones.
This cairn has a hollow center to it. Unfortunately, it was probably hit by a tree at one point which knocked out a section of the cairn’s exterior wall. In my experience, hollow structures are fairly rare.
This hollow form cairn in right next to the one above, but of a much lower construction height. There is one area I have encountered with hundreds of cairns and dozens and dozens of cairns with this same hollow center to them.
This looks like a small enclosed space but because of its diminutive size it could also be a hollow cairn. It is next to a small stream leading to a pond on the other side of the ledge it’s built under, and has a number of very large and small cairns built nearby.
This ceremonial space has all of the hallmarks of Native work. It rests near the top of a cliff overlook on a hillside that ends in wetlands. The stones used to build the structure consist of fractured ledge, as is typical for this area. Unfortunately, the State put a path right by it recently and that often leads to a structure’s demise.
This is a set of 3 very large structures – formally built heaps or cairns. The first has a diameter of over 14′ and the second is about 30′ long. The last one has/had a face that had a T-shaped section to it, but has started to collapse out of plumb from when I first saw it 7 years ago. Like many other structures, trees falling and hitting them are taking their toll. I have cleared fallen trees from the first cairn three times now. These three structures are all within a half a mile from each other.
This cairn is in an area with many others that were built as semi-hollow enclosures. While most cairns are solid, such as can be seen in the many other examples on this site, you occasionally get an area where this type of cairn predominates. In this same area, many of these cairns are appended to the sides of boulders rather than built on top of them, the more common practice.
Cairns are often dismissed as simple field clearing piles, but there are many features they share that make this highly unlikely. Take this example for instance. If you’ve seen a lot of cairns, you will have seen a lot of cairns with sloped backs like this one. Why would farmers clearing stone make such a time consuming shape? Wouldn’t they just pile stone on top and maximize the amount they could place in one spot? There are many other oddities, like the cairn in the video above. Why make hollow piles if you are just trying to get rid of stone?
Another Native construction often found in my neighborhood is what I call a T-wall. They are short walls that simply T into a cliff face at roughly 90 degrees. When you see one or two examples, it is hard to figure out if it is just an oddity. After a few hundred examples, however, it becomes clear that this had to have been done for a very specific reason. Of course I have no idea what that is, but I do know that this type of structure is not just a wall that never got finished. 125
This ledge outcrop was turned into a horseshoe shaped structure. They often used large boulders or ledge faces as part of these horseshoe structures. Although it can’t be seen in the ferns, there is a little stoned passageway to the left of the horseshoe that leads down into the main structure. While giving a tour, someone asked me how I knew it wasn’t a bathroom. I talked about horseshoes in general and I tried to explain that there were very few of them around, and it would be a long walk for someone to get to. In the end she still asked if I could prove it wasn’t, and I had to admit I couldn’t….
Three massively built cairns in an area with many other Native structures, including a serpent effigy wall, other cairns, a horseshoe, and an enclosure among other things. I still find it quite magical to wander into areas with an intensive focus like this.
This is a recent find, despite being within 50 feet of the structure I went to document. Mountain Laurel has been swallowing up open space in this area at an incredible rate, and this was hidden in its clutches. Laurels have been destroying smaller structures along with all of the other trees in Connecticut and Rhode Island forests that are now reaching maturity and falling on top of them.
This cairn is part of the hillside depicted two videos below and demonstrates the high quality workmanship often found on this site.
These five large structures are below the cairns depicted in the video below, and are part of hundreds of cairns in this area. There is another extensive and interesting cairn field near this one, but all of the cairns there seem to be resting in the soil rather than on boulders or ledge. It is by far more common for them to be built on top of boulders or ledge.
This cairn is part of an extensive field of cairns consisting of hundreds of structures. See the video above for a wider look at this section of the field.
This structure is in an area of ledge outcroppings and boulders. It uses the ledge face itself to form the left side of the structure. Most linteled structures I have seen in this area are free standing, although a few are built against boulders. Doug Schwartz told me about this example.
This little enclosed space built against a boulder has taken some hits over the years. Behind it is a serpentine wall that ends in a boulder with quartz crystals protruding from it. The whole ceremonial space sits on a ledge outcrop and has many other Native structures in the neighborhood.
I had thought this was a small enclosure but was told that it was once roofed over. The slabs had collapsed into the room and were removed by a group in the 60s or so. Once people mess around with these structures it makes it difficult for others to know what happened.
This set of boulders is linked with walls, but not all of them. Nearby is a far more extensive set of walls linking boulders and forming enclosed spaces. As with most structures, I have no idea what was intended by the builders and all I can do is speculate and document them for the future…
This is a view looking out towards the chamber doorway from the perspective of the plane of the back wall of the chamber. Note the corbelling of the sides inward as they rise to allow the roof slabs to reach across. The roof stones are placed in a circular fashion in this case.
It is quite common to find quartz on the top of cairns, quartz being highly important to Native culture. One retired state archaeologist stated he had never seen a Native grave that didn’t contain quartz. I have seen some cairn fields where every cairn has a lot of quartz pieces on top, but in general it’s probably more like 10-15 percent of all cairns in a field.
Serpents are the most common effigies found in New England, with the turtle taking second place. Most serpent effigies in my area feature a triangular or diamond shaped head stone, possibly mimicking the poisonous snakes. This serpent, with a body 50′ long, is heading down into a stream – a common motif in these parts.
Boulders that had naturally split were often filled in with stones, as if to make them whole again. They are quite striking. The other thing they often did was place only one or two stones in the split as if to hold it open.
This hillside is covered in boulders, ledge and hundreds of cairns, and is part of a site with over 1200 cairns on it. A Rhode Island archaeologist declared this hill to represent nothing more than typical farming activity, stating the farmer was simply clearing the land to make it more useful. Makes one wonder if he’s ever seen a farm… .
This stone serpent effigy is heading into a pile of boulders, much as one might expect a living serpent to do. It is in an area of many other ceremonial structures, including cairns, walls, another serpent, and enclosed spaces, and it’s tail starts on the edge of a small stream.
This small enclosure was made under a boulder or piece of ledge in the bottom of a ravine filled with other boulders and walls connecting them. There are other enclosed spaces in the ravine, serpent walls, and stones stacked on boulders as one would expect.
Split boulders often drew the attention of Native builders. They built cairns on top of some, filled the split with stones on others, or held the split open with a stone or two. In this case, some of the stones once stacked on top have slid off, probably due to a tree branch hitting them at some point in the past.
This beautiful cairn sits on a small rise above a stream with a few dozen others. I suspect that the one large stone on top was a later addition to the cairn, but can’t say for sure. It is different from all the other stones and simply doesn’t look right.
Unfortunately shot on a sunny day, but this is a small space added to the end of a large boulder. I found this a few minutes walk from where I parked and proceeded to walk for hours after without finding another thing of interest…
I define heaps as large piles of stone on exposed ledge. They often have formally built sections of walls around the perimeter and stones that fill in the rest of the structure that look as if they were just tossed there informally.
I only know of three of these type structures, and all three are within a mile of each other. While this one forms a D shaped space alongside a wall, the other two are alongside or on top of boulders that touch the wall.
This structure was found by Doug Schwartz, and is one of the more impressive things I’ve seen. Doug suggested the turtle is carrying the worlds on its back. It stands about 5′ tall.
This cairn, as is typical, covers the boulder or ledge upon which it is built and butts up against a boulder. Note the sloping top surface – something that is quite common in the field of cairns where this was found. 100
In general, I randomly call large structures built on ledge where the ledge is exposed heaps, simply to differentiate them from the smaller cairns we normally see. This one is a lot smaller than what I normally call a heap and is more carefully stacked, whereas heaps have a lot of loose stones piled inside of boundary walls.
This beautiful little structure just missed destruction by a few hundred feet from loggers working the area. It is in nearly perfect condition, but like most structures, is waiting for a fatal tree-fall. It may be marking the end of a rift.
These are also from the same hillside of 1200 cairns. Note especially on the first example the tiny stones that were incorporated on the interior of the cairn. Farmers in the 1800s did not pick up pebbles on a hill of ledge and stack them to improve the land.
By fake, I mean it isn’t Native, but it is about 40 years old. When I saw this I was quite excited, as cylindrical cairns are very rare in this area, and there were about 7-8 of them here on the edge of a huge and beautiful cairn field of real Native structures. I should have realized it was too good to be true right off the bat, but hope over experience…. The guy who built these dismantled real cairns and used the same stones on the same boulders to make the cylinders, so the stones were aged like all the other cairns and in the right places. It’s generally easy to spot non-Native work, but not in this case.
This massively built wall runs along until it reaches the break in the ledge on which it is built. It then has this dramatic section that arcs over the break below. It is about 7′ tall at this point, and is quite beautiful. From the other side you’d barely notice it, but Native walls in this area are generally meant to be seen from one side, unlike farming walls which look the same on either side.
These three cairns are some from a hillside with 1200 others!
There are scattered throughout this site a number of linteled cairns or horseshoes. Often mistaken for fireplaces, these constructions show no evidence of fire, either soot or charcoal in their interiors, unless they were unfortunate enough to have a modern trail run by them, in which case they are also filled with beer cans or have been wantonly destroyed.
These cairns are all from the same site along the coast in Connecticut. Some of them are as good as the day they were built, and the largest one is over 6′ tall.
The five structures here include a small circular enclosure on sloped ledge, which is near a newly destroyed linteled cairn, a cairn from a field of hundreds where this one is the only one like it in the field, a very large wall running through a ledge outcropping, a heap, and a tall horseshoe. 80
One of the most beautiful linteled structures I have seen. This one has both a double lintel and cheek stones lining the interior, and was shown to me by Douglas Schwartz.
This linteled cairn has long withstood the tests of time in a narrow valley now filled with mountain laurel. Note the full sized tree that grew on top of the structure – it was about 2′ in diameter at its maximum and didn’t crush it.
These two holes were probably used for grinding acorns, corn, or other vegetable matter. Surprisingly, they are up on a sloped bit of ledge above what would have been their campsite. There was a third hole that was in a looser block of ledge that was removed in the 50s or 60s and taken to someone’s home.
Hollow cylindrical cairns are quite rare in the area I have spent most of my time, and this linteled cylinder is even more so. It sits in a little rift facing easterly. Unfortunately, it’s end is within sight with a huge tree leaning completely over it that will destroy it when it falls.
I had seen and photographed this boulder several times but never noticed it’s unique feature until I made this model. I believe the feature was naturally occurring, but I wonder if it was the reason this particular boulder was filled.
This video is of 14 cairns found on a hillside with 1200 others. While you occasionally come across single cairns in the woods, it is more common to find them in groups of a few to twenty or thirty in Connecticut and Rhode Island. There are many sites though with hundreds of them found together.
One of the best effigy cairns of a turtle I’ve seen. While many leave plenty up to one’s imagination, there is little doubt about what this structure represents.
This video consists of a model of a large cairn or heap built into the side of a hill, an enclosure underneath a cliff, and Native wall built on the edge of protruding ledge. Falling trees, of course, have taken their toll, especially on the enclosure where they knocked over a linteled horseshoe once built within.
Alton Blodgett showed me these structures years ago. There is a small free-standing enclosure, a chamber, a horseshoe built into ledge and a large stone circular enclosure under ledge. In my experience, these large rings of stone are quite rare. 52
This beautiful enclosure above a pond was shown to me by Ernie Beckwith. It rests, along with other stonework, along a descending series of stepped ledge outcroppings.
These cairns are part of an astounding site in Vermont whose location was given to me by Norman Muller. There are over 140 cairns in this section of the stonework, and many, many others around these. The scale of these cairns is unlike those typically found in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and certainly this site is one of the most memorable ones I’ve visited.
This cliff area was a focus for a lot of Native stonework. Note the short wall on top of the high ledge and the cairns strewn about below it.
Large cairns and other stonework enclosed by walls. There was a very small one room house where it looks like there are two fireplaces in the center of the wall nearest the cliff, but I believe most of the stonework here was here before the house was built. I believe the house was built here as the site was already cleared of stone and of some use.
I have no idea if this was a shelter or a ceremonial structure, but it bears all the hallmarks of Native construction. Unfortunately, it was a sunny day when I was in the area so the model isn’t what it should be. I will have to return to redo the model.
A variety of types of stonework from one area. Cairns, boulder enclosures, cliff walls, medicine wheels (very rare), a possible rock shelter, and serpent walls. 25
This video includes a large heap/cairn, a hollow cairn (fairly uncommon), a linteled cairn, a serpent with a built head rather than a boulder head, and a collapsed linteled cairn.
These three cairns are from a small hilltop with a number of other extraordinarily built cairns. Even having seen tens of thousands of cairns, this site is visually quite remarkable and stands out in my mind.
The structures in this video come from a number of sites and consist of a short wall that marks the beginning of a fault line, an enclosed space formed by walls among boulders (see also video directly below of the same structure), several serpent walls, some walls associated with ledge, a linteled cairn, a linteled horseshoe within an enclosed space alongside a wall, a few cairns, and what I was told was a low chamber with the roof stones removed.
This extraordinary site includes this enclosure that runs through these enormous boulders – many over 8′ in height.
This video does not contain models, but is included here given its importance to the topic of Native constructions. It has a few of my thoughts on the differences between Native and farming walls in my area of study. It was made for an archaeologist who wanted to know how one might tell the difference. Of course, until any individual wall is dated using OSL techniques, it can’t be truly known. Note too that there are other differences not mentioned here due to time constraints.
This short video was made to show a collection’s manager a little bit about the topic, but may be of interest to those of you who are new to the subject as well. Given the huge scope of the stonework, just realize that this barely scratches the surface. There are no 3d models in this video.
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