Maromas preliminary hunt

I managed a short trip to scout for the cellar holes a friend told me about. Well, I found a string of six structures and that was in only about thirty minutes of searching. One was most certainly a mill long ago (it had a huge stacked stone center column on the inside..most like support for the millstone I found later on nearby). A few seemed to be homes and one was definitely a barn. I decided to do a quick sweep of as many as I could before I ran out of time and here are my findings. There are clear signs that someone has detected there before: there are crudely refilled, large holes with large metal items strewn on the ground outside the hole. The attempts, even to my beginner's eyes, seemed crude. Working near where it seemed someone had already dug I found loads of small iron hits..old rusty nails galore. In the barn I found a horseshoe, a metal band that may have been a bucket or barrel strap and a funky tool. In a rush I decided to search what I thought would be the likely path from the house to the barn forty feet away and I found a button. I also found what appears to have been a garbage pit because I found scrap metal, clam shells, and some broken pottery.
I think there is much more to find here but I lack the experience to even know where to start.

Well finding the spots is a good start. There are many on here that will be a fount of information. Even if the spots have been hunted before there will probably be stuff left. Sometimes a "newbie" will find stuff that the more experienced detectorist will miss because they don't have enough "experience" to "know" they should not bother to dig that signal! :yes:

Fair enough...that's kinda like the Buddhist concept of "child-like mind". If it's new to you you have no preconceptions and just live in the moment.

I feel eel confident that there is much to find there. The fact that I was able to find so much iron (nearly everywhere I looked) tells me that people simply went past it. There were a lot of hits that came up as being only 2" deep but weren't detectable by my pro pointer when pushed into the soft earth. So....lotsa big iron and other metals. My Ace350 was giving me some wild hits for iron to pennies..bouncing around a lot. I was thinking it was partly because of the rust and partly because there are a variety of metals in the ground. Either way, it doesn't look like those who came before had the patience to deal with the "junk".

Where I need help is determining where to look first...which hole, in the center or along the walls, outside vs inside, etc...

plus, it would be nice to have company. I'm finding a good amount of black bear scat in the area..plus it's considered a sanctuary for rattle snakes!

Good luck and hope you do well at the site. Safe & HH