Weather, snowfall, tree deadfalls, logging operations, can easily deform trees into unusual shapes. As they age and people find them, it would not be unusual that a path would develop to see some interesting tree shapes over time. I have a lot of photos of deformed trees I've taken along the way, though few are much older than 100 years, making them questionable as being "marker trees" used by native Indians.
When I was a young boy a few of my grandfathers pals would take glass whiskey flasks with a bit left in them and make a simple knot in a sapling with the bottle in it. The tree would grow around the bottle and make for an interesting photo or cut trophy for whoever ran across it. People have been shaping trees for centuries, which continues to this day along with weather and other natural circumstances that impact trees.
While I don't doubt Indians of 200 years ago or more used many different types of navigational markers but suggesting these deformed trees we see today were crafted by native Indians a few centuries ago is a bit of a reach. Determining which trees are descendant from a long gone "marker tree" is even more hazy.
Is there any science behind this?
Cherokee historians might be a very helpful resource, especially those in the eastern locations.
I grew up on a farm in Alabama and the woods was our playground. I remember pulling small trees over and placing a rock on it so it would stay bent. Recently I was walking these same woods and came upon one of the trees bent over with a rock embedded within it. The diameter of the tree was 2 1/2 to 3 feet. This tree is probably 65+ years old. A tree 100+ years old would be much larger which may cause someone to assume Native Americans did this.
Most of the older trees in Shenandoah National Park that were not logged in the past 300 hundred years have died from disease. There used to be hundreds of 200-300 year old hemlocks in the White Oak Canyon area trails in the Shenandoah National Park but they have been dying off from disease since about 1988 and have either fallen or have been cut down.
I don't seem to be able to delete this post.
Last edited by hikermiker; 01-18-2021 at 08:26.
"Now who can argue with that?" - Olson Johnson, Mayor of Rock Ridge