20th Feb 2013: Ask an FLO

Nobody did this last year, why not have a go in 2013?  The suggestion was made (by a metal detectorist) that members of the public can phone up the PAS FLOs and ask them some questions. It is their job to answer them.

- Ask them about your doubts on artefact hunting and collecting.

- Ask them about "partnering" artefact hunters and collectors.

- Ask them what you can do to PROTECT the archaeological record from damage and erosion (is it "buy a metal detector' or "do not buy a metal detector"? Or is it something else?).

- Ask them for their realistic estimate of what proportion of metal detectorists are adhering fully to the Code of (Best) Practice for Responsible Metal Detecting, and how many reject it and abide by the two main rival ones.

- Ask them for a realistic estimate of the number of dugup finds not being reported  each year in the region.

- Ask them why you should be paying their salaries for "partnering" artefact hunters instead of doing something more effective to prevent the damage to sites and assemblages.

- Ask them whether they are concerned about the loss of information from the archaeological record by artefact hunting, or whether expressing such concerns is just "propaganda" (and if they say it is, ask them why they are doing that job if it is not to offset the loss of information).

- Ask them about their thoughts on the PAS policy of close collaboration with a commercial metal detecting magazine ("The Searcher"), and whether they subscribe to it or own a metal detector (or archaeological collection - and why/why not).

- Ask them why metal detectorists thinks you will hear abusive comments FROM ARCHAEOLOGISTS when one raises these topics.

 - Ask them if they LIKE working with metal detectorists.

Phone the FLOs, it is part of their "outreach" mission to answer your questions on portable antiquity collecting issues. 

Then post the answers you  get here as comments (with the name of the FLO please).

5th December 2012: How Much Money needed to Sort out Misconceptions?

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How much extra money would the PAS like to sort out the misconceptions being disseminated about its role and function?

4th December 2012: What Kind of "Relationship"?

 Rob Middleton, 'Metal detectors plunder heritage site', Northampton Chronicle and Echo, 4 December 2012.

"these men are not out-and-out treasure robbers. They clearly had some sort of relationship with the local finds officer at the county council and their local archeological society.”

and what kind of "relationship" would that be? Would the PAS like to comment?

28th September 2012: Seeding the Record

To what extent are the PAS compiling at public expense a database full of false data caused by the constraints of being compiled in part in "partnership" with commercial organizations organizing artefact hunting rallies? 

 

A search of the PAS database reveals as many as 19 hits for "West Ilsley", a little place in Berks. The "heritage heroes" have been out there in force with their metal detectors it seems, indeed there was a "beginners dig" held there by 'Leisure Promotions' a while ago. The trouble is that the organizers announced that prior to this "we are going to be burying several hundreds of finds which will include Roman coins, hammered silver coins and masses of other coins and artefacts " (see here too). West Ilsley folks, the artificial archaeological site - and how many more have rally organizers seeding fields created, and (bearing in mind how important PAS attendance at rallies is considered for boosting record numbers) how many of those false findspots have got into the PAS record? 

Focus on UK Metal Detecting: Seeding the Record

19 September 2012: Question to the PAS About Commercial Artefact Hunting Rallies

Heritage Action wrote a text about the Polish artefact hunters' rally on Crown Estate land at Offley, Herts and published it in their online journal. The PAS Hertfordshire Finds Liaison Officer saw this text and added a comment saying he could put the preservationists' minds to rest because.... the finds were being recorded. He seems oblivious to the real point which was the propriety of holding a commercial artefact hunting rally at all when it results in the concentrated, but selective, erosion of the archaeological record.

So here is a question to the PAS generally, can the holding of erosive commercial artefact hunting rallies really be justified through the voluntary and selective recording of the "finds"?

Some PAS-Archaeology

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Three recent posts providing some comments on the way the PAS does, and portrays, archaeology.

Human Sacrifice in a Leicestershire Field? Narrativising a Romano-British TOT-ring

Focus on UK Metal Detecting: The PAS and the Turbulent Priest

The BST Archaeology of the PAS

Awaiting some comments.
 
Vignette: Dot distribution mapper and ethnic narrativiser hero Gustav Kossinna.

8 September 2012: What Outreach on Discarding Evidence?

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In a post on my main blog ("Focus on UK Metal Detecting: Archaeological Iron, Hedge Fodder or Discrimination") I discuss what artefact hunters are throwing away:

UKDN Member "Hawyoo" (Sep 02, 2012 10:33 am) asks: "What should i keep[?]":

Hi all.I find a lot of what some people may call junk.I seem to keep it all.Most is just rusty old iron but some of it looks interesting. [...] i am thinking they may just be a little something in there. 

Obviously most of us can see that among the iron objects taken by artefact hunters from archaeological sites will be a number of fragments of iron archaeological items, hardly "junk". One UKDN respondent however calls these artefacts "HedgeFodder (HF)" implying he just throws this sort of material into the hedges (interesting that some tekkies are concerned about contamination of the rural landscape with metal in contaminated Green Waste, while others are quite happy to litter the hedgerows with metal fragments produced by the hobby). Another member admonishes: "Firstly you shouldn't be digging rusty old iron should you? try a little discrimination". 

This is followed by a series of horror stories on what people have "pulled from the scrap bins". Including this one from a "Puffin" (Sun Sep 02, 2012 5:46 pm):

Even after 7 years, a few months ago I had to pull a Saxon/Viking 4 way strap divider out of my scrap bin. Many because of a post on here, you really need to be 120% sure of what you are weighing in! 

"Weighing in" of course is tekkie slang for what artefact hunters discard from their artefact collections and sell by weight for melting down for scrap. How many tens of thousands of archaeological items end up that way as a result of this hobby each year?

Of course anything that made its way into a tekkie scrap bin, but is pulled out weeks, months or years later because it is recognised to have been something of significance has by then irrevocably lost the information about its findspot.

Carried out in this way the hobby of artefact hunting is destroying vast quantities of archaeological information because many of these people which current UK policy lets loose to pillage archaeological sites to gratify their collecting hobby are ignorant (or careless) of just what it is they are finding and what information they should be observing, collecting and recording. Having a Portable Antiquities Scheme has not made the slightest dent on this problem.

Now, if the PAS was doing its job, it would be on the UKDN forum  like a shot to give an answer to the question posted there.

In answer to "what should I keep [when rummaging in the archaeological record for collectables]?" the only possible answer is, "every piece of archaeological evidence". Anything less is destruction, and if you do not know what is and what is not archaeological evidence, then leave the archaeological record well alone. Surely, in order to instil 'best practice', this is the point they should be making EVERY TIME this question arises in the practice of ten thousand people in fifteen years. Why aren't they?
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