Question for old hands at this...

AnnieF

Full Member
Jul 26, 2012
248
75
Western NC
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
If you know your house was the only house there EVER (via Historic Aerials) and it was built in 1980 (though nearby homes were built much earlier) and you keep finding nails in your back yard which used to just be woods, what to make of it? Standard fare junk annoyance for MD'rs? Or a clue to look further, especially when you find a bunch all together? My daughter and I were hunting our backyard yesterday and we found a couple dozen in a foot square area, plus scattered throughout. It's a BIG yard. Lots of old trees...

Theories?

I'm in one of the earliest settled parts of MA.
 

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Unless those other houses are very old and the nails you are finding are square, workers probably left them, dumped them or spilled them during construction of your home. That being said, you have to deal with them because there is no telling what treasure you may find on your
property. If there used to be woods, there could be anything buried out there.
 

If there was once an older house there believe me you would know it unless the area was covered with new top soil.I grew up in Marblehead Ma. in an mid 1700s colonial.Marblehead was first settled in 1629 as a plantation belonging to Salem MA..I use to find all kinds of things just digging holes in the dirt(no metal detector)when i was a kid.I could walk around the yard and pick up fragments of early pottery,glass,you just about name it.It was especially interesting after a very heavy rain,i would even find coins just sitting on top of the ground.Find out who built the house and see if you can find out if there was a new layer of top soil or fill thrown down.
 

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