New England Antiquities Research Association 2015 NEARA SPRING MEETING April 24th – 26th Quality Inn and Suites 114 Rt. 28 Kingston, NY Hotel Front Desk: 1(845) 339-3900, Hotel Fax: 845-338-8464 “Across the State: Shedding New Light on New York” SCHEDULE of EVENTS Friday, April 24th 1:00 - 5:00 pm Field Trips (see details on following page) 5:00 - 7:00 pm Registration and Book Sales 7:00 - 7:15 pm Welcome:Terry Deveau, NEARA President 7:15 - 8:00 pm Matt Bua: Mapping a Catskill, NY Stone Wall Complex: Casting Out the „Post-Contact‟ Myth 8:00 - 8:45 pm David Holden: Ancient Trails, Old Roads and Paths to the Future 8:45 - 9:00 pm Break, Book Sales, Exhibits 9:00 - 9:45 pm Dave Johnson: The Ancient Native American Connection to Stone Sites 9:45 -10:00 pm Rob Roy & Stephen Larsen: Project Sophia Update 10:00-10:20 pm Glenn Kreisberg: Ancient Script & Fertility Symbols in the Neversink R. Valley Saturday, April 25th 8:30 - 9:00 am Registration, Book Sales and light breakfast of pastries and fruit juice 9:00 - 9:45 am Annual General Meeting and Election Results 9:45-10:15 am Break, Book Sales, Exhibits 10:15-11:45 am State coordinator reports 11:45 -1:15 pm Lunch on your own, Book Sales & Exhibits 1:15 - 2:00 pm Doug Schwartz: Bear Hill and the Seneca Legend of Hahadodagwat'ha 2:00 - 2:45 pm Donald Aubrey: If Only the Stones Could Talk 2:45 - 3:15 pm Break, Book Sales, Exhibits 3:15 - 4:00 pm David Schewe: Ancient Stone Structures of the Finger Lakes Region 4:00 - 4:45 pm Laurie Rush: Ceremonial Stone Landscapes of Northeastern North America; A New Model for Rigorous and Collaborative Study 4:45 - 5:15 pm Speakers Q&A Panel 5:15 - 5:30 pm Break, Book Sales, Exhibits (book sales end at 5:30) 5:30 - 6:30 pm Cocktail & Networking Hour 6:30 - 8:00 pm Banquet and Raffle 8:00-9:00 pm Michael Gramly: The Bowser Road Site: A Clovis-Age Disarticulated Mastodon and Associated Ivory, Stone and Bone Tools Sunday, April 26th 9:00 - 1:00pm Field Trips (see details on following page) 2015 NEARA FALL FIELD TRIPS Field Tripshosted by Polly Midgley and the NEARA New York Chapter ***Friday, April24th***(Please dress warmly) Friday Field trips: #1 North Catskills Cairn and Wall Tour: Trip Leaders Glenn Kreisberg & Geoff Baer Depart hotel 12:00 p.m. Friday with NEARA 1st VP Glenn Kreisberg to the Rainbow Lodge cairns, then the Halcott Mountain cairns and walls. Trip ends at Spruceton Valley cairn field, an hour back to Kingston. #2 Turtle Rock and Marlboro Mountain: Trip Leaders Dave Johnson and Ned Doucet Depart hotel 12:00 p.m. Friday with NEARA member Dave Johnson to Huckleberry Turnpike, Wallkill, NY to view the Turtle Rock shelter and effigy. Johnson has extensively surveyed the area’s walls and numerous stone features including solstice sighting portal and rock art/glyphs and inscriptions. #3 Moneyhole Mountain, Fahnestock State Park, Garrison, NY, Trip leader Rob Buchanan 12:00 noon for a 12:30 pm departure. Easy to moderate 3 – 4 mile hike to features including cairn cluster, stone walls and a ruined chamber. Meet at the Bird & Bottle Inn parking lot at 1123 Old Albany Post Road, Garrison NY 10524. Location is at the intersection of Route 9 and Indian Brook Road and is approx. 8 miles south of I-84 Exit 13S (Route 9). For registration and further information please contact Rob Buchanan at [email protected] or at 914-715-6482. ***Sunday, April 26th*** Sunday Field trips: #1 Woodstock Cairns and Overlook Mountain: Trip Leaders Dave Holden& Polly Midgley Depart hotel 9:00 a.m. Sunday with NEARA member and NYS DEC Guide Dave Holdento the Bearsville Hollow Turtle Cairns, the Brydcliffe cairns and stone circle, the Overlook Mountain cairns, “great” cairns and effigy walls, Sloan Gorge and/or Van Dale Road cairns and walls. #2Kingston Megaliths, Shaupeneak Ridge and Gunks Tour: Trip Leader Glenn Kreisberg& Harald Fraude (for Esopus hike) Depart hotel 9:00 a.m. Visit the Megaliths in Kingston above the Hudson River and Rondout Creek, then on to the cairns and walls in Esopus on Shaupeneak Ridge, a preserve of Scenic Hudson (this is 2 miles roundtrip easy/moderate). Visit the “Project Sophia” site at Stone Mountain Farm, with its modern stone circle and ancient “sacrifice stone.” If time allows we’ll end with a hike to Bonticou Crag (3 miles roundtrip moderate) on the Mohonk Preserve, to see the “Solstice Stone” and Gunks “Dolmen.” Note: Kingston Megaliths and Stone Mountain Farm involve little or no hiking; A short walk at most. #3 Self-guided tour to Devils Tombstone and the Plateau Mountain Calendar Stones. Go 25 miles west on Rt. 28 from the hotel, to Phoenicia, NY. Then go east on Rt. 213 towards Hunter, NY. Devils Tombstone will be 9 miles on the right in a small state parking area. ¼ mile further is parking on the left next to Notch Lake. A State DEC trail starts across the road from the parking and heads up a steep .9 miles to the Plateau Mountain northeast summit with fantastic views. Along the way pass the Plateau Mountain Calendar Stone reported by Jay Wilcox in 1981 NEARA Journal XVI No. 2. Cross quickly to the nearby southeast summit to find the inscribed “Sun Stone” with sun glyph and winter solstice sunrise alignment. Once back to your car, continue on Rt. 213 3 more miles to Hunter, NY. A right turn on 23B takes you down the mountain to NYS Thruway, Exit 20, at Catskill, NY. The Plateau Mountain Calendar Stone Devils Tombstone ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIES FOR THE SPRING 2015 MEETING. ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIES FOR THE SPRING 2015 MEETING Matt Bua: “Mapping a Stone Wall Complex in Catskill New York While Casting Out the „Post-Colonial‟ Stone Wall Building Myth” The dry stacked stonewalls found in the Kiskatom area of Catskill do not enclose land. They are built on massive foundations that rule out field clearing piles and terminate at streams and marshes. Many stonewalls exist where land has not been cultivated in the past. Along with showing how I map a large stone site in my area, I will show an array of uncontested Native American ancient stonewall complexes and correlations to Mexican and South American stone walls used for irrigation and agricultural purposes. Matt Bua is an artist, intuitive builder and recently turned antiquarian who lives in the town of Catskill New York. Hisfascination with the old stone work in the Kiskatom area has led him on a 5 year research project that has resulted in the book: “Talking Walls: Casting Out the Myth That All Stone Walls in the Northeast Were Built Post-Colonially” published by Publication Studio Hudson. For the past three years Matt has organized and directed “The Stone Symposium” in Catskill, NY. http://www.hopeskillian.blogspot.com David Holden: “Ancient Trails, Old Roads and Paths to the Future” David Holden describes the old trails and roads of the Catskill region. He includes old Indian paths, Colonial and early American trade routes and travel corridors. Many remain as barely discernable tracks though the backwoods. Others are well-used trails today and some are part of our modern transportation system. David Holden started exploring backwoods Woodstock by applying outdoors skills learned in Maine. He discovered many of the area's lithic structures both large and small. He joined the New England Antiquities Research Association in 1980 to try to understand his discoveries. In the late '80s Holden found the Great Cairns and the Snake Effigy Cairns, all in Lewis Hollow, Overlook Mountain. He has maintained his love of Woodstock and of mapping the backwoods by becoming a NYS DEC-Licensed Hiking Guide in 2006. Since 2012 he‟s lectured about his finds to numerous regional groups. He‟s an Overlook Mountain Center founding Board Member and considers the preservation of culturally significant resources a mission of prime importance. Dave Johnson: “Ancient Native Americans‟ Connection with Stone Feature Sites” This presentation will compare the Lewis Hollow Site located near Woodstock New York and the Turtle Rock Site located near Marlboro New York with other sites in the northeastern and southwestern United States, as well as Peru and Chile. It will discuss the similarities. The sites share common locations and an association with springs, stone features, effigies, wall types and panoramic views. Using his dowsing methodology, Johnson has also demonstrated that these sites and the stone features associated with them are consistently located along areas of higher permeability (concentrated water flow within groundwater areas). When more sites are added to his study, the similarity remains consistent. This suggests construction by people with a common belief and/or origin. The sites reflect the Native Americans’ holistic view of earth and its surroundings, for example, springs with the underworld, surface features such as walls and cairns with the present world and astronomical alignments with the cosmos. In the northeastern region diagnostic artifacts are not typically associated with these sites and stone features. However, in the southwestern states, as well as Peru and Chile, diagnostic artifacts are commonly associated with them and some date back to early Archaic. During blind surveys Johnson has located Paleo sites by following areas of higher permeability. However Johnson and his colleagues have not been able to associate stone features with these sites. Several stone features and petroglyphs have been associated with specific geological and hydrological features that are associated with areas of higher permeability.