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| From a 6'x6' clearing |
The area's known as a major rock depository, from when glaciers melted — dumping enormous quantities of rock from Canada right where future farmers would be sure to encounter it.**
Whenever I turn a space for any reason in the yard, it turns into an excavation project pretty quickly. We're used to that up here. But the rocks I discover are usually fairly large and not all that numerous.
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| Failed arrowheads? |
When I started in on this last section, I noticed something quite different: the shovel would not even enter the turf before meeting rocks. What I've apparently discovered is somebody else's rock pile. Perhaps the same area I chose to farm on was somebody else's choice years ago. What I've stumbled upon is where all those rocks from the rocky field ended up.
It's a relatively flat area, low enough to capture rainwater, just up from the Passumpsic River — located at a corner of two roads that most likely were Indian trails before they became major thoroughfares.
I'm finding rocks that might make good tools — not projectiles or arrowheads (unless failed ones), but other tools that might be involved in agrarian pursuits. Tools designed for cutting, scraping, clearing, etc.***
Problem is, I'm not an expert on these things and my "confirmation bias" might get in the way. Next step is to show curious items to people who might know how to interpret them better.
*each part of which is about 6'x6'.
**Vermont itself is known as such a rocky place that much of the outward migration in the mid- to late-1800s was about finding rock-free places to farm out west.
***most of the resources I've found so far emphasize projectiles (more sexy?) and don't have much on other types of tools native peoples might have used.
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