An amateur treasure hunter has discovered a Bronze Age settlement after finding clues using Google Earth.
Commercial diver Howard Jones had been involved in the discovery of the 300-year-old Dutch merchant vessel the Aagtekerke off the Devon coast in 2010, but when bad weather set in last winter he turned to Google Earth’s satellite imagery to search for a new discovery.
He used the images to look for locations that would have suited a settlement and provide an ancient community food, water, shelter, and access to trade.
After finding a spot in the South Hams, Devon, that he believed would have suited an ancient settlement, he found the farmer that owned the land and gained permission to detect in the area almost by accident, in a scene that could have come from the BBC comedy series The Detectorists.
Following the discovery of pottery, flint tools, and scraps of metal believed to date back thousands of years, the former Royal Marine called on the help of local archaeologist Bill Horner to perform a geophysical survey of the area using ground-penetrating radar.
The pair discovered two large structures beneath the soil, which they believe could be farmsteads and possibly metalworks dating back to the Bronze Age, and have arranged for a series of trench digs to confirm their suspicions for early next year.
