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I thought a metal detector would make me a real amateur archaeologist...
Spent $300 on a fancy one and spent a whole weekend in a field near my town, only to find a bunch of old bottle caps and a rusty nail. It made me realize you need way more than just a tool, you need to know where to look and how to read the land. Anyone have tips on how to actually start finding good sites without just digging randomly?
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blake_kelly195mo ago
That "story of what people did before" that dixon.mia mentioned is key. I got a tip from an old guy at a diner who told me to look for places where kids would have played a hundred years ago, like the flat spot under a big old tree just off a farmhouse site. Found my first old coin there, a 1907 Indian Head cent, because that's where the games of catch would have been.
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johnkelly6mo ago
You're right about reading the land. Old maps at the library can show where buildings or roads used to be.
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dixon.mia6mo ago
Yeah, the old maps thing johnkelly mentioned is so true. It's not just about seeing where a road was, it's like getting a clue to why the land looks weird now. You see a squiggly line on an old map and then go outside and there's a ditch or a row of older trees exactly there. It connects the dots in a way that just looking at the ground doesn't. Those maps tell you the story of what people did before, which explains the bumps and slopes you see today. It's the best free tool for figuring out a piece of land.
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kelly_adams246mo ago
Oh totally! I found an old property map from the 1930s for my backyard and it showed a tiny shed right where there's now just a weird flat patch of grass and some broken bricks. Made so much sense. I never would have guessed.
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