Segers-Glocke, Christiane [Hrsg.]; Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege [Hrsg.]; Institut für Denkmalpflege [Hrsg.]; Balck, Friedrich [Bearb.]: Arbeitshefte zur Denkmalpflege in Niedersachsen: Aspects of mining and smelting in the Upper Harz Mountains (up to the 13th/14th century) - in the early times of a developing European culture and economy (St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae Verl., Heft 22.2000)

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Prospection
The prospection draws its justification from the terms of reference of the
Department of Monuments in Lower Saxony - the recording and preservation of
sites of historic interest. Only what is known can be protected.
Among the multitude of traces in the environment, the work of the Centre for
Mining Archaeology focuses primarily on the relics of foundry and smelter sites
that are far less overbuilt than the mining sites.
Most of the approximately 860 km2 of the lower Saxon Harz - primarily
woodland- is apart from a few areas shrouded from the most effective
prospecting method of remote sensing using aerial photography. One must there-
fore take recourse to the traditional survey on foot. This requires an effective
strategy and planning if two to four persons are to produce results in a reasonable
amount of time.
We started by considering that any human being settling at a place for some
time would want to have water in close proximity. This should apply even more
to smelter operators who require water not only for living but also during the
course of their work. For this reason, we decided on prospecting in and along
watercourses.
Bode already describes this approach in his work as particularly promising6. It
is a rational method that has quite likely also been used by early ore prospectors.
The location of „venediger“ stones, signposts of a legendary group of foreign
connoisseurs of the mineral resources of the Harz, along streams underscores the
use of the watercourse as a guiding line in difficult terrain.
This method has also been applied successfully during the prospecting for a
project on iron production in the Lahn-Dill-District (JOCKENHÖVEL, WILLMS
1993, 523). Considering conditions in the Harz Mountains it is in this way possible
for two experienced assistants to cover approximately 30 to 40 km2 per year.
Our experience accumulated over the course of the last six years has led to the
following approach:
a. Preparation for prospection
Conservation aspects are considered with highest priority in the selection of a
new area of operation. Areas in which finds are acutely threatened have absolute
6 Bode (1928, 143): „Also streams flowing past the smelter sites have picked up and
displaced material from the slag heaps in such a way that one finds pieces distributed in
and along the water course far below the sites and following these traces one may discover
the sites themselves“.