Tuesday, January 7, 2014

SECRETS OF STONE STRUCTURES IN NEW ENGLAND

Stones walls and other stone formations are certainly an important part of Killingworth's history. When walking the country roads and woods of this town we come across old stone foundations, stone walls, old root cellars,  and cairns of unknown origins. Some of the stone formations don't seem to make sense when considering practical purposes. It is fascinating to ponder what the purpose was of some of these structures. Check out the video at the bottom of this post for an interesting tour and explanations/theories of stone structures in New England. Also check out the link at the bottom that talks about The Hammonasset Line

The first 5 photos are of the stone wall at Parmelee Farm which was built by the community . The wall was built during a stone wall workshop guided by Dan Snow and Andrew Pighills
http://www.parmeleefarm.org/walling/







The photos below were taken in a parcel of state forest in Killingworth, CT. The photos are of a large stone wall on the edge of a ridge. There is some question as to whether it is a boundary line or a fence to keep animals in  or more of a lookout/protection type of wall built by people earlier than the colonists. There is also a photo of a Cairn.
 Is the hole in the wall above...a lookout hole or did a stone fall out over the years?

 Picture of a cairn above with the foundation of a large rock. Many Cairns seem to have been built including a large already existing rock.Could it be a grave marker? Could it have some sort of religious or astronomical purpose? Is it a land marker or just a very precisely formed rock pile? Check out the video below for more theories.

 Some people speculate as to why many very old New England walls will place stones connecting already present natural rock formations as in the photo above. As you can see the stones placed by humans serve no real functional purpose. Is it just for aesthetic purposes? Some feel that ancient religions may have believed that connecting the stone formations in this manner produced some sort of "energies"
It's just my feeling that these photos of the wall in the woods on the ridge in the photos above are older than just several generations. A group from Yale came through our property around 30 years ago to study the geology in the woods behind us where these stone formations are.I wished I had asked them a few questions. Here is another picture of a large boulder that was interesting. The photo does not do justice to the actual size of the boulder as we are looking down at it from another wall on a different ridge in the same area of woods as the other wall on a different ridge. For some reason walls were often formed on ridges.


The video below explores some of the possible purposes of these stone formations and who the builders may have been. Some feel that all of the stone structures were made by colonists. Some say the Indians may have used some of these structures for burial of the dead. Others believe that ancient cultures, such as the Druids, traveled here before the colonists appeared. The most fantastical explanation this video offers up is that aliens from another world or dimension created some of the stone structures of New England and other structures around the world. The video encourages us to believe this latter theory. It is made to seem that humans are much more intelligent now than ever before in history....therefore humans from ancient times could not have been smart enough to build the pyramids, Stonehenge...etc. I tend to think that even though it is possible that there is life somewhere else in the universe....that these stone formations that we have observed from all around the world could certainly have been made by other civilized human societies which possessed certain technological information that the general public today has not been made aware of.


Article about The Hammonasset Line
The Hammonasset Line is an imaginary line that supposedly connects Montauk Long Island to the Connecticut mainland and goes up through Mass. Parts of Madison and Killingworth are included in this line of interesting stone structures including turtle rock formations, cairns, prayer seats...etc. Many of these stone formations are believed to have something to do with the solstices.
http://articles.courant.com/2010-12-20/news/hc-hammonasset-line-solstice-1215-20101220_1_solstice-stone-walls-prayer-seatshttp://secretsofthestones.org/

2 Beautiful Coffee Table Books by Dan Snow: Stone Artist and Wall Builder who supervised the stonewall workshop at Parmelee Farm in Killingworth, CT. along with Andrew Pighills.  


In the Company of Stone
Listening to Stone

8 comments:

  1. I've been documenting, independently researching stone walls for a long time now - over 25 years: http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2015/04/why-it-isnt-what-you-read-about.html

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    1. Hello Tim...just came across your comment and briefly visited your blog at the link above. Thank you for sharing. Will go back and read more. I just love old stone walls and love trying to imagine what the different stone structures were used for.

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    2. Hey Tim, figures I'd bump into you here! I still miss that little cottage, and I now better understand why I so loved living in beautiful Woodbury, being on the Hammonasset. Be well, nabe!

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  2. I go out and walk the woods for things along the Hammonasset Line all the time! lol...So far I found mostly cairns and odd walls...but nothing like the big cairn fields I'm looking for....I have it pretty much pinpointed to the location but man....that doesn't help when you're one person...the woods seem to go on forever...anyway if anyone wants to join me, I have 2 water co passes....and kind of precise directions to a couple of cairn fields...on fb I'm rocklandwife and I have some photos in my North Madison albums but nothing like what I want to find which is like everything in that Hammonasset Line article :) I'm over near Summer Hill myself...

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    1. Hello there, sent you message on fb...hope you get it. How did you get passes for water co property? Tara.

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  3. The Genesee Cairn Fields are real, and are quite amazing. Hard to believe that so few are aware of this, once you actually see it. It lies in the very northern end of this section of Water Company land, off the regular trail, and so is technically "off limits". I found it after about three attempts, by crossing survey maps with descriptions of the land, as well as photos. Very, very shocking to see this place just sitting in the deep woods. I have spoken with the state archaeologist about it, but as far as I know he has not yet visited. I'm sure he would be floored.

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  4. The amount of individual stones are massive, and are also heavy. Where did "they" find all of these stones and how did "they" move them? Seems there would need to be thousands if not tens of thousands of people to make these walls possible.

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  5. See also: Not in Scotland Anymore, found here at http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-narraganset-man-takes-stage-and-he.html

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