The "I Might Have Become A Famous Cairn Constructon Artist In 1000 Years!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading about rocks!  Not just any rocks, but rocks throughout New England that have for years been thought to have been Native American ice houses, root cellars or even agricultural field clearing.  I also found a bit more about rocks that have been found in Eastern Pennsylvania, just east of the city of Reading in an area known as Oley Hills.  One rocky ridge features a group of cairns, walls, a curved-row platform, a terrace and other formations spread out over 14 acres of countryside.  About a year ago I wrote about man-made cairns that were on Orient Beach in French St. Martin.  If you look for the meaning of "cairn" you will find that it is a grouping of rocks made from stones.  A cairn is a deep-rooted Scottish tradition that signifies respect.  By adding a rock to the cairn you are preserving the integrity of the monument and helping to protect if from harsh weather.  The site at Oley Hills had a luminescence analysis done that suggested they were erected about 570 B.C.  The Adena culture was said to have erected the cairn and also have been associated with artifacts found in western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  

These cairns were constructed on St. Martin after Hurricane Irma.

The cairns were said to have been artistic in nature which set them apart from agricultural activities in the area.  An archaeologist examined the property at Oley Hills and found miles of curving stone walls crawling through marshland as well as on the contours of a mountain.  From the air it looked like a giant snake with a head and tail and another snake entwined with its tail.  Could be one reason the Native Americans believed there were three worlds; an underworld where spirits lived, the Earth where people lived and the sky world, the source of water where the powerful Thunderbird lives and where the dead reside in the Milky Way.  Stone work such as this was always thought to be from early white pioneers and not Native Americans.  What has been found is now beginning to change the minds of many.  Propped-up boulders and stone effigies of whales, turtles, snakes, bears and birds have also been found.  Whom might have made these?  Could it have been the Celts, Vikings or others that arrived before Christopher Columbus?  There certainly wasn't enough time to construct all this.  Had to be the Native Americans.  But why did they build all this?  Where they sacred places or spots for rituals or ceremonies to contact the spirit world?  The more that is found, we find we need to take a closer look at the rock features around us.  In 2007 the United States and Eastern Tribes organization reported that these sacred ceremonial stone landscapes existed and that traditional archaeological dismissals of the fact are leading to their destruction and ignoring their significance.  In 2016 a resolution mentioned the groupings in Pennsylvania.  In 2020 the Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission began working with the United States and Eastern Tribes group to record stone sites and landscapes.  Currently 35 sites in Pennsylvania have been identified that contain "ambiguous stone constructions."  Perhaps Native American sites may gain a bit of respect that wan't given to it in the past.  

I added a cairn to this collection on Orient Beach.

Made me wonder about the stone cairn monuments that were made on Orient Beach.  Will they still be around in 1000 years and perhaps discovered by archeologists from that time in history.  I told my wife I should have somehow carved or scratched my initials on the one I made.  Might have been famous!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.