Ancient Prayer Seats Decoded! Have we found ritual sites where elders tought students? Episode 27

Prayer seats are U shaped cairns known to have ceremonial purposes by ancient native american people. In Gilbert Hills State Forest, Foxboro Massachusetts, there are dozens of these structures. Possibly the most in any similarly sized protected space in the U.S. Two of these prayer seats are different than the rest. At 13 feet, they have a flat faced stone, perfectly situatated as a bench, facing into the prayer seat. It is possible that we can decode the ritual used in these special stone structures, given the historical research done on prayer seats. Join us as we delve into a revolutionary analysis of these objects, as these may have been used for the training of Shaman, or native coming of age ceremonies.

For those who were on the New England Antiquities Research Association #neara tour of Gilbert Hills in June, 2024, Site 1 of this episode was the 2nd to last stop on that tour.

This episode relies heavily on the analysis of "Manitou" writted by James Mavor, Jr. and Byron Dix. 1989, pp. 220-223.

#experimentalarchaeology #archaeology #nativeamerican #foxboro #massachusetts #ancient #algonquin #citizenscience #stoneart #anthropology #paleontology #lidar #lidarscanner #shaman #visionquest