In response to Mike Connor (and anyone else who might be interested),
Given the passionate exchange that has taken place on the topic of
dowsing, I'm sending the following with some trepidation. It is primarily
in response to the query about my posting on dowsing of yesterday- so
please read no further if you don't hold with anecdotal evidence (or have
otherwise wearied of the topic).
I've used dowsing for two different purposes: once to locate a feature
whose specific whereabouts were unknown, the other to map out the possible
extent of a feature whose location was fairly well known. In both cases we
were looking for something very specific and, in our cases, it worked. I do,
however, agree with the recent sentiments expressed on the list that
dowsing would not be a reliable technique with which to evaluate an
entire site.
In the case of the missing feature, we were looking for the foundations of
a building. We thought we had some traces of it, but what we had didn't
quite fit with plat maps of the mining camp that had been developed from
deeds and tax records. We also had a primary document with a small
unscaled drawing indicating that there had been a well set behind the
building. We figured if we could find the well, we would
know if we were in the general vicinity of our building.
We brought in a professional dowser and he indicated one possible location
within our excavation area. This location turned out to not be a well,
or anything else for that matter. Then, on the last day of excavation as
we readied the site for backfilling, we decided to have
one last go. As part of the closing process, we also took down the fence
that we had around the site to keep hapless tourists from falling in- and
this turned out to be crucial. I walked over a more extensive area than
the professional dowser had- up to 20-30 m from the edge of our excavation
area and had two "responses" from the dowsing rods. The first
response appears to have been a reaction to a collection of small metal
fragments. These may in fact have been discarded down an old drilling
for a hand pump, but did not outline a well. The second response yielded
a length of old foundation trench. This foundation trench marked the
original location of a small reconstructed building that stood very close
to our excavation site. Apparently, the reconstructed
building had been set down offset from the original location, because when
we measured from the newly found old trench our excavated foundation
traces matched very well with the overall reconstructed town plat. Does
this count as dowsing finding our feature?
We never did find the reputed well, but what we did find did help us
answer our questions about the location of a giving building.
The surface covering at both response locations was tall waving
grass. While I certainly can't rule out the possibility that there may
have been some "crop marks" indicating the locations, they were certainly
not as apparent as the more recent modifications to the area (piles of
backdirt, trampled paths, recent fenceline). I do think that the power of
suggestion played a role in the first dowser's suggestion of the well
location (such that he confined his work to the arbitrary boundary of the
tourist fence), but that it played less of a role in the second
situation. In both locations, the dowsing "response" took place directly
above the disturbance on the ground (ie. no offset).
In the case of the feature whose location we did know, we were again
looking for a foundation attested by documentary evidence (paintings, in
this case) but not immediately apparent on the surface. The area where
we thought the building had been had been resurfaced as a circular
driveway and lawn, and so the purpose of dowsing
was simply a first check as to whether the foundations had been completely
removed during construction of the drive or whether there might still be
some remains left (ie. why dig up the front lawn when you don't have
to?). We did get some responses that seemed to map out at least two sides
of structure of that generally fit the size of the building in the
painting. Test excavations at the building location did not
take place while I was on the project, but I have heard some general
confirmation that they have found some remains of a foundation there. The
surface in this case was short mown grass. I did not do the dowsing in
this case, and I don't remember seeing any crop marks that might have
influenced the dowser, though that does certainly not prove that there
weren't any.
One general query- I recognize the concerns that people have expressed
about the irreproducibility of dowsing results and particularly the great
variation in response between different people. Has anyone
seen/heard/considered the possibility of individual consistency, ie. the
ability of a particular person to pick up disturbances? Just curious...
I can't imagine anything else that anyone might want to know about these
examples, but if so, you are welcome to contact me off-list at
[log in to unmask]
best,
Marcy
__________________________
Marcy H. Rockman
Department of Anthropology
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona 85721
[log in to unmask]
** new fieldwork home **
Department of Archaeology
University of Southampton
Southampton SO17 1BJ
UK
(still using [log in to unmask] for email)
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