"Nor is there any doubt that people can trace things they don't know are there by other means. " .
Water is one thing but previously unrecorded and unsuspected archaeology is a bit different ,any examples ?
I've never dowsed archeological remains, which would be very interesting, especially in the case of unknown remains that were subsequently detected. The story in the next person's post to th one quoted is interesting, in which traces were found by dowsing than nothing was there. Such awkward failures need thorough investigation as well as the successes, I think, first to rule out sheer chance with the successes, and second to investigate whether something else was being detected and the fault was with the interpretations of the dowsers and not with the dowsing itself. We're really at a very basic level with investigating this stuff.
The investigative route is the only way that we will get any understanding .
Ever tried dowsing over a big bridge like the Humber bridge , in an aeroplane , over landfill etc
I'm pretty sure the `earth energies' aren't underground water, although Guy Underwood attributed his findings to `blind springs.' I've dowsed some of Underwood's locations (and I'm amazed by his skill when I compare his mappings with what I found), but most of the things I've found don't seem to relate to water. That said, my water knowledge relates more to piped water supplies than to natural water flows. I realise as soon as I consider this how little I know. I only know something works, which is a mere starting point.