yanno, those looters are seriously playing w/fire. there is so much undiscovered and unexploded ordnance left over from both world wars that even w/a metal detector i'd be afraid to dig very deep at all.

i'm an amateur historian as well, and the last time i was in france my wife and i took a detour and spent a day touring the verdun battlefields. entire areas are off limits due to buried ordnance, and the fields of moonscape-like craters were one of the most sobering sights i've ever seen.