Looking back, for a moment, to the beginning of our journey here at Moss Hollow. When Jason was pushing dirt around to make our site flat enough for a building, I saw something lying on top of the dirt at the edge of clearing that looked like it did not belong. It was a grey rock, rather flat, and obviously altered by human hand.
It was just sitting on top of the ground. There was nothing similar around. I think it may have been flipped out by the skid steer, but who knows? A few weeks ago, I showed it to Mark Wagner and the folks at SIU's Center for Archaeological Investigation. They said it was about 3000 years old. This type of artifact is not terribly rare around here. It is a roughed blank intended to be further refined into a tool or point. It would usually be found in a cache of several more just like it. They would be made as the step between the raw stone and the finished item and saved for later refinement or traded for other items. Forgotten or lost caches of them are found today. I'm afraid, if there is a cache of them here, it is probably under my driveway now. I also showed them some chips of similar material that I found on one of the little ridges that extends into Moss Hollow below our designated house site. They confirmed that they were, indeed, flakes from the chipping process used to make things like the one pictured above. So I'm thinking that the place we call home was also occupied by people a very long time ago.
I had something else that I wanted to ask the CAI folks about. Last spring, before the ticks and chiggers were out, Joss (my granddaughter) and I often took walks around Moss Hollow. She especially likes to cut straight across the hollow: down one side, up the other. The downhill part is fine, but my old legs don't care much for the uphill. On one of these traverses, coming back toward home from the other side, I was taking my time, looking around, giving my legs and wind a break. Close to the creek bed, on the North side, maybe a couple hundred feet from the head of the hollow I perceived an area of ground that did not look natural. It was depression about 12 feet in diameter. It looked to me like it could have been formed by hand. The spring plants hadn't grown much yet and the lay of the land was quite visible.
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| This is the view from the South side of the hollow, looking North. The depression is just left of center frame and just uphill from the creek ditch. |
As I approached this depression I spied something else. Just up hill a few feet from the depression, at the base of a tree was a hole about a foot in diameter. As I looked closer, I could see it was lined with rocks, obviously man made. It went straight down about 12 inches where it was filled with leaves. This thing could be easily missed especially when things are normally grown up. It's really only visible from one direction, as well.
There is an animal trail running from further down the hollow right past it, left of the tree in the photo.
I showed these photos to the CAI folks and described the setting, They said it was probably historic but could be quite old. This area has been occupied by settlers for over 200 years. I don't know about the habitation of my exact parcel before the early 20th century. They really couldn't tell me anything conclusive. I would love to get a pro out here to see it in context. The whole thing is quite a mystery to me. The location is odd. It's quite a way down the slope from any potential building site. And it is pretty rugged; not an area that would have been good pasture. It looks like this might have been a spring at one time that fed the artificial pool below. But no water flows now. This spot is situated up the hollow from the 2 fingers of small ridges that poke into Moss Hollow. The animal trail leads right from the "ridges" to the "well". The ridges look a bit unnatural to me and that is where I found the flint chips I mentioned earlier. I can imagine them related as campsites and water supply. Later in the Fall, I will clean out the leaves and see if there is anything in there, how deep it goes, and if it will flow again.
