New England stone walls lie at the intersection of history, archaeology, ecology and geoscience, and deserve a science of their own

The abandoned field walls in New England are everything I am iconic to the area Also, the utensils of the sea, the green city, the bouquet of the sag and the fall leaves. It seems that it is everywhere-poetic from the dry stone hills covered with icine that separates the patch from wet soil.

Stone walls can be found here and there in other states, but only in New England are almost everywhere. This is due to a unique mixture of steel crystal foundation, ice cream and farm with a small floor of the floor parcels.

Almost all European settlers were built by European settlers, who encouraged ice stones from agricultural fields and pastures abroad to mentors and borders, then threw them or stacked them as lines. in spite of The oldest walls Date to 1607, most of them were built in the agricultural century between the American revolution and the cultural shift towards cities and industry after the civil war.

The stone mass driven by farmers in that century revolves around the mind – my appreciation 240,000 miles (400,000 km) Of the barricades, most of the thigh thigh and its width similarly. This is long enough to wrap our planet 10 times in the equator, or to reach the moon as soon as possible to Earth.

Natural scientists work to define this phenomenon, which is larger in size of the Great Wall in China, the Hadrian wall in Britain and the Egyptian pyramids in Giza combined. This work began in 1870 and was born in 1872 to the United States government Wall census. Today, scientists use Technology called lidarOr light detection and range Measurement and map Stone walls via New England.

being geologicI am interested in walls as distinctive floor shapes for the region, which was created during the previous period Anthroposin The times – a time when the human agency dominates all others. I wrote about History of stone walls And how Its interpretation in this fieldAnd development Stone Wall Initiative To attract the public’s attention to its importance in New England. Now, I am working with students and colleagues to develop official multidisciplinary science from the stone walls that will help researchers understand and preserve it.

Impressions and paths

My foom enjoys the wall of the backyard in Lee, New Hampshire, mainly for its aesthetic, historical and literary atmosphere. The wild things that live in a neighborhood depend on as a unique home.

To the elders and the icon, the dry stones in the wall are surfaces that cannot be competing plants. For plants, such walls are edges that separate spots from the ground to sunny or shaded areas, wind or water, upwards or slope, or more moisture or more dry. Stone walls provide small porous mammals in which their strange lives can live. Predicon animals use walls as hunting and travel corridors.

For pleasure only, my brother’s son -in -law installed an active video camera on the wall of the backyard to find out who was using the wall and how. On June 21, 2023, the summer coup, is Popkat photos (Lynx Ruffus)) He hides behind and then used as a high path.

The more we know the abandoned stone walls in New England, the more we realize that they go beyond and blush the tight treatments for our scientific specialties. These archaeological artifacts everywhere that they have become a geological ground shape that in turn creates a new environmental home. These walls are also literary icons, historical sites, and spiritual Urukles, as Robert Frost admitted when he was formulated.Wall repair“on The old farm In Derry, New Hampshire.

However, despite its importance, the stone walls were not defined in New England and technically classified and given common terms in the Journal of Luza Review. They seemed, apparently, through disciplinary cracks.

My initial step towards changing this position was to write a miniature image in 2023 for the Magazine of Historical Archeology on “Ali”Classification and naming for the stone field in New England“Its goal is to collect the study of these stone walls in multidisciplinary sciences by following the precedents of other disciplines-the most prominent of which is the eighteenth century Linnaean classification Biologists are still using today. Here is how this approach works:

Determine and classification

Understanding the stone walls in the Great New England scientifically requires a technical definition based on field standards instead of tradition or reasoning. There are many types of historical stone features – waste piles, Kirins, scattering, lines, ovens, grave evidence, gravel, yard and more. The goal is to isolate the walls as a group of organisms within this largest field.

For example, the definition can require that each wall of the stone consist; It consists of molecules, instead of one huge panel; continuous; elongated; And high enough. Without such explicit standards, a person’s wall is a stretch pile of someone else, and a person’s waste pile is someone who is the other The holy site.

It is good for descriptions and classifications to be loose and flexible, as is the case with types of music, fashion patterns, and specialties within academic circles. These are patterns, boxes, dove. But to make a scientific sense of the world, researchers need to convert descriptions into accurate definitions and use them in bilateral categories that depend on the rules. These are categories.

Each field of science requires its own language. The chemists group Elements of similar propertiesLike halogen and noble gases. Biologists divide life forms into The fields, kingdoms, elephants and smaller groups With common properties.

Terms in stone wall science include the size, shape, composition, source and arrangement of stones; The vertical and horizontal structures of the material, courses and termination; And topographic settings on the scene.

The classification of the stone wall in the stone field – the constellation of the entire historical stone creatures. From there, we transfer a distinctive group of stone walls separate from other rock groups, such as concentrations and lines, as well as prominent individual stones, such as Ploom Rock. After that, using diagnostic standards, divide the classroom walls into five self-familiar families, armored, support, attach and prohibit- New classification.

What are the stone walls that can tell us

At this stage, my colleagues and I started to pair the stone science sciences with Lidar techniques across villages. It provokes emerging spatial patterns.

Various types of walls occur in the predictive arrangements. For example, we usually find dual walls designed well near the cellar holes, with one simpler walls at another distance and waste piles that exceed those. Such patterns provide an independent source of primary documentary evidence that researchers can use to explain previous cultural behaviors, above the written documents of history and Many smaller artifacts From excavation -based archeology.

Such spatial patterns of environmental interpretations can also be used. For example, bobate is likely to hunt along one normal wall of other sub -species because it contains stability and height required to support the cat and a sufficient void space to live in.

These structures – these high dry lands – in some respects are similar to wet lands in the region, which are also land forms made by farmers or It was widely modified They also settled the earth in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, since the nineties, wetlands took place AlertSolid The legal framework And excellent Management protocols.

In my opinion, it is time to do the same for the stone walls in New England. These dry land structures are everywhere, huge and unique to other habitats that have time for natural scientists to give them the respect they deserve.

This article has been republished from ConversationAn independent, non -profit news organization brings you facts and trusted analysis to help you understand our complex world. Written by: Robert M. Thursonand Contecticut University

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Robert M. Thurson created and coordinated the Stone Wall Initiative, which is online on the historic stone walls in New England. He is a defender of conservation and its management, and a repeated public speaker on this topic for land funds, historical, and non -profit societies, public libraries, and “friends …” organizations.