I spent time last night and this morning looking over topo maps to pick new places to explore. My rule for effigy hunting is to find a swamp or pond at the top of a watershed, far enough from houses and construction that I can get in there without being paranoid. I also look for a little bit of contour next to the wetland since I have had no luck finding effigies in flat lowlands adjacent to swamps. They are usually above the skunk cabbage level, above the cinnamon fern level, and if there is a nearby hill, they will be on lower slopes, not too high on the hill. So you look for this combination of things, plan how to get there and go when you have a chance.

Last night I looked at the Ayer topo map and saw some likely spots on Snake Hill - take a look you will see what I mean. I also saw some places in Carlisle near where we have already found effigies, so I called up Jic Davis to see if he knew the places I was talking about. One of them turned out to be a place, the "Spenser Brook Parcel" of Mr. Benfield's land, where we went last week and found lots of nice effigies. But this morning I did not have that much time to go out, I had to be home by 11:30AM, so I looked down towards Lincoln. I already found some possible effigies south of Rt 2, and looked along there. One possibility was along the foot of Jupiter Ridge, which I decided I could access from the North - went there and found that the foot of the ridge was still too close to houses for comfort. Also the area has a thoroughly cultivated look to it, even though now it is the woods. So I left and went to the next place I spotted while planning. I noticed that there were some stretches along Mill Street in Lincoln that looked likely and one place did not have any houses along the west side of the road, so I drove over there and coasted slowly in my car looking out my window for swamp, hill, and the absense of houses.

Well just before Mill Street comes out of the "hills" and becomes a pure swamp on the right, there are a couple of final outcrops, with a nice wide place on the side of the road to park. I parked and walked west into the woods a few yards and saw that the swamp had the look of just starting at the foot of the outcrops. I walked around to the swamp side of the first outcrop and didn't see anything then walked around to the side of the other, so the outcrop was between me and the road, but I was still above the swamp. I thought: "this is exactly where I would expect to see effigies", so when I saw a few rocks poking out of the duff together I decided to take a closer look. I wasn't sure if these rocks were just spalls fallen off of the outcrop and come to rest together in the same place.
 

The first clue was that the rocks did not all seem to be of the same material as the outcrop- which was schist. Now southeast from this spot is the direction going straight up the outcrop, so if it was to be a female effigy with this first rock as the head, then the rest would need to lie uphill from that point - which is where the other rocks in the group were. So the next rock up from the head, was mostly covered with leaves and debris. I thought to myself: "if this next rock is a "W" rock [with the lower points of the "W" pointing uphill in this case] then I'll start believing I have found someting." So I dug it out a bit from the covering leaves and soil. Sure enough it was a "W", and the other rocks of the group were exactly what was needed for the standard female design. Except they were tumbled downhill with the head lowest. Here is a picture with the rocks emphasized in white.

From left to right, you see a head to the left, then the breasts of the "W" rock, then two mid-section rocks, and finally the flat pedestal. These are all very characteristic and there is no doubt in my mind that this is a damaged female effigy. If you want to see the whole thing from above, looking towards the head from the pedestal, here it is:

Since I found this, I started looking much more closely at the slope. At first I had thought there was nothing there, but as I looked around I came across a flat white rock with "horns" that reminds me of something Mavor found in a mound in Freeport. I am calling it an "owl". I think there is some mystery here. I think it is probably a mistake to focus just on rock piles. When something like this shows up nearby I want to at least take note.

There were several other possible piles I found on the same slope. At first I thought they might just be fallen debris from the outcrop, but kept coming across materials that were not from the outcrop. There seemed to be several examples of piles using pinkish rocks and yellowish rocks, but I could not get my digital camera to capture the colors. [By the way I saw a photo in a book today about Inuksuit - Sacred art of the Inuit that had one plate showing a red/black pair of rocks said to be placed by women at places where the fishing is good. This confirms, at least the idea, that colored rocks could be part of the "grammar" of rock piles. It is too bad I could not capture the picture. One further pile looked a bit like a "male" effigy,  which is characterized by a horizontal element for the outstretched arms of the figure. Also I found three other pale flat rocks like the "owl". Here is another, not quite the same horned shape, but with some clear percussive flaking along the lower right side.

So all in all I think this is a small site of effigies. It adds a new location to my map of where effigies can be found, and leads me to wish I could get better pictures and a better understanding of the three or so further piles found here. Later I went back to the car, past the first outcrop, and this time I looked more carefully. There was a pile there, and another "owl". Just to give a slight sense of the use of colors, check these:
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