I've since done a little research into the area using historic aerials and you are right, 70 years ago this was a hayfield from the looks of it. So rocks removed from the field it is.
I've cleared rocks by hand from fields when I was a teenager. My cousin had an Angus ranch and he would hire some of us to clear rocks when he broke newish ground for hay, or was converting a pasture into a hay field. Load them in a wagon, cart them to the edge of the field, dump them. A very, very common practice - especially on new fields just broken, which most all in America would have been at one time or another. Sometimes the rocks were left in piles, other times they were made into walls. Before tractors they used oxen or other beasts to pull the carts.
Well, it looks like California black oak, so those aren't that young, the tree on the far right looks like a grey pine and in the background I see Douglas-fir. All that makes me think of a very specific geographical region in California. In terms of moving those rocks, farmers in this area did that very frequently. Its called "picking the field" in this area. After the Lassen eruption, all the fields and arable ground for hundreds of miles around had to be picked in order to be viable farmland. It is absolutely conceivable that farm labor moved those rocks. Another very common practice in prehistory in CA, was for native Americans to move rocks into areas around ridges, saddles, and watering holes to create hunting blinds. This does not appear to be that, though, if it was knocked over during farming, it could *possibly* have been that, but not likely.
you're right , cart them to the edge of the field and dump them , not half way up a ridge . also dump in a pile not spread about like the pic.
That pile isn't that big, and judging from the slope in the picture and the growth patterns of those trees, that terrain is not that adverse. That location for those rocks is not out of place for farming in the area that I believe it to be. I think it more than likely came downhill from where the DF is located in the background, rather than up the hill. Particularly hinting toward this, is the distribution of the rocks rolling and spreading downhill.
This is in Kentucky.
Then i have no idea. Its tough to identify background trees without a close look at them. I did notice the foreground small tree looks like a juniper, but given your state, I wouldn't know where to start. That pretty much negates any of my previous statements about historical context that I provided. Sorry about that.
Good comments, just off the mark - happens to us all.
In SW OK I would always walk the fence rows around prehistoric village sites, cause farmers clearing the fields would dump metates there.
Thanks. I appreciate your positivity. I felt pretty dumb after that.
