Why it is vitally important to conserve both live and fallen/snag culturally modified trees (and include a protective buffer)

Here is what I have discovered now that I notice, and/or follow culturally modified trees and then use the publicly available LIDAR maps to check if there is any subsurface engineered landscape (Note that I do no excavation so rely on tree falls, road cuts and erosion to determine subsurface geology).

1. Flat foundation mounds - dwelling nature unknown but road cuts show most of these mounds consist of siltstone boulders and quartz chunks and pebbling. There are usually dozens of the rectangular mounds lining only one side of the main trail and often canoe drag lines can be seen leading to them in the field and on the LIDAR
2. Harbours below the foundation mounds. Often the harbours are long dried up and very ancient.
3. Tracks of mixed siltstone quartz and granite chunks leading between monumental mounds and ancient harbours. These seem to be a way to keep water flowing all seasons using piezoelectricity. The monumental mounds may have been for water storage as erosion and road cuts often show them to be cased with siltstone and filled with quartz sand and pebbling.
4. Burials including monumental conical cremation mounds
5. Monumental Weirs
6. Monumental aquaculture ponds
7. Ceremonial areas - especially where scaffold burial trees are found - these usually do not include engineered structures but foot traffic and trampling can be confirmed on the LIDAR. But I have also found stone circles and megaliths.
8. probable very ancient village sites "serviced" with underground water engineering. These sites are more ancient than the foundation mound features mentioned above but are often in the same areas.
9. other features whose nature can only be wildly guessed at without excavation

Right now there is no official protection given to these trees on "Crown" Land or elsewhere.

Please photograph any you find out there, upload the geolocated photos to iNaturalist and add them to this project. One day your record may be the only clue we have about what lay below, and what came before.

Mary Macaulay, P.Eng.

Publicado el 03 de octubre de 2022 a las 03:33 PM por marymacaulay