Maine

Yes, on private land with the landowner’s written permission. That is the clearest legal route in Maine, and it is the only thing we do.

Federal land is closed. Access to state land is decided by Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands and the rules are not the same at every property. Private ground, with the owner’s written agreement, avoids all of it.

On federal land, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 makes it an offence to disturb or remove archaeological resources over 100 years old without a permit. The National Park Service prohibits metal detecting outright in national parks.

Rules on state parks and public reserved land are set by the Bureau and differ from site to site, with some coastal areas treated separately again. Confirm the specific property before you go.

We do not publish a summary of individual park rules, because they change and they differ site by site. The authority above is the one that decides, and they will answer directly.

Public land is complicated. Private land with written permission is not.

Ask the landowner and get it in writing, or book ground where the permission already exists. Knowing where to look is only half of it. The right to be standing there is the half that decides whether the day is detecting or trespass.

1. Identify the ground. Old maps, cellar holes, vanished settlements and terrain will all point you at likely land in Maine. None of that grants access to it.
2. Find who owns it. County parcel records name the owner. Knocking on the door still works, and still fails most of the time.
3. Get the agreement in writing. Who may search, which fields, on what dates, what happens to anything found, and who carries the liability.
4. Or skip to the end. Every FieldFinders listing in Maine is land whose owner has already agreed, set their own rate, and approves each request by name. The written search agreement comes with the booking.

Maine holds two very different kinds of ground. Along the coast there are three centuries of shipbuilding, fishing and trade, with wharves, boatyards and the villages that served them. Inland there are logging camps and hill farms that were cleared, worked for two or three generations, and abandoned when the west opened up. The forest closed over most of them, and their cellar holes and stone walls are still there.

1. 1600sEnglish and French settlement, contested and repeatedly burned
2. 1700sCoastal trade, fishing stations, garrison houses
3. 1800sShipbuilding boom, logging camps, hill farms at their peak
4. 1850 onwardFarm abandonment as families moved west

Glacial till over granite. Rocky, acidic and hard on iron, which rarely survives well. Copper, silver and brass come out far better than the soil suggests. Stone walls are the single most useful surface feature in the state, because they mark field boundaries that have not moved since they were built.

Large cents and colonial coppers around old house sites, marine hardware and sheathing tacks near the water, axe heads and camp debris on logging ground, buttons and buckles wherever a cellar hole sits.