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Select Here to View the MDHTALK's July News Brief in Adobe .PDF
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| July 2022 | Metal Detecting Hobby Talk News Brief Volume 12 Number 149 |
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Support The Hobby I would like to point out to the News Brief readers that there are a number of organizations taking on the challenge against various types of legislation dealing with metal detecting and gold prospecting. MDHTALK's recommendation is to visit their website and give strong consideration to joining the fight. In some cases your support may be to send emails and / or write a letter to specific legislators or to provide funds to help with the fight. Here are the organizations and a link to their website. |
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MDHTALK News Pages U.S. & W.W. News U.K. News U.S. Archaeology U.S. Legislation W.W. Meteoritic Other Media MDHTALK Article Links Return Stories MDHTALK Find a Club Read Newsletters FaceBook Clubs MDHTALK Event Calendar July |
What is a News Brief? The news brief provides a brief look into any news event. The intent of the news brief is to provide you, the reader, with news clips on what was taking place in the hobby last month. To read the whole story select the Article Link or go to MDHTALK.org. There are more news stories placed on the MDHTALK website for June the news stories listed in the MDHTALK News Brief are just a portion of all the hobby related news reported the past month. The news Brief is now available in Adobe PDF format, there is a link at the top of this webpage. The news brief is no longer emailed; it is only available on the MDHTALK website and can be downloaded. The Website's featured article for this month is: Where is it Legal to Metal Detect? By Lee Wiese Download This Article This question should be easy to answer but that is not the case. There are no uniform state laws or regulations across the fifty states or are there uniform municipal codes for the many thousands of cities and counties in the U.S. One way to get a handle on laws and regulations for your area is to join a local metal detecting or gold prospecting club. These clubs will usually know what the local law and regulation situation is for the hobby. So lets take one section of the U.S. at a time and try to find some answers. National. There are a number of federal acts that control what can or can not be done on federal properties. These acts are the:
The 1906 and the 1997 acts have an impact on the National Park System, National Monuments, National Sea Shore Beaches, Civil & Revolutionary War Battlefields, and to some extend on Native American lands. These acts indirectly make metal detecting illegal in any of these places. If caught metal detecting or have a detector in your possession while on any of these protected places it can be a felony with tough penalties. A typical statement on a National Monument websites is: Metal detectors are strictly prohibited on park grounds. Relic hunting by the use of metal detectors or other means is prohibited and violators will be prosecuted. Park rangers enforce a number of federal regulations in the park, including the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 36 (36 CFR), and the United States Code, Titles 16, 18 and 21.Within 36 CFR, park superintendents are granted the right to make park-specific regulations. 36 CFR 2.1 (7) Possessing or using a mineral or metal detector, magnetometer, side scan sonar, other metal detecting device, or sub-bottom profiler. 16 U.S.C. Section 1c defines the National Park System as"...any area of land and water now or hereafter administrated by the Secretary of the Interior through the National Park Service for park, monument, historic, parkway, recreational or other purposes." The 1966 act is the mechanism by which historical sites can be preserved by adding them to the National Register of Historic Places. Once a site is added to the National Register three acts above (1966,1997,1990 acts) can be applied to protect the properties. The 1966 act also provides for the setup of historical sites at the state level. Once historical sites are placed on the national or state historical register; them the sites are no longer available for metal detecting of any kind. The 1990 act covers just about everything that has anything to do with, native American remains, burial sites, and associated culture items. National Forests. The Forest Service does permits the use of recreational metal detecting and the collection of rocks and mineral samples. Generally, most of the National Forests are open to recreational mineral and rock collecting, gold panning and metal detecting. This activity usually does not require any authorization. It is always wise to check with the local district ranger to ensure that the land you are going to detect does not contain archaeological or historical resource. National Forest Regulation. Federal Bureau of Land Management -BLM. Most areas of BLM lands are open for use of metal detecting with the exception of historical sites. You should contact the local BLM district office for information to find out the areas that are off limits. Metal Detecting Federal Bureau Of Reclamation. Metal detecting is prohibited. Federal Code 423.29 (f-1&2) U.S. Army Corp of Engineers §327.14 Public property metal detector use. The use of metal detectors is permitted on designated beaches or other previously disturbed lands unless prohibited by the district commander to protect archaeological, historical and paleontological resources. States. Each state has laws that are modeled after the national acts making state lands regulated similarly to national lands. Generally, all state historical sites, state Native American burial grounds, and other state archaeological sites are off limits to metal detecting. - State Parks. However, most states have regulations that determine the legality of metal detecting in their state park system. These regulations usually either allow or disallow metal detects or provide specific information as to where metal detecting can take place. Check this web-link for specific state regulations. Some states require permits, while eight or more states simply make it unlawful to detect state parks and some states allow only specific areas like beaches or disturbed lands. If there are no metal detecting regulations in a state the state usually defaults to their archaeology laws that forbid diggings for targets or the state may use regulations dealing with the disturbance of vegetation or the removal of rocks, etc. In the latter case you may detect but not recover or remove any targets. - State Beaches. Generally salt water state beaches are ok to metal detect. There may be restrictions, such as, you can detect only from the low tide mark to the high tide mark. Never metal detect in sand dunes that are roped off, have vegetation growing on them, or any beach park grassy area. State fresh water beaches are sometimes locally ranger controlled. Even if the state has tough regulations against metal detecting it may still be ok in some instants to detect certain state fresh water beaches. - Counties. Of all the public entities, counties may have the least restrictions placed on their county parks system when it comes to metal detecting. Usually fresh water beaches are open to metal detecting although in some county park systems it may be forbidden to metal detect in the water. Other county public lands may have similar restrictions on archaeology, historical and Native American burial sites. Some counties require a permit to metal detect in county parks, others do not. - Cities. Many cities have municipal ordinances that cover park usage. Frequently there are short statements in an ordinance that may made it unlawful to metal detect, or a permit may be required, or metal detecting is allowed but no digging. In many cities there may be no metal detecting ordinance but other aspects of the park ordinance and regulation may indirectly make detecting unlawful. Citiy properties usually fall under the states archaeology, historical and Native American burial laws. - College & School Districts. School districts are starting to make school properties off-limits after school hours except by special use permission. In many cases school properties are secured by putting up chain link fences and posted with no trespassing signs. In some cases school districts are establishing property rules and often metal detecting is on the do not list. - Cemeteries. Metal detecting in a cemetery is not a good hobby image. Regardless of the law never metal detect inside of any cemetery boundary. I would even question metal detecting outside of the physical boundaries of a cemetery since this could still provide the public with a very bad image of a detectorist. Private Lands. To use private lands for metal detecting one should secure permission from the property owner or caretaker. Private lands can have many older public sites on them such as:
In a few states there are laws on the book that prohibit anyone except archaeologists to recovery artifacts from private lands. In Summary - Where is it legal to metal detect? From this short article you may draw the conclusion that there are very few places to metal detect in the U.S. That is not really the case. Many county and city properties are available to metal detect as well as fresh and salt water beaches. The only catch is that there are many local and state regulations that can cause a beach or a portion of a beach to be off limits. The ability to know where it is lawful or unlawful falls on the individual detectorist to seek out the answer. There is information on the web but it is not comprehensive and will not cover all counties, cities and school districts. The best approach is to join or establish a metal detecting club and have a few of the members become experts on the laws, regulations and city ordinances in your area. You may say to yourself my own yard is safe to metal detect, well yes and no. If your property is on the historical register, is part of a archaeology site or may have Native American burial grounds your property will be off limits to metal detecting. |
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General U.S. and World Wide Hobby News
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Other News Sources
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Metal Detecting & Gold Prospecting Events.
Now is the time to start planning and getting your club's 2022/23 hunt information on the web. The sooner it is out and available to the metal detecting community the greater the chance for people to see it and give your event some consideration. |
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Select here to View the Complete Event Add Your Event Information Here Check out your event before going it may have been postponed or canceled. |
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Arizona wildfires sweep lands rich with ancient
sites, artifacts Nation Website Link |
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FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — As Jason Nez scans rugged mountains, high desert and
cliffsides for signs of ancient tools and dwellings unique to the U.S.
Southwest, he keeps in mind that they’re part of a bigger picture. And, fire is not new to them. “They have been burned many, many times, and that’s healthy,” said Nez, a Navajo archaeologist and firefighter. “A lot of our cultural resources we see as living, and living things are resilient.” As a pair of wildfires skirt this mountainous northern Arizona city, the flames are crossing land dense with reminders of human existence through centuries — multilevel stone homes, rock carvings and pieces of clay and ceramic pots that have been well-preserved in the arid climate since long before fire suppression became a tactic. Today, firefighting crews increasingly are working to avoid or minimize damage from bulldozers and other modern-day tools on archaeological sites and artifacts, and protect those on public display to ensure history isn’t lost on future generations. “Some of those arrowheads, some of those pottery shards you see out there have that power to change the way we look at how humans were here,” Nez said. The crews’ efforts include recruiting people to advise them on wildlife and habitat, air quality and archaeology. In Arizona, a handful of archaeologists have walked miles in recent months locating evidence of meaningful past human activity in and around scorched areas and mapping it for protection. Just last week, a crew spotted a semi-buried dwelling known as a pit house. WATCH: Glass artist Dale Chihuly’s exhibit takes inspiration from Arizona’s desert landscape “We know this area is really important to tribes, and it’s ancestral land for them,” said U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and tribal relations specialist Jeanne Stevens. “When we do more survey work, it helps add more pieces to the puzzle in terms of what’s on the landscape.” It’s not just the scattered ruins that need protecting. The nearby Wupatki National Monument — a center of trade for Indigenous communities around the 1100s — was evacuated because of wildfire twice this year. Exhibits there hold priceless objects, including 800-year-old corn, beans and squash, along with intact Clovis points, or stone arrowheads, that date back some 13,000 years. Before the first wildfire hit in April, forcing the evacuation of the monument and hundreds of homes outside Flagstaff, there was no set plan on how to quickly get the artifacts out, said Lauren Carter, the monument’s lead interpretive ranger. “The Tunnel Fire made it an — excuse the pun — on-fire issue to finalize the plan,” she said. Monument curator Gwenn Gallenstein assembled nested boxes with cavities for larger items and foam pouches for arrowheads and other smaller artifacts. She had photographs for each item so whoever was tasked with the packaging would know exactly where to put them, she said. Gallenstein was able to train one person on how to pack up ceramic pots, bone tools, sandals, textiles woven from cotton grown in the area and other things before another large wildfire broke out June 12 and the monument was closed again. No one expected to put the plan into action so soon. The fires have so far avoided the facility. Several boxes of items that trace back to what archaeologists say are distinct Indigenous cultures were taken to the Museum of Northern Arizona for safekeeping. Some Hopi clans consider those who lived at Wupatki their ancestors. Navajo families later settled the area but slowly left, either voluntarily or under pressure by the National Park Service, which sought to eliminate private use of the land once it became a monument in 1924. The monument has some 2,600 archaeological sites across 54 square miles (141 square kilometers), representing a convergence of cultures on the Colorado Plateau in the Four Corners where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah meet. The region includes the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, Hopi mesas, volcanic cinder fields, the largest contiguous ponderosa pine forest in the U.S. and the San Francisco Peaks — a mountain sacred to 13 Native American tribes. “That gives you an idea of the density of the cultural history here, and that continues outside the national monument boundaries into the national forest,” Carter said. The Coconino National Forest on the southern edge of the plateau has surveyed just 20% of its 2,900 square miles (7,510 square kilometers) and logged 11,000 archaeological sites, Stevens said. Forest restoration work that includes mechanical thinning and prescribed burns has given archaeologists an opportunity to map sites and log items. More discoveries are expected because of the current wildfires, especially in the more remote areas, Stevens said. The arid climate has helped preserve many of the artifacts and sites. But it’s also the type of environment that is prone to wildfires, particularly with a mix of fierce winds and heat that were all too common in the U.S. West this spring as megadroughts linked to climate change baked the region. Stevens recalled working on a wildfire in 2006 in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona and a prison crew coming across a great kiva — a circular stone built into the earth and used for ceremonies. “That was something that was really notable,” she said. “Where we’ve been having fires lately, we do have a lot of survey and a lot of knowledge, but we’re always ready for that new discovery.” Nez, too, has made rare finds, including two Clovis points and village sites on a mountainside that he wasn’t expecting to see. “There’s going to be pottery shards, there’s going to be projectile points,” he tells firefighting crews and managers. “In Native cultures, those things are out there, and we respect them by leaving them alone.” |
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