Episode 18- Very Rare Niche Shaft: a Spirit Portal to the Upperworld

This series is dedicated to creating awareness of the vast number of ancient ceremonial structures in Gilbert Hills State Forest, Foxboro MA.

References and sources used in this episode

Niche Shaft: Handbook of Stone Structures in Northeast United States, Mary Gage, Expanded first edition 2015 p. 121-122.

"The key to identifying [a niche shaft] is a niche opening under a lintel stone connected to a vertical shaft." p.121

"There are only a small number of known examples [of niche shafts]. Examples have been found in south central massachusetts, Ashburnham, MA, Richmond, RI, and Exeter, RI." p. 122

"INTERPRETATION: These are Native American ceremonial structures. There are two potential interpretations. The niche was used to place a perishable offering to make contact with an intended spirit. The open-topped shaft was used to guide a spirit in one of two directions; (a) call a spirit down form the Upperworld into a ceremonial area, or (b) to send a spirit to the Upperworld." p.122

I open a separate line of analysis in this episode pertaining to the topic of whether glaiciers made these stone structures. The niche shaft rests on a man-made earthen mound. This mound starts (from an uphill position) flush with the natural lay of the land. As the mound moves toward the niche shaft, it grows larger as the ground continues to slope downward. This mound serves to keep the ground under the niche shaft and the ground in front of it, level.

This is the third instance I have seen this type of structure in Gilbert Hills State Forest. I demonstrated this in episodes 12 (   • Episode 12- Two Cairns Lead to a Myst...  ) and 14 (   • Episode 14- Facing the Cairn: Is ther...  ) as a similar mound provided level ground for a u-shaped cairn (that appeared in both episodes). The first time I found this phenomena was in the rear prayer seat in the dual prayer seats in episode 4 (   • Episode 4- Dual Prayer Seats Part A. ...  ).

Why does this topic relates glaciers and how these structures were made? There are many people who approach the topic of ancient native american structures with the question, how do we know glaciers didn't make these structures?

From my perspective, that is the wrong approach to the topic. We know that Native Americans were in this area of the country as far back to 12,000 years ago (carbon dating in Ipswich, MA). In my mind, it stands to reason that if people were here that long, and they were known to use stones for tools and ceremonial activities, there would be some of those that remain.

Putting my perspective aside, when I get the chance to demonstrate that glaiciers could not have created certain structures, I will take the time to do it. These mounds that support the 3 strucutres I have noted could not have been left by glaciers, as there was no "earth" or soil here at the time the glaciers receded. All that was left was rock, clay and sand or silt.

Soil was made slowly over many, many years. So if the glaciers didn't leave any soil behind, the mounds that support these 3 structures couldn't exist at that time. So, in the case of "leveling mound" based structures, they could not have been left by glaciers.

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