Review the land as it once was if possible

[49er12]

One thing I always try to do is when I get to a place of metal detecting is look around and see if anything shows me land fill, over landscaping happen, topsoil scraped, point is it’s important because the different layers of dirt can tell you much. So I ask you I’m not a educated person in this particular study of earth, lol. How can you figure, I mean when I get to clay I’d think nothing gets through that, topsoil, stone etc, but isn’t there a point of ends there. Anyhow anyone no of maps of satellites oh anything that can show how the original ground for most part, thanks

 

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[RTR]

This might help https://www.wikihow.com/Go-Back-in-Time-on-Google-Maps

 

[49er12]

Thankyou sir

 

[pepperj]

I always look at the trunks of the trees.
If the trees look like power poles=fill has been added to the site.
If the ground slopes away from the base of the tree, then it pretty well tells me no fill has been added.

 

[CreakyDigger]

Another tip would be to look at the site in dry weather. Not the best time to detect, but sometimes you can make out features not obvious in wet weather.

 

[villagenut]

It really all amounts to the stratigraphy of the site. It is the fingerprint of the past and understanding what is shown will tell you about topsoil changes over the centuries past. Shovel tests will reveal strata layers that are similar to growth rings on trees. Doing several shovel tests on a particular site can confirm or deny where fill has been brought in. Finding artifacts at the varying strata then can help determine the age of the strata deposit, provided the artifacts were just lost there and not buried. Hope this helps,vn

 

[49er12]

I appreciate it members, this hobby if you want to get the most of it means more than turn on and go. I’m here in western Pennsylvania so if any of you lived here or detected here let me no, recently found out cut rock foundation by the road, water was in , anyhow I should stay on track. Being most land was farmed, modernizing the land ruined those hopes, so winter time is best time to go shoreline and old train tracks train stations, grant you it’s always the dam jaggers that are in the good spots, ticks. But I’m no my limits, but we had many coal mines, anyone travel through here let me no, Ohio is 15 minutes away.

 

[diggummup]

Use this site. Topos will show old homesites. Aerials will give historic views of those. I think there is a youtube video that explains it if you have problems. https://www.historicaerials.com/

 

[Exhuminator]

One of my favorite sites:

Historic Aerials: Viewer

www.historicaerials.com

You can go back and look at aerial photos of the land a good ways back. I can go all the way back to 1955 where I live in the USA. Using these old aerial photos, I have found structures on my land that were once there but now gone. Yet remnants remain underground. If you can deal with the watermarks you can use the site for free.