Something Fishy In The Vermont Woods...
Could This Rock Face in Jericho Have Been Altered to Create a Fish Effigy?
Does this Represent a Large-Scale Fish Effigy?
This split flat face of a stone outcrop appears to have evoked enough of an aquatic appearance that its shape was altered in a couple of places to help suggest a Large Fish form, with a Fin Stone added on the left to suggest a tail fin.
The Fin stone looks shaped, or was perhaps chosen for this shape.
Did Indigenous in New England Shape stone?
Some scoff at the idea Indigenous peoples in the northeast altered stone by any method other than pecking, or, at least, some only allow for pecking in terms of displayed stone-on-stone work.
Because of repeated designs and motifs I've seen, I wonder if Indigenous stoneworkers did more.
Though natural explanations can be offered for this shaping, the myth of a Pristine Wilderness seems to have led to an over-reliance upon Natural explanations when in actuality the millions of people ranging across a cultivated, curated landscape for more than 13,000 years could also offer possible parsimonious explanations for changes on the land.
In fact, now that we know many more people were here than once believed and that the landscape was cultivated, curated, shaped and altered, it’s hard to imagine natural work from the Ice Age remained untouched and intact through the intervening, inhabited millenia.
We know from flaked tools Indigenous peoples did more than pecking, using percussive techniques. Why not on a larger scale as well?
Some suggest frost wedging was used to split stone.
Perhaps winter also allowed for the movement of large stones on sleds and sledges.
Mulling these things in my mind, walking around a potential Fish Form found in the Vermont woods…