CHAPTER 16

STONES AND STARS SYMPOSIUM

A Watershed Event Hosted at Colgate University

The Stones and Stars: Ceremonial Stone Landscapes of Northeastern North America symposium was held at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, on Monday, December 1, 2014. As it marked a time when an important change had happened, this was a watershed event on Native American ceremonial stone site research and understanding in the Northeast. The event was hosted by Laurie Rush, the cultural resources manager and U.S. Army archaeologist for Fort Drum, New York, and Anthony Aveni, Colgate University professor of anthropology, astronomy, and archaeoastronomy.

In recent years Fort Drum archaeologists have discovered more than two hundred archaeological and ancestral places. Members of the cultural resources team have presented more than two dozen scientific papers on topics ranging from how to predict prehistoric site locations using glacial lake landforms to identification of sugar maple bush sites in the Northeast forests. Ancestral places found range from lithic scatters where perhaps tools were sharpened to a village with six or more longhouses. Stone tools found at Fort Drum have been sourced to lithic quarries in the Hudson Valley, the Finger Lakes, West Virginia, and Ohio. Other discoveries include fired clay hearths or storage pits dating back at least two thousand years and a grinding stone, as well as numerous examples of pottery and post molds that outline ancient dwellings. These are all fascinating and significant archaeological finds.

It was something discovered that was quite out of the ordinary that prompted the symposium. The discovery came about after work crews at the Black Plain Hill site in Rhode Island and at Fort Drum in New York ran into a little snag. While the survey crew in Rhode Island was delineating a fence line, they encountered some unusual stone piles and rock formations. Their find was brought to the attention of Major Jeremiah Buckenberger of the 143rd Civil Engineering Squadron of the Rhode Island Air National Guard, who was in charge of the project. Delighted at the prospect of getting out of the office to view something of interest in the woods, Buckenberger set off to see what was up with these unusual stones. After seeing the stone piles, which caused him to scratch his head in confusion, he thought some further research was needed. Using Google as a resource, he quickly found images of America’s Stonehenge in New Hampshire, as well as the Putnam County chambers in New York, which looked nothing at all like what was found at the Black Plain Hill or Fort Drum sites. Digging a little deeper, he began to see images of sites matching what he had seen: carefully and purposefully built stone piles, serpentine walls, effigy stones, and more.

As Doug Harris, deputy tribal historic preservation officer of the Narragansett tribe, said at the symposium, the stones began to speak to Buckenberger, and he knew he had come across something of cultural significance that could not be ignored or destroyed. Buckenberger reached out to Rush at Fort Drum for some direction, and after a little further research they contacted Aveni, who helped encourage the investigation into what was found and suggested a symposium hosted at Colgate, where the data could be presented, considered, and discussed.

What made the gathering unique and historic was the fact that there were three parties involved in this discussion, all at the same table for the first time in New York. They included representatives from the academic community, the tribal community, and the regulatory community. For the regulatory part there were archaeologist Nancy Herter from the New York State Historic Preservation Office; Amy Wood, archaeologist for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; Rebecca Klein, cultural resources program manager from the U.S. Army National Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C.; and Rush from Fort Drum. From the tribal nations there were Harris, along with Bettina Washington, tribal historic preservation officer for the Wampanoag, and Jesse Bergevin, historic preservation specialist for the Oneida Indian Nation. Canadian tribal representatives were also present, traveling a great distance from northern Ontario. As the academic host, Aveni acted as event moderator and commentator and opened the Colgate Science Center’s planetarium, the Ho Tung Visualization Laboratory, to the event, with Colgate archaeology, anthropology, and astronomy professors, instructors, and students, all invited to attend and participate.

All presentations had the words “Ceremonial Landscapes” or “Ceremonial Stone Landscapes” in their titles. The talks all addressed various aspects of establishing regional context, identifying and protecting sites, changing views and perspectives, analyzing stone features, and looking into the future of research in regard to ceremonial stone groupings and landscapes.

Buckenberger’s talk focused on the unusual stone structure grouping found at Black Plain Hill, identified during the perimeter fence project survey. The site location, as it turns out, was shown to be at the intersection of five known and mapped Native American trails, part of a larger network of trails that have been documented in the region. The site, known as FDP1151 and also the Standing and Walking Bear, is a calendar site that includes many of the elements found in similar sites in other areas of New York and New England. Site features include groupings of stone piles and mounds, snake effigy walls, and large animal effigy bedrock boulders that seem to be connected to the bear, both the animal that roams the northeastern woods and the circumpolar star group that roams the northern sky.

Documented archaeaoastronomical elements present at the site include solstice and equinox sunrise and sunset alignments, as well as alignments with the rising of Sirius and the setting of the Big Dipper, with its tail star setting on the tip of a standing stone. The Standing Bear and the Walking Bear work together to cast shadows on the solstices and equinoxes. Nearby is located a large bedrock bear-head effigy some 20 feet across.

When confronted with the fact that a Native American calendar site existed on the Black Plain Hill Rhode Island National Guard base and Fort Drum property, Buckenberger simply said, “The math is the math, and you can’t argue with that.”

The impact of the perimeter fence project was mitigated to avoid the ceremonial stone groupings, and where the new fence would interfere and obscure the astronomical site, alignment gates were placed along the fence line that could be opened at the appropriate times to allow the observational alignments to continue to be realized.

Another focus of the discussions dealt with trying to understand these ceremonial and observatory sites, not in the Eurocentric context in which they are many times explained and interpreted, but in how alignments between stone and sky use petroforms to create star maps. We are off base with these interpretations unless we also consider the stories or lore behind the sites’ construction and connections to the stars; that is, the spiritual meaning of the site as well as any practical aspect the site may serve, if any. The story of the site holds its spiritual meaning. If the story associated with the site is not known, then neither can its spiritual aspect be known. One thing was understood by all: the sacred and spiritual nature of some of these sites represents the living prayers placed on them by the ancient ancestors who created them, and disturbing a site in any way would destroy the prayers, harmony, and balance that at an intact site may remain in place to this day.

Among the fascinating perspectives brought to the symposium were the questions asked and the knowledge shared by the Native folks from up north in Canada. Present were a tribal chief and his brother along with a small entourage. The chief spoke only in his native tongue, and his brother translated into French. Another translator then translated the brother’s French into English for the attendees. What they had to say was both interesting and intriguing, raising as many questions as it provided answers.

Dressed in full Native regalia, the tribal visitors first offered an opening blessing of song, drum, and rattle. Throughout the proceedings they spoke up freely, asked questions, and were asked to offer their understanding of the meaning of such sites as were the focus of this gathering. What they shared follows: The chief, after one of the presenters spoke, said that we should remember to factor in the water when considering these sites. He said all the sites’ memories are in the water that runs through the site. The water holds and keeps the knowledge. He said where the stones line up with the stars, water holds a message. In another interaction, the chief said, “Star groups represent the clans and also big meeting places. They also open a door to the spirits or people of the stars. The message is to teach future generations of the teachings of the sand [secrets].” Again, this was all said third-hand through dual translators.

During the open discussion, while viewing sky events simulated in the planetarium, the Canadian chief spoke up strongly when, while visually traveling back in time during the course of the year, both the full moon and the Pleiades star cluster were high overheard, both near their zenith at the same time. He pointed out that this was an important sky event in the tribal belief system and traditions, due to the moon and the Pleiades sharing the same place in the sky, at the same time as the other; in conjunction.

Aveni offered that researchers should look for sky connections not only at the typical times of year, equinoxes and solstices, but also at times connected to animal and human seasonal migrations, such as when the fish run or when it is time to relocate a hunting camp. The timing of these events may have also been associated with the location and movement of certain stars and star groups in the sky at different times of year. Aveni’s vast experience with Mesoamerican archaeoastronomy allows him to make cultural connections and comparisons drawn from the evidence he has helped interpret over many years. The configurations discovered at Fort Drum between stone constructions on the ground and their relationships to the night sky were not strange to Aveni’s eye. He has seen this many places before, but the Fort Drum find may have been the first time he realized that New York held such evidence of a past civilization.

Many of the state and federal archaeological experts present admitted that these types of sites and landscapes are only now appearing on their radar for the first time and that they had been unaware of their presence or cultural significance previously. They recognized they have been operating under a false perception that ceremonial stone landscapes in the Northeast do not exist. They acknowledged the challenges faced when trying to identify and protect such sites, for which there is currently no box to check on the National Register of Historic Places applications to account for, classify, or categorize them. Uniformly, the regulators believed that must change and that these stone groupings should be easier to identify and protect. For classification purposes, they themselves—along with the tribal authorities—find these ceremonial sites are described as “stone groupings,” making up larger “stone landscapes,” which may make up even larger “stone districts.” Accurately rediscovering their true meaning will require developing a holistic view of their cultural context to discover the larger theme. The sites can’t be looked at as isolated and existing in a vacuum, as they have been for so long. This, along with rigorous academic research contributing to and backing up a National Register multipurpose document form, would lead to protection of sites threatened by federally regulated projects.

Mainstream archaeologists in the Northeast have believed for a long time that there is absolutely no proof that man-made megaliths or dolmens, with or without grave objects or any other manifestation of old-world stone grouping construction or astronomical alignments, existed in lands of the Northeast. The burden of proof has been on those who make these claims, and until very recently, every claim has been unsupported by satisfactory scientific evidence. Now that has all changed. Given what we learned at the Stones and Stars symposium, it is clear that the northeastern United States has been totally and inappropriately overlooked by the archaeological establishment.

Several years ago, the Turners Falls site in Massachusetts set a precedent when it became the first federally recognized Native American ceremonial stone grouping in the Northeast, making it eligible for protection under federal law. However, the state authorities did not agree with the federal government and the tribal claim that the site was sacred. Luckily, the federal and tribal ruling overrules the state’s conclusions. The Fort Drum site sets a new precedent as the first ceremonial stone site in the Northeast where all parties, the tribes as well as the state and federal governments, agree as to the purpose and origin of this ceremonial site.

I’m sure the insights learned and shared at this symposium will be a small but important step in helping restore and preserve the balance and harmony these sites hold within them, providing a clearer path for research, site protection, and growth and healing, for many years to come.