Was it a Medicine Wheel?

[fat tony]

A few years ago, it might have been in the Summer of either 2000 or
2001, I was housesitting for a friend of mine who had gotten a good
job in the Boston area. At the time I was out of work, and there
was an extensive wooded area across the street, it was bounded on
the other side by a highway. So in the interests of curiousity, one
dull overcast early summer day I decided to go for a hike through
it by myself, I don't know if you're familiar with the lay of the
land surrounding Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, but it's characterized by low lying
undulating hills, rocks, swamp, and the foliage is a unique
combination of trees with leaves, and a lot of gnarly black spruce
that takes a really long time to grow. Most of the wooded areas
around Dartmouth are up to about 75-80 years old or somewhere
around that ballbark. Anyways, I was hiking through these woods,
which were amazingly untouched looking, not much sign of human
pressure at all. I did get turned around and quickly became lost in
the classical sense, I got panicky and all that. I finally decided
to calm down was the best way out of the conundrum, I decided to
follow the noise of the cars which I could hear speeding along the
highway in the distance, by and by, I came upon this small clearing
in the forest, the woods were thick right up to the edge of the
clearing, the clearing was about 20 -15 feet in diamater from
memory, and I noticed these granite boulders sticking up out of the
ground, from memory again, they seemed arranged in a rough circle
about 10 feet in diameter, what was stranger was that there was no
usual vegitation in this clearing, but what vegetation there was,
was in the form of a thick layer of reindeer moss(don't know if you
have that in the States). I sat down in the clearing for a while
before continuing on to the side of the highway, from where I was
able to make it back home. I sometimes think of this clearing and
whether it was just natural or was at one point made by men for
some unknown purpose. I suppose it could have been a well made by
the settlers, but if you made a well lined with rock, they usually
are about 4 feet in diameter. If it was a well, I guess I am lucky
I didn't fall in, as I'm told a lot of old wells develop this
'plug' over time. Any Ideas? I don't think I could find this
clearing again with out a lot of exploring.

[NONYA]

Native American medicie wheels are much larger in diamertyer than what you explained,I have seen mining remnants that look much like you explained,they fill in over time and leave a ring of rock on the surface.

[fat tony]

Hello folks, it looks like there was technical problems at the time  I submitted this post, I 'double tapped' :lol: sorry. I have talked with people in the archaeology business in our area, true medicine wheels are not known in Nova Scotia according to them, although unusual formations and ancient cemeteries or burials are known.  The stones could have been random, although it looked too circular for that to be a likely explanation, but if you were an ancient man, or a group of ancient men, and decided to build a circle out of stones, how much effort would you put into arranging the stones carefully? Maybe they were smart enough to arrange the stones in such a manner that it MIGHT appear random to the future observer, maybe they are just messing with our heads, like a joke :lol: From what I recall, the stones appeared to be roughly the same size, from memory, about say 18-36 inches around, and the type of rock looked to be the same too, granite, which is very common in this area.  as for outstanding geological features like promontories, this was not in the exact same area, but in the general area, there was a short granite cliff that suddenly appeared, this was also a thickly wooded area, it dropped off into a swamp about 6 feet below.  As I was somewhat lost, this could have been close to the formation, although again from memory it's hard to confirm.  don't recall there being a depression in the middle. I would like to keep it protected as much as possible, I like the idea of the thing remaining a mystery, so I don't think I'll be reporting it publicly with it's exact location for example. If there is going to be any digging, I have a friend working in the archaeology field, if I can find it again, I might notify this individual. However tantalizing it may be to beleive otherwise, I am going to go with Occam's razor and conclude that it must be a mine shaft that has collapsed over time, unless I learn otherwise. At one time, the place probably looked like a parking lot when they clear cut the area.