This "No metal detecting on DNR-controlled land & water" law was enacted due to the amount of Wisconsin Copper Complex artifacts that were being recovered....
If that's the actual evolutionary trail of the WI rule, then I'd be wrong about my theory that this is a typical case of "silly questions to the wrong persons". In the case of what you're saying, it's d/t indian stuff. Ie.: pre-contact pre-columbian un-refined metals. Sort of like the taboo of arrowheads, indian bones, etc... type thing. If so, then we all know that indian stuff is in a
camp all its own. You can disturb all sorts of things white man did at his old colonial homesteads or picnic sites or whatever, and few folks care. But ....... heaven forbid that an indian thing should be collected, touched, dug, etc.....
Fortunately, there was very few geographic zones of the USA where indians made use of anything metal like that. Just those pre-contact naturally occurring crude copper places, where indians pounded it into various shapes. But for the most part, for the rest of the USA, it's simply impossible to find "indian things" with metal detectors. Since we can accurately say "they had no refined metals".
Hence when you think of it, then md'ing becomes the most POLITICALLY CORRECT thing to do. Because by definition, you CAN'T find "bones" and such. Thus when you go to dig a coin or bullet or whatever, your detector is "surgically accurate" to go *just* to that metal item, and NOT to their stuff. Contrast to an archie pit, or construction site heavy equipment, etc..., and ever last bone or arrowhead etc... , is touched moved disturbed, etc.....
