Rock Walls and Piles in deep woods of KY

sault tribe of chippewa indian's flag
 

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mayberry90 said:
Deep in the woods in Western KY, came across a strange series of rock walls and rock piles. Up a hill side where it flattens out before getting really steep. I have mapped at least 0.3 miles of these walls, some inner and outer walls and often at right angles. Usually ~3 ft high but taller in some locations, you can tell where it has fallen over time. Some areas of the wall definitely look hand stacked.

Additionally there are at least 17 rock piles, some bigger than others, usually around 4 ft high and 5-7 ft around, generally in a circular pattern. Sometimes, as in the pic attached, the largest stone is right on top of the pile, would require 2-3 men to pick up the rock in this pic.

I have no idea what this is. At first I thought it was a rock wall but the more I walked it, it became clear this is more of a complex. Generally the walls run NE-SW and E-W. The piles don't seem to be in a real orderly fashion.

Could be white farmers but some things don't add up. For example, the location is not great for farming, the ground is still absolutely filled with rocks (so if they were removing field stones they did a terrible job). I suppose could have also been loggers ~10 years ago but why would they waste their time?

I've done some googling and see that other things have been found in KY and surrounding, and I can't seem to find any consensus on this.

The last pic is of a large boulder that appears like a cube, I found it strange.

I have found several broken flint pieces at the base of the hill.
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Mayberry90,welcome to Tnet,a fine place to learn and interact.A lot of people went to a lot of trouble to give you good info.A simple thank you would be appropriate. Manners you see.
 

traveller777 said:
Welcome to Tnet. I hope your time here is rewarding. Lots of good folks here to help you.

From your pictures it looks like any hundreds and thousands of rock walls, livestock pens, and foundations found around the hills, mountains, and valleys here. But that is an opinion from the pictures you posted. More pictures with details might look different. I think simply an old homestead and maybe they did not finish removing all the rocks before they left or maybe just a place to hold livestock. If you visit the mountains down here in Tennessee and North Carolina, you will see lots of rock remnants of foundations and walls. Settlers here were from around the British Isles, and they love to use rocks for walls, etc.
Now that is my opinion from pictures. But there may be more to it, but I do not see it. Might be a good place to detect, but do not expect to find a great treasure EXECPT historical. Those people were usually dirt poor.
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And historical treasure can be the greatest of all!
 

traveller777 said:
Good idea. Look at the trees in pictures. A young second growth or had been a field and has been over grown with trees. I doubt anything over 90 years. Many less than that. I think a homestead late 1800s or so. But that is based on past experince and these few pictures.
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There's a younger hickory growing from the top of the wall in one of the photos. There's also a much larger stump left from when the property was logged ~13 years ago which tells me this is definitely older. Whether or not early 1900s or 1800s, I can't say.
 

mayberry90 said:
There's a younger hickory growing from the top of the wall in one of the photos. There's also a much larger stump left from when the property was logged ~13 years ago which tells me this is definitely older. Whether or not early 1900s or 1800s, I can't say.
Click to expand...
Simple way to determine age is to metal detect, and historically date items found. This should get you to general time period. If the area had been lived in a long time it might be an extended time period.
 

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Red_desert said:

Our Tribal Flag - The Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians Official Web Site​

The official website for the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.
www.saulttribe.com
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I thought you were going to make another thread for this, Red.
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Well, thought about it, not sure whether much can be applied to treasure hunting. Stone wheels relate mostly to Native American religion and seasonal, yearly cycles. Many derived teachings come from the medicine wheel-life of the individual (birth-East and rising sun, elders-story tellers, etc.) same south, west, north. As for treasure hunting, if got access, it would be artifacts unless maybe a chief buried gold coins from land payment. Indians from Miami tribe in my state did that, bury gold coins when they were moved from land. Today modern stone wheels usually are small or private, personal.
 

Reading this brings to mind an old homestead purchased by my Grandfather in the early 1940s.
The property was originally settled by and officer of the union army. The deed for 160 acres was given to him and signed by then President U. S. Grant for service in the Civil War. The property was located in Southern Michigan.

The land itself was rather hilly and part of a Glacial Drift so you can imagine the soil was 50% rock and boulders of all shapes and sizes. Since it was natural building material and many of the good sized rocks were cut into square shapes and used for the basement walls of the house and the subterranean portion of the Barn that was built into a side of a hill. A well was dug next to the house and the walls were lined with these stones too. Metal detection the area I found some Masonry chisels used to shape the stones. The eve of the barn carried a carved out date of 1873.

Four major 20 acre fields were cleaned out by hand for crops and all the excess rocks were placed in rows to mark the edge of fields in east to east and north to south lines. In the center of some fields there were single huge trees and rocks pile around these trees in a circular fashion. I suppose it was easier than tugging them by horse and wagon to the fence lines.

All this describes the property as I saw it in 1955 as a child. At that time Farming stopped. As the years passed on the Barn decayed and fell down. The fields over grew filled in with trees and are now a Forrest of sorts cut regularly by relatives for fire wood. The rock walls remain as evidence of what was once upon a time.
 

Hello everyone. I appreciate the feedback this thread received. I've got to say, though, I'm not sure that I agree with the assumption that these mounds were made for the purpose of either a) removing field stones, or b) marking property lines.

First, I have been doing some reading and found the following paper insightful as nobody really definitively knows the originator of these piles. Overcoming the Ambiguity of a Rock Pile

Additionally, I made the trek out there yesterday and did some more inspecting.

First, here is a small pile of rocks from the corner of a field on another area of the property:

4.jpg



As you can see, these have been haphazardly tossed or pushed to the perimeter of the field, which totally makes sense. The pile does not look organized and hand stacked, and certainly does not contain a giant stone that requires 2-3 men to pick it up at the top of the pile.


Upon inspecting several rock piles again, I definitely noticed that they appear in a random organization, with some as close as ~15 ft from each other. This could not mark a consistent property line.

Finally, after viewing one of the largest piles, I noticed something rather interesting about several of the rocks:

2.jpg


1.jpg



These rocks have clear water erosion features which would indicate to me that they came, not from the surrounding field (which is still full of stones, btw), but the branch at the bottom of the hill which is filled with similar rocks. This would actually be a very difficult task by hand because it is around 0.1 miles at the closest and a very steep climb!


Finally, here is another example of an obviously stacked rock feature that I thought was interesting, also because of how rectangular the top rock looks:

3.jpg



Anyway, that's about it. I'm not saying they are prehistoric, but I am saying that I don't believe they were either intended to mark property lines or to clear the local field.
 

mayberry90 said:
Hello everyone. I appreciate the feedback this thread received. I've got to say, though, I'm not sure that I agree with the assumption that these mounds were made for the purpose of either a) removing field stones, or b) marking property lines.

First, I have been doing some reading and found the following paper insightful as nobody really definitively knows the originator of these piles. Overcoming the Ambiguity of a Rock Pile

Additionally, I made the trek out there yesterday and did some more inspecting.

First, here is a small pile of rocks from the corner of a field on another area of the property:

View attachment 2048095


As you can see, these have been haphazardly tossed or pushed to the perimeter of the field, which totally makes sense. The pile does not look organized and hand stacked, and certainly does not contain a giant stone that requires 2-3 men to pick it up at the top of the pile.


Upon inspecting several rock piles again, I definitely noticed that they appear in a random organization, with some as close as ~15 ft from each other. This could not mark a consistent property line.

Finally, after viewing one of the largest piles, I noticed something rather interesting about several of the rocks:

View attachment 2048096

View attachment 2048098


These rocks have clear water erosion features which would indicate to me that they came, not from the surrounding field (which is still full of stones, btw), but the branch at the bottom of the hill which is filled with similar rocks. This would actually be a very difficult task by hand because it is around 0.1 miles at the closest and a very steep climb!


Finally, here is another example of an obviously stacked rock feature that I thought was interesting, also because of how rectangular the top rock looks:

View attachment 2048099


Anyway, that's about it. I'm not saying they are prehistoric, but I am saying that I don't believe they were either intended to mark property lines or to clear the local field.
Click to expand...
Could the area have seen civil war activities?
 

mayberry90 said:
Hello everyone. I appreciate the feedback this thread received. I've got to say, though, I'm not sure that I agree with the assumption that these mounds were made for the purpose of either a) removing field stones, or b) marking property lines.

First, I have been doing some reading and found the following paper insightful as nobody really definitively knows the originator of these piles. Overcoming the Ambiguity of a Rock Pile

Additionally, I made the trek out there yesterday and did some more inspecting.

First, here is a small pile of rocks from the corner of a field on another area of the property:

View attachment 2048095


As you can see, these have been haphazardly tossed or pushed to the perimeter of the field, which totally makes sense. The pile does not look organized and hand stacked, and certainly does not contain a giant stone that requires 2-3 men to pick it up at the top of the pile.


Upon inspecting several rock piles again, I definitely noticed that they appear in a random organization, with some as close as ~15 ft from each other. This could not mark a consistent property line.

Finally, after viewing one of the largest piles, I noticed something rather interesting about several of the rocks:

View attachment 2048096

View attachment 2048098


These rocks have clear water erosion features which would indicate to me that they came, not from the surrounding field (which is still full of stones, btw), but the branch at the bottom of the hill which is filled with similar rocks. This would actually be a very difficult task by hand because it is around 0.1 miles at the closest and a very steep climb!


Finally, here is another example of an obviously stacked rock feature that I thought was interesting, also because of how rectangular the top rock looks:

View attachment 2048099


Anyway, that's about it. I'm not saying they are prehistoric, but I am saying that I don't believe they were either intended to mark property lines or to clear the local field.
Click to expand...
Have you considered ground penetrating radar or overhead drone photography? Would be highly compelling if there were more large stones in the area, even more so in some greater pattern or formation.
 

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