Helping Archaeologists?

[Rangerbb]

Has anybody volunteered to help (and been able) to metal detect for an Archaeology dig? There's one going on near me that they only have a couple months before the place is bulldozed for a shopping mall or something like that. It's on private land so they cant stop it but are allowed to excavate before it happens. Sounds like they don't have the money (who does?) to fund the dig and I would hate to see all those historic Civil War items lost forever. I emailed the head guy running the dig I doubt they will want the help but you never know I guess. They probably have metal detectors? Either way maybe it will at least build up some positive opinions of metal detectorists and that we aren't all just a bunch of grave robbers, etc. with no regard to history.

Dear XXXX,

My name is XXXX and I would like to volunteer my services to you at the excavate of XXXX. I live in XXXX and outside of my professional career as an Instrument Technician for XXXX, I also enjoy preserving our history. I have been in the Metal Detecting hobby for over 10 years and have some of the top of the line Metal Detecting equipment. I would like to help you in anyway possible with locating and saving the historic items at XXXX before they are lost to future progress. Anything that I would find such as military buttons, bullets, lead carvings, buckles etc. would be for the Archaeology study/museum. I ask for nothing in return, just the opportunity to help find these historic items before they are lost. If you would be interested please contact me.

Regards,

XXXX

 

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[Jason in Enid]

If they let you do anything, it's just going to be beeping and planting marker flags. I doubt you will every see a single item you detect come out of the ground. You are correct that they probably have zero desire to have anyone from outside of academia help them.

 

[Rawhide]

While I have befriended many archeologist here online. As a general rule we would not be asked or permitted to help. You may have to pay to help. You may also need a certain amount of training also. Last, any significant find could stop construction so there is many reasons I see a big no here. While us md guys have taken some short cuts to get the history out of the ground, new rules and regulations and some old ones prevent us from doing so. I figure any help is better than no help, but it is not looked like that. Oh when the village idiot with his brand new discovery hits the place and leaves his calling cards all over the place, I would not want to be any guy holding a detector there. Our hobby is at risk, and I have found asking usually gets me a yes. But if the university is involved, you most likely will receive a no. The university here does not recognize the hobby nor condone it. I have had this discussion with campus police lol. Its ok though, I now no longer support the University and have directed my annual donations to other organizations here in town. I would walk away from this one, quietly.

 

[Newfiehunter]

Trust is a big issue here between metal detectorists and archaeologists. They may not trust you considering most of them consider us "looters". I just had a debate on a forum in my area after an archaeologist suggested curbing the use of metal detectors, even suggesting banning the activity everywhere! It was as if they wanted to make it illegal to even own a metal detector! They do have some clout with government officials. That's a crazy and scary thought because if something like that occurs in one area, it could possibly spread to other areas. Guess that is where the old adage, "United we stand, divided we fall" comes into play.

 

[Metal Detecting Stuff]

I have assisted on many battlefield archaeology surveys. Some they flag and dig themselves, others they have let us dig. In all the ones I've been on, we got to see what was dug. Some of these have even been paid surveys. A lot of archaeologists don't like what we do, but there are some that tolerate us, and others that truly understand the value we bring to the survey.

Your letter is well worded, hope it works out for you!

Wayne

Metal Detector Sales and Rentals | Fisher, Garrett, Minelab, Lesche and DetectorPro

 

[leddel]

Hello Rangerbb , I too have been doing volunteer work (metal detecting) on multiple projects over the
last 4 years now . They included a 1637 Pequot War battle site , one of the first Forts in Connecticut at
Saybrook Point (1635) and the Battle at Essex (war of 1812) in 1814. This work has been for
archaeologist of UCONN university , the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Museum and the U.S. Parks and
Recreation Service. Its unfortunate but the Archaeology community looks at us with a lot of contempt
and suspicion and the metal detector has not been fully accepted as an important tool by a lot of these
people yet . I commend you for your attempt at communicating and wanting to help preserve some history
and I hope they reply in a positive way back to you . I can tell you that my experiences with working with them
have been very positive on many levels and a great mutual respect has transpired on both sides here in Connecticut. Like you it was one of the reasons i volunteered and to try to tear down some of the walls of animosity and suspicion , I am proud to say that we have done so and have gained some close friends too. I wish you much luck on working with them , Good luck and keep us posted about it.

Dan

 

[Tnmountains]

Archeologist are often under funded and would benefit working with dectorist.I think what is happening is they are just now stepping in to the use and technology of metal detectors. I have met some and they were un skilled in the use of the machines and admitted it. But they learned. Being an Archeologist is a fairly broad range of study. Other wards they know a little about everything but not always a lot about something. But on that rare occasion you have the ones that are very specific in their field of expertise. I am sure that many come to this site to learn and see what is being found and hopefully one day we will all get to share in the knowledge of the past and work together. After all we have more sites
Good luck Rangerbb!

 

[scott9050]

Related and interesting:

NVRHA Battlefield Excavation

 

[Tom_in_CA]

I've helped archies before. But it's like Jason says: not at all what you're expecting. Actually .... quite boring. You flag a signal, and THEY dig it up later. And they dig with silly slow methods like tweezers, brushes, etc... And if you've got a site with hundreds of signals, then ........ go figure, it can be pointless. Much easier to dig it up, and look at the item, like we mdr's are accustomed to. But most archies don't see it that way. They'll make volumes and paragraphs on every single item (how deep the square nail was. What angle it was lying in. Its proximety to a nearby piece of charcoal or bird bone, blah blah blah).

You can try, as maybe you'll get a cool archie who does indeed just dig beeps.

But since it's a private land site, why not just by-pass the archies altogether, and get the land-owner to give permission? Or the demolition contractor?

A friend of mine, for instance is a demolition contractor. They were tearing down some city buildins, where the E.I.R. called for an archaeological monitoring. And one night, after my friend had parked his tractors for the night, he and I went at it with our detectors and bottle probes. The archie showed up and started to have a hissy fit. But since my friend was the demolition contractor, he could basically tell the archie were to shove it. Not that he did so, mind you .... but .... just sayin'. We gave lip service, and went somewhere else for the next 30 minutes. Because we knew that the archies would be done in 20 minutes (they just come by for a post-shift look around). We merely come back later, and take up where we left off

 

[Jason in Enid]

Reminds me of a video I saw of an archie dig in the UK. A "horde" was found in a field so they wanted a full survey and documentation, blah,blah,blah. They used full sized shovels and simply dug down so far before they began. So while they are using tiny brushes and gently blowing the soil from each item them saw, guys were using detectors in the waste pile and finding many gold items that were tossed out by the archies' shovels. Yep, they are REALLY saving a lot of history there!

 

[Rangerbb]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. It's nice to see that some Archies see the value that us metal detectorists can provide to a dig and that some of you had promising results. I also understand there is the "red tape" with being able to help and of course some Archies who will never warm up to us. Unfortunately I never got a reply most likely because a friend just let me know that he had seen them already on the dig with their own metal detecting equipment. Oh well maybe when they leave the site and it gets demolished I can go find what they missed

 

[leddel]

try offering them some lessons in metal detecting because if they are like most Archaeologist , they purchased the wrong machines and are very inexperienced with them and running them very conservatively , so in another words missing a lot of targets . The archaeology team they had here at first had their people with their machines going through the grids first and they were finding stuff but they soon realized that about 85% of the items were being found by us experienced detectorists. it was eye opening to them , thats when they started asking a lot of questions about the machines we were using , the discrimination settings and asked for us to train their people. we were happy to teach the field specialists and some of them have gotten very good with them but they still want us around to detect ( because we still get the best results) and for advise or consultations when we start another area , there is always new challenges for them.

by the way we have always had the opportunity to flag and dig our own signals (measure depths) and most of the time we are left unsupervised , thats how much trust they have given us .

 

[FreeMindStuck]

I've done archaeological surveys for archaeologists before. It's not as much fun as you'd think. Personally I'd rather detect my own sites where I can dig my own signals. They do seem to be inordinately suspicious of detectorist. Where I've personally found most detectorist to be honest to a fault and not the type who would steal artifacts.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

try offering them some lessons in metal detecting....

If you found an archie who was open to the average md'rs methods and lessons, then you found a rare archie indeed. I tried once to show an archie how to do it, and it went against the grain of every single thing they'd been taught. For example: As I turned on my machine, got the first beep that was iron grunt, I explained that "this is a nail, so you pass it up". To which a look of horror came over him. He couldn't understand why anyone would "pass iron". To them, they place valuable info on ANY man-made item, and aren't specifically looking for coins or conductors. The length of a nail, whether it was bent or not, whether it was square or round, how deep, which direction it pointed, blah blah blah, are all fascinating things for them. But to us, it's merely "junk" to be shunned..

Next I got the sound of a modern zinc penny, and explained it was 99.99% likely to be a zinc just barely under the surface. As I bent down ready to pop it out to show him, he bristled with warnings to stop, flag the spot, and he would come back later to dig it up. And so on and so forth, we went on while I "flagged" 20 other beeps for him to dig up (all while never leaving a circle no bigger than a small walk-in closet.

Thus .... no .... I'm afraid most archies are not open to "lessons", unless they put aside everything they've learned inn archie-school.

 

[leddel]

If you found an archie who was open to the average md'rs methods and lessons, then you found a rare archie indeed. I tried once to show an archie how to do it, and it went against the grain of every single thing they'd been taught. For example: As I turned on my machine, got the first beep that was iron grunt, I explained that "this is a nail, so you pass it up". To which a look of horror came over him. He couldn't understand why anyone would "pass iron". To them, they place valuable info on ANY man-made item, and aren't specifically looking for coins or conductors. The length of a nail, whether it was bent or not, whether it was square or round, how deep, which direction it pointed, blah blah blah, are all fascinating things for them. But to us, it's merely "junk" to be shunned..

Next I got the sound of a modern zinc penny, and explained it was 99.99% likely to be a zinc just barely under the surface. As I bent down ready to pop it out to show him, he bristled with warnings to stop, flag the spot, and he would come back later to dig it up. And so on and so forth, we went on while I "flagged" 20 other beeps for him to dig up (all while never leaving a circle no bigger than a small walk-in closet.

Thus .... no .... I'm afraid most archies are not open to "lessons", unless they put aside everything they've learned inn archie-school.

Tom , its true at particular sites they were interested in everything and i'm well versed now on how to date nails and what they were used for . Thats the key though , do it their way find everything , every scrap of can-slaw , nail bit , piece of bird shot , overwhelm them with all the stuff . They soon realize how much time and resources they waste on examining useless crap and will get bogged down with the stuff , the lab guy can't handle all the stuff we can find for them to rule out if its "period " or not, so they have to come up with another strategy. It also helps when the detectorist is well experienced in finding and knows the type of stuff they are looking for , most have a grant money and are on tight budgets and free help by someone who can save them time and resources is very attractive to them. If you have to just flag targets in a grid to start out do it flag every ferrous and non
ferrous item (after all you don't have to dig them) , they are very skeptical of you , gain their trust . We have it down now to , we find the target , we dig our own targets measure its depth and note any direction the item is laying (if possible possible) and If we can't positively id the item as modern trash or garbage it goes into a little baggy and is flagged for a field specialist to make notes and measurements in the grid and gps its coords.
Most archaeologist are really nice people once the preconceived stereotypical shadows are out of the way .

 

[Goodyguy]

Has anybody volunteered to help (and been able) to metal detect for an Archaeology dig? There's one going on near me that they only have a couple months before the place is bulldozed for a shopping mall or something like that. It's on private land so they cant stop it but are allowed to excavate before it happens. Sounds like they don't have the money (who does?) to fund the dig and I would hate to see all those historic Civil War items lost forever. I emailed the head guy running the dig I doubt they will want the help but you never know I guess. They probably have metal detectors? Either way maybe it will at least build up some positive opinions of metal detectorists and that we aren't all just a bunch of grave robbers, etc. with no regard to history.

Dear XXXX,

My name is XXXX and I would like to volunteer my services to you at the excavate of XXXX. I live in XXXX and outside of my professional career as an Instrument Technician for XXXX, I also enjoy preserving our history. I have been in the Metal Detecting hobby for over 10 years and have some of the top of the line Metal Detecting equipment. I would like to help you in anyway possible with locating and saving the historic items at XXXX before they are lost to future progress. Anything that I would find such as military buttons, bullets, lead carvings, buckles etc. would be for the Archaeology study/museum. I ask for nothing in return, just the opportunity to help find these historic items before they are lost. If you would be interested please contact me.

Regards,

XXXX

Many times.........

But then I'm a longtime member of a local archaeology club, FOAS (Falls of the Ohio Archaeological Society) As a seasoned member I have learned how to properly grid off an area being surveyed and also how to properly record, mark and bag each relic or specimen found. Pretty interesting work if you are so inclined. I've also been exposed to using and analyzing GPR readouts.

Very seldom do we do historical digs as most of our work is centered around pre-historical cultures, however I always jump at the chance to be involved when it comes to historical digs as that's when the professional archies need me (I'm now considered an amateur archaeologist by them) as well as other volunteer detectorist's skills to aid them in their work.

The brushes and trowels usually do not come into play until after the first 8-10 inches of top soil have been detected. As that layer is usually considered to be contaminated by modern relics as well as being found in disturbed ground most likely. That depth can even be extended deeper if the area is in a field that has been known to have been plowed in the last 50 years or so. Not saying that relics aren't found in that upper layer it's just that their orientation is not important to the survey in a known disturbed layer. They are still recorded as being found but no useful data can be gathered from their exact positioning.

My advice is for you to join the nearest archaeology club as It's much easier to gain the archies trust when you are working from the inside as they are normally distrustful of the motives of outsiders and will not usually let them dig the artifacts themselves but only mark the signals with flags.

Also if you let it be known that you are a treasure hunter all bets are off, so be careful what you say around other members. It's always best to just be interested in history or anthropology as far as any one in the club knows.

My cover is being a rock hound and gold prospector and that doesn't seem to bother the archies.
But as far as anything man made being in the ground goes they have the audacity to believe that they are the only ones who have the right to dig it up.


GG~

 

[Tom_in_CA]

.......do it their way find everything , every scrap of can-slaw , nail bit , piece of bird shot , overwhelm them with all the stuff . They soon realize how much time and resources they waste on examining useless crap and will get bogged down with the stuff , the lab guy can't handle all the stuff we can find for them to rule out if its "period " or not,.....

ledell, on the one hand, you acknowledge that our way will over-whelm them. You acknowledge it's 2 completely different beasts. So you seem to conclude that they will "see the light" and realize the futility of their ways. The tediousness and replicative nature, and very-few forthcoming museum piece keepers (coins, buckles, buttons, etc....) from a teensy 4 x 4 pit.

Oh but I wish it were so easy. Oh but I wish you were right, and that they'd "see the light" and be converted to our way of covering an acre zeroing in on *just* the cool conductive targets. The trouble is, it aint going to happen. It goes against the grain of all they've been taught. While you and I are bored to tears with a BB-birdshot peice, or a piece of charcoal, or a crockery shard, or a nail, they are supposed to be examining all such things.

I recall talking to an archie, who dug some indian midden site. One of the things they stopped to study and write about, taking page after page of study on, was a single fish bone that was no bigger than a push-pin. They determined that it was from a fish not native to this area of the state, thus launching them into a humonguous theory-writing about how they therefore traded with indians from 100 miles away, blah blah blah. With pages on the anatomy of the fish-in-question, with pages on the inter-action therefore that can be deduced with this competing tribe, blah blah blah blah. To them, this was exciting. But to us? It's just dirt we'd push aside to reach the coin underneath there.

 

[leddel]

Tom , all my volunteer work has been with Battle-field archaeology , from about the
"contact" period (early 1600's Pequot War era) , War of 1812 era (Raid on Essex) and King Philips War (1675).
so its a bit more cut and dry on relics (metallic items) and in this case they are
not interested in the deeper layers of dirt. We have discovered early Native American
villages (again from the contact period) because our sweeping of the detectors.they do
dig test pits but have found these methods are incredibly more productive after the machines
locate an abundant of targets in these areas first otherwise its hit or miss in locating
something of interest and they waste most of a day scraping layers with nothing to show. Most
archaeologist are interested in far more older findings (paleo , neolithic and older eras)
where metal detectors are about useless .

 

[Tnmountains]

ledell, on the one hand, you acknowledge that our way will over-whelm them. You acknowledge it's 2 completely different beasts. So you seem to conclude that they will "see the light" and realize the futility of their ways. The tediousness and replicative nature, and very-few forthcoming museum piece keepers (coins, buckles, buttons, etc....) from a teensy 4 x 4 pit.

Oh but I wish it were so easy. Oh but I wish you were right, and that they'd "see the light" and be converted to our way of covering an acre zeroing in on *just* the cool conductive targets. The trouble is, it aint going to happen. It goes against the grain of all they've been taught. While you and I are bored to tears with a BB-birdshot peice, or a piece of charcoal, or a crockery shard, or a nail, they are supposed to be examining all such things.

I recall talking to an archie, who dug some indian midden site. One of the things they stopped to study and write about, taking page after page of study on, was a single fish bone that was no bigger than a push-pin. They determined that it was from a fish not native to this area of the state, thus launching them into a humonguous theory-writing about how they therefore traded with indians from 100 miles away, blah blah blah. With pages on the anatomy of the fish-in-question, with pages on the inter-action therefore that can be deduced with this competing tribe, blah blah blah blah. To them, this was exciting. But to us? It's just dirt we'd push aside to reach the coin underneath there.

Tom that is what you do. That is not what a lot of us do though. I think if you do it long enough everything you dig is part of the story. As far as digging and sifting through a midden or just digging a coin there really is no comparison. A midden can be thousands of years of occupation by many cultures and it does tell a story. Getting a good signal and digging a coin is really no more than that unless you know the history of the site that gave it up.
Just saying if all you are after is the target you are missing a lot of the journey.
HH

 

[Hawkeye35]

It's not the site of the Bass Pro Shop in North Charleston is it?