Dr. Curtiss Hoffman holds a PhD from Yale University in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures (1974), and since 1973 has directed field operations at archaeological sites in southern New England. He is Full Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, a position he has held since 1978. He is past president of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society and currently serves as the editor of its Bulletin. He has an abiding interest in cognitive anthropology: the study of the ways in which the members of cultures represent their world-view in the form of material culture.
Scattered throughout the woodlands and fields of the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada are tens of thousands of stone monuments. These stone constructions have been the subject...