How To Search For Fossils, Historical Artifacts, And Arrowheads On Your Old Farm
When you look out at the rolling hills and pasture land on your old farm land, you might see only crops or the memory of crops. If you're not currently using the land for farming, and are interested in doing some amateur archeological work, then you need to know what to get. You don't simply walk out onto the soil and find a civil war relic, or an old Native American arrowhead. You need to be prepared to do it correctly. Here is what you should get.
Get A Professional Metal Detector
You don't just walk around and dig up the soil in hopes of finding something. That won't amount to much besides a really messed up field. What you should do is get a professional metal detector. This will save you tons of time and allow you to locate the spots where things such as old coins, bullets, and other items are located. For instance, your field might have been the sight of a civil war battle, or an old encampment where settlers in early America cooked and lived. In order to find things such as bullets, silverware, or coins, you will need a metal detector.
Get A Small Shovel and Spade
Once you have located the spot where the metal is, you will need to dig the soil up. You want a shovel to dig up the deep spots, but you should also get yourself a small spade to do more precision digging. You don't want to be heavy handed with relics that are close to the surface because you might damage them, so this is where you will use the spade. You can get a small fold up shovel to use if you don't want to carry a large shovel around with you for the entire day.
Make Your Own Soil Screen With Wire Mesh
While big items such as tin plates or bayonets, will be easily seen, smaller items might go unnoticed by the naked eye. The solution to this is to build your own screen. These will allow you to sift the soil and find things such as arrowheads, as well as metal items such as small bullets, and coins. All you need to get are 4 thin strips of wood from the home improvement store and build a frame. Then get some wire mesh from a company like Midwestern Industries Inc and attach the mesh to the frame using heavy duty staples. Then place the wire mesh screen over a bucket or other box. You can then shovel the dirt onto the screen and sift through it for small coins or other objects that might be hidden in the soil. This is the only way to efficiently search for small objects in the soil.