Colonial "Walls" or Massive Lanscaping and Water Works of an Ancient Stone Civilization

When I first encountered the stone rows on my property I took peoples explanation blindly that they were all of post- colonial origin. Not once walking the length of the rows to find that none of them enclose land. As many people have pointed out, they almost always terminate at a marsh or stream. I was always curious why one section of the stone row curved before it reached the stream and a series of indentions in the ground continued the straight path of the row. I removed the leave debris and loose stones from the hole next to the stone row and was surprised that the row's stone base just kept going down. I eventually reached water. (A Wall or an Ancient Water System ? This is where I stopped. The base of the row had not been reached. As i began following more rows to where they terminated at the water, I started noticing the water outlet rock formation. Nearby there is a rolling farm field and at the lowest corner of the land there is a beefy L-shaped stone formation with a single stone row that connects to it acting to , what I believe, channel water further down the hill where it eventually connects with the stream. Have a look next time your at a stone row/water source meeting place. Let me know if you can find the outlet.

water works

Hard to see, but this is a large enclosure (30 feet by 20) with the opening facing south west. Part of a much larger cluster of interconnected stone rings(or as Cyrus Thomas calls them "Hut Rings")

v-notch standing stone in 2 parts

These 2 stones rise out of a series of holes the run along a "wall" near the stream termination.

Well -Hill/Water Exit

Stone Vault with Nitch( Gerard Fowke research)

I'm very glad I got a copy of Gerard Fowke's 1910 "Antiquities of Central and South-Eastern Missouri.

In it are photo's of what he calls "Stone Vaults" which correlate exactly to the structure near my site. The Southern facing doorway exists in these. This would strongly support the idea that this  easily pre-dates the arrival of the Europeans. I had someone with a professional metal detector out and he was surprised that we found no nails and barely any other metal objects. This would explain it.

Nitch

'The "enclosure" is actually a cellar for a house. The niche in the cellar wall is called a "cooling closet" in Pennsylvania. It was used to keep milk, cream, and butter cool during the summer months. They may have been used for other purposes as well. The few dated examples we have in PA, RI, CT, & MA date to the 1700's. In the overall photo there is a square stone structure in the lower left corner. This was probably the base to a large chimney. If you poke around to might find brick fragments in this area. In the past few months, I have begun compiling and tracking down examples of this cellar wall niches. This is nice find and the first one reported from a NY site. They are not common.' James E. Gage author of Root Cellars in America: Their History, Design and Construction 1609-1920

theseventhgeneration  said:

" I found one of these cooling closets in Central NY 2 years ago. Click here for a link to the Rock Piles post on that structure."

Wall Termination at stream.

Stone Wall connection to stream. Walls go many feet below the ground. Potentially as part of massive water works

Split Boulder with Snaggle Tooth

Split Boulder

Embedded "Goronet" bottle in Stone Mound

Here's a small mound (around 4 x 4 ft) with an embedded "Goronet" bottle. It's locked in place

Tim MacSweeney said:

coronet?

I went back and looked, yes, "coronet" is more like it...Even though I like the "Gore."

Thanks Tim