Archaeology and Dowsing

I have been leading an introduction to archaeological dowsing for my Lewes U3A Dowsing Group (in Spring 2025).  This section contains resources supporting that teaching.​

​​

Useful books on archaeology and dowsing​ include:

Tom Graves (ed.) Dowsing and Archaeology (1980).

Richard N. Bailey, Eric Cambridge, and H. Denis Briggs, Dowsing and Church Archaeology (1988).

Walter Elliot, Divining Archaeology (2012) (access a copy here)

​​

On dowsing techniques, see:

Tom Graves and Liz Poraj-Wilczynska, The Disciplines of Dowsing (2008)

Tom Grave and Liz Poraj-Wilczynska, '“Spirit of Place” as Process: Archaeography, Dowsing and Perceptual Mapping at Belas Knap', Time and Mind, 2:2, 167-193.

(Liz's website is https://www.lizpw.co.uk/.)

​​

For Sussex archaeology, see:

Dudley Moore et. al. Archaeology of the Ouse Valley, Sussex, to AD 1500 (2016)

Alex Vincent, Prehistoric Sussex (2023)

David H. Millun, Mapping the Archaeology of Ringmer Parish to AD1349 (2011) - here.  (David Millum is the director of the Culver Project excavations at Barcoombe.)

​

On psychic archaeology,  see:

Frederick Bligh Bond, The Gate of Remembrance (1918)

Stephen A Schwartz, The Secret Vaults of Time (2013) (can be read here)

​

On the Romans in Sussex (and especially Roman Roads), see:

Culver Project: https://www.culverproject.co.uk/ (for continuing excavations at Bridge Farm, Barcombe).

For one of the many publications from the Culver Project at Bridge Farm, see here.

A great deal of work was done on Roman Roads by Ivan D Margary in the 1930s.   His 'Roman Road from London to Sussex' (Antiquity, 1932) is here; 'A New Roman Road to the Coast' (Sussex Archaeological Collections, 1933) here; and 'A Roman Road from Barcombe Mills (Sussex Archaeological Collections, 1935) here.  For more on Margary, and Roman Roads in general, see the Roman Road Files website.

For an overview of Roman Sussex, see this chapter from Archaeology of Ouse Valley, Sussex, to AD1500, Impact of Rome.

See also Alex Vincent's Roman Roads of Sussex (2000).

​

​

Useful websites and YouTube resources include:
The Megalithic Portal: https://www.megalithic.co.uk/ (a wonderful resource for archaeological sites in the UK and further abroad - and not adverse to a bit of dowsing).

Walter Elliot's 'Divining Archaeology' video available on YouTube
Hampshire Archaeological Dowsers: http://www.chrissellen.taureans.co.uk/index_files/HADS/index.htm

​Dowsing research: http://dowsing-research.net/#welcome

BBC Chronicle documentary on Alexander Thom, available on YouTube

​​

Archive.org is a good source of dowsing material, including early copies of the journal of the British Society of Dowsers.  Type in the search box 'dowsing' or 'radiesthesia', for example, to find relevant texts.

​​

Some texts that may be useful include this issue of the BSD journal, which includes L. J. Latham's 'Notice of Archaeological Dowsing' - here.

Here is Frederick Bligh Bond's The Gate of Remembrance.

Here is an anthology of T.C. Lethbridge's writings.

​