Piles of rocks..

[NuggetN8]

Today I was out exploring/detecting and came across a hillside that had piles of rocks in random places. Now I've seen tailings from mines before and that kind of pile is usually a lot larger than what I was finding.. I've seen piles similar to them along creeks but there wasn't a creek anywhere close to them either.. Anyone know what it could be? It's an open field on a hill. No water anywhere. No mine shafts that I could see. Here's a pic.. Not a very good pic but you can see the type of rock it was.

 

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[goldchaser3]

I've seen small piles like this where farmers cleared small plots of land to grow crops.

 

[bug]

N8, What did the ground look like between the piles? Thats whats important. Any ditch like cuts where water was brought in? Exposed bedrock? Its possible you found some old dry diggings and the area was ground sluiced. The worked ground will generally have cuts and gullies where the sluices were set. If not, I agree they could be from a farmer clearing.

 

[NuggetN8]

N8, What did the ground look like between the piles? Thats whats important. Any ditch like cuts where water was brought in? Exposed bedrock? Its possible you found some old dry diggings and the area was ground sluiced. The worked ground will generally have cuts and gullies where the sluices were set. These areas are the holy grail for detecting.

Haha I bet you've been to this one before. There's some really small cuts they aren't too deep it's kind of hard to tell because the grass is so high. Didn't walk out to all of the piles because the stickery plants were so thick. No bedrock that I could see but the rocks in the piles almost look like bedrock. I guess I'd better go back and take another look and bring a shovel this time.. I figured it was some kind of mining activity but wasn't sure what kind.

 

[Astrobouncer]

I have found piles like that also, and then nearby I found the ruins of an old foundation made out of the same kind of rock.

 

[NuggetN8]

Went back today to check it out a little better. There's a really shallow ditch going down the side of the hill and the piles of rocks are stacked in the middle of the ditch. Kind of strange.. Was finding nails with my detector but they weren't square nails. They still looked pretty old. Maybe some kind of operation ran during the depression? Saw 6 or more piles out there.