I have one big question for everyone

[mr_detector]

Good morning everyone as i am new to this still i have one question about digging, how deep are the oldest stuff is burried over thousand years old from your expirience

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[Dr. Witty]

The only thousands of years old stuff I found have been rocks, and they are everywhere. My oldest coin found was an 1868 IH cent and that was 3 inches down.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

My 1894 IH was 1 1/2" deep, but a balled up cigarette pack was elbow deep at the same location.

You just gotta go figure....

 

[SD51]

In 1998, I was told by a neighbor of my in-laws that in 1960, his youngest son threw his older brother's silver dollar across the road and they couldn't find it. I told him that if I found it, he would get it back. My Garrett GTA 1000 showed it detected a dollar down 6". So, the silver dollar was down 6" after 38 years. Would it have continued to go deeper? Probably depends on the type of soil, amount of rain, etc.

 

[Mackaydon]

Dated material (coins, medallions, etc.) obviously give the oldest age for that piece, but it could have been lost earlier today.
I don't considered the depth of a found object at relevant unless it is found in a matrix of similar dated material.
Don......

 

[Deft Tones]

I found some plant fossils from 300 million years ago right on the surface of a creek bed. Picked them right up. There was about 8 feet of soil between bedrock and surface, so who knows.

You have to do pit samples for your area.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

About the only place where the "stratification" effect is pronounced, is turf. And perhaps undisturbed dry beach sand. In places like that, ... yes ... the older the target, the deeper it tends to be. But even then there is often a "bottom" to it. For example, I've been park turf where it's predictable on ages. If I'm in the top 5", it's bound to be clad. If I'm at 6" or so, it's 1950's losses. If I'm at 7 to 8", I'm in the 1920's zone, and so forth. However, I notice that older coins (1880s/90s losses) are at the same depth as the '20s losses. Meaning the sinkage rate per decade slows down, to some sort of stopping or slowing type point.

But for a multitude of other types terrain, there's no rhyme or reason to depth. I've found seated coins and reales that were only an inch deep, in high desert terrain . And other times gone 8" deep in turf only to find a corroded zinc On the beach, after storm erode the sand in and out, there's no longer any rhyme or reason to age/depth. And in furroughed fields, heck, guy in Europe find even Roman coins that are brought and kept to the surface through random movement of the soil, since some of those fields have seen continuous cultivation for 1000+ yrs.

 

[kcm]

There have been a few MAJOR(!!) flood events in the US in the past couple of decades. The Mississippi, for one, can go from being 80' wide in a spot to well over 20 miles! There's a lot of material that gets redeposited during these events. In higher terrain, there are rock and mud slides. Erosion can remove material from older coins/relics. So I have to agree strongly with Mackydon and Skippy, especially when Mackydon mentioned finding a zone of common relics; for example, finding many Civil War relics in an area. They should, for the most part, all be found at roughly the same depth relative to each other. Of course you also have to realize that the ground is not perfectly level and there are depressions, pits and latrines that may put some objects in a zone deeper down than the rest.

 

[Limitool]

Hell... I've found horseshoes from 10,000 BC here in rural Middle TN. Some are 1/2" deep and some are 12". Nothing is written in "stone" as far as depth of ANYTHING!

 

[releventchair]

Good morning everyone as i am new to this still i have one question about digging, how deep are the oldest stuff is burried over thousand years old from your expirience

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Digging where? Your centuries old footpath? In a forest,desert,floodplain,house basement?
If you have availableground near you to dig ,begin removing it in layers. Study each layer for depth and what it is made of.
You may reach clean sand below a couple layers that goes a mile deep.
You may hit bedrock at two feet.

The time humans occupied your digging site will determine charcoal / litter layer( s)., maybe.
Three feet is as deep as I have found any relic here, but there are areas buried under untold feet of glacial till on top of relics.

Metal detecting with modest equipment , my deepest coin was around one foot.
Large iron a couple feet deep and anything deeper that registers is usually safe from me!

 

[Honest Samuel]

After a while, you will find out how deep your detectors detect coins and jewel. Good hunting and good luck.

 

[boogeyman]

There's really no good solid answer for your question. Too many variables. You'll run across situations where you'll find silver 2" down and find another 6+" right next to it. Hard packed clay vs soil from a forest environment is a good example of shallow finds and deeper finds.

 

[Dave Rishar]

On a small city lot that I own, I found a pocket knife that was all ate the hell up at ~6". This thing was a goner. Granted, the soil out here isn't kind on most artifacts, but I've retrieved stuff from WWI that was in better shape.

Just about 10 feet away on the same lot, I recovered a clad penny at about 8 inches, and it looked almost new. What in the polka dotted eff is happening here? You don't know, I don't know...nobody knows. It happens. It could have been a recovery mistake (it wasn't...trust me), it could have been some fill dirt installed (no evidence of such), or it could have been...well, whatever. The mechanism that determines how things sink (or rise) is still not proven. Some argue that objects sink. Others argue that the ground rises. There's evidence to support both positions. I tend to judge finds based on how much the ground has influenced them (how badly stained they are by the iron in this area) and what was recovered near them at the same depth, but that's not telling the whole story either.

Figure out how this works in a way that everyone can understand and no one can disprove and you'll do us all a lot of favors.

 

[Doubter in MD]

I am reminded of an answer Bob Dole once gave to the question "Boxers or briefs?" His response? "Depends."

Just kidding, of course but so many factors play into the depth of anything you might find. That's part of the fun!

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Mr Detector, in this thread you did not identify your location. That matters a whole lot as to the kind of "experience" we can provide you.

So, I went back to your posting history, where you stated you were in the UK.

On this thread you will actually need input from our UK members, whereas thus far this thread's responses come from varying climates in the US.

A big point to toss in here is the freeze / thaw cycle which does "manipulate" rise and fall of targets. That 1894 IH I found at 1 1/2" was in a forest area perhaps impacting the freeze / thaw cycle, where as the balled up cigarette pack at elbow deep was about 50 meters away in a wide open field - unshielded from the elements.

 

[BARKER]

Hi mrdetector; Some questions first I think were missed here although there is a LOT of pertinent info that has been provided to this Thread ok. First is; Where are you located ?? If your in England then I can understand Roman & Celtic relics etc being found that ARE thousands of years old. BUUUTTTT If your here in the US you can pretty much forget finding anything with a metal detector that is THOUSANDS of years old. The only items here that are that old are fossils etc.. This being said, What ARE you looking for exactly with a metal detector?? Thanks. I / We wait ?? PEACE:RONB

 

[RustyGold]

What everybody said! I've found silver at 3" and at 12" but it all averages out to about 6-7" for older stuff for me in CA.

 

[CASPER-2]

Ive gotten regular size items down at 2 feet (coins ...rings) - I hunt in all metal and sensitivity cranked and go for slightest whispers
cant do this every where though
of course you can get larger items at deeper depths - such as man hole covers etc. but I usually don't go for items bigger than a can unless
im relic hunting in a battlefield

 

[boogeyman]

And lest we not forget........... Detecting is just like Christmas! You never know whether you're getting that shiny red bicycle or just socks & underwear.........