Turn on to load records for the area on screen (county zoom or closer).
Scan old maps or load historic places to rank leads here.
Reports you run are saved here automatically, and open with no signal.
Old USGS maps start in 1884, so colonial and early-1800s dates come from historical records, not the map scan. Map positions on 1880s–1910s sheets can be off by 50–150 yards; use the lidar to find the actual house pad.
Local relief is built on your phone from the raw 1 m lidar. Blue shows dips (cellar holes, wells, privies, ruts), orange shows rises (house pads, mounds, berms). Slide left to bring out shallower features. Shows at street zoom and closer.
Low sun and 3–6× exaggeration bring out faint cellar holes and old road ruts on flat coastal ground. Swing the sun around; features parallel to the light disappear.
Private land is not shown. You still need the owner's permission there.
Tap anywhere on the map for ground height, lidar date and resolution, who manages the land, and which old maps cover that spot.
Spots, finds, photos, and tracks are saved on this phone only. Export a GPX now and then as a backup; it also loads into onX, Gaia, or Google Earth.
Square or rectangular pits
Cellar holes, privies, and wells. Often 3–6 m across. Privies and wells were trash dumps and hold the most artifacts.
Flat raised pads
House and outbuilding platforms. On the Georgia coast, look for low tabby rubble mounds near old field edges and high ground near the marsh.
Long straight or gently curving grooves
Old wagon roads and trails, often doubled ruts. Search where they cross creeks, meet other roads, or pass house sites.
Parallel ridges in rows
Old crop beds and rice or cotton fields. Field edges and the corners where people rested and camped beat the open field.
Straight ditches and dikes
Rice canals, drainage, and property lines. Landings where a canal meets the river saw heavy traffic.
Small round or crescent mounds
Earthworks, gun emplacements, kilns, or shell middens. Middens and burial mounds are archaeological sites; leave them alone and report them.
Family cemeteries and lone old trees
Rural family plots were usually kept within sight of the house. A small cemetery, a cluster of old live oaks, or a stand of cedars and yucca in an otherwise plain field often marks a homesite nearby. Never detect or dig in or beside a cemetery.
Reading the History tab
Squares are buildings found on old USGS maps, dated by the earliest map they appear on. A square marked gone was on an old map but has no building mapped there today. That is the classic abandoned-homesite signal. Circles are documented places from historical records.
Quick research
Press and hold anywhere on the map to run a full area report on that spot.
Install on your iPhone
In Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. It opens full screen like an app, and Safari will ask once to allow location.
Before you head out
On Wi-Fi, open the Lidar tab, zoom to the area, and tap Save this area under Offline maps. Run your research reports at home too; they're saved and open with no signal. If you use the Home Screen app, save areas from inside it, because iPhone keeps its storage separate from Safari's.
Log every find
Tap Log a find right at the hole. It grabs your GPS spot and takes a photo, depth, era, and your Manticore ID number. Your finds count as evidence in future research reports, so the more you log, the better the zones get.
How to read it
Scan wide areas on Multi-light. Once you're zoomed in to street level, switch to Local relief: blue dips and orange rises are the cellar holes, privies, and house pads. Confirm with Sun angle by sweeping the sun around the feature. Check the Old USGS maps at the same spot. Mark it, then walk to it with Spots.
Know the ground rules
Metal detecting is prohibited in National Park System areas (36 CFR 2.1) and ARPA protects archaeological resources on all federal and tribal land. Wildlife refuges, national forests, and state parks have their own rules. Get written permission on private land.