Metal Detecting
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Yeahhhhh to be honest I did wonder if there was any more joined up thinking to it rather than just that Boatman.
Notwithstanding indiscriminate pillaging of the historical record; something I’m sure no one seeks to deny, I nonetheless find the aggressive tone of the anti detectorists to be unhelpful and frankly uncalled for given it’s not as if we are talking about wanton destruction of the scale and mindset that has seen this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/middleeast/syria/11468349/Syria-war-Aleppos-heritage-sites-destroyed.html played out while the world looks the other way.
Mindful the underlying frustration must surely be with inadequate Government funding born of disinterest and no doubt more pressing demands, it strikes me as unfair to so ridicule those given of no more than a childhood retained fascination and craving for “buried treasure”.
K
Mindful the underlying frustration must surely be with inadequate Government funding born of disinterest and no doubt more pressing demands, it strikes me as unfair to so ridicule those given of no more than a childhood retained fascination and craving for “buried treasure”.
K
There is comes again. The minute someone tries to explain just why metal detecting ought to be done with a great deal of discrimination, they are jumped upon as being unreasonable, aggressive, and selfish.
The facts are clear, indiscriminate digging through the layers of the past to only remove the metal work destroys context, destroys sites, destroys the fragile remains of our past, and it does so without records, without any form of detailed information that adds to our knowledge.
We try to be understanding, we try to get the detectorists on board with the wider picture, and some genuinely do, it can be a very useful tool, and keen amateurs can be very skilled.
The reality is though that too many are thoughtless and just don't give a damn.
We bought a metal detecting kit for our sons, then buried 50 coins in the garden and let them loose. I'm still digging up the coins twenty years later
but they found a lot of nails and screws.
The kit ended up up the loft, and hasn't seen the light of day since. I'm going to the coup this week, it's going into the electronic junk container.
If you're going to do it, do it at home, or on a public beach or after a festival or the like. Or, find your local archaeological group, they might not be initially welcoming because they have experienced just what Boatman said; if they know there are sites of interest the unscrupulous are out there with their headlamps and spades; but if doing the work opens up your mind to the potential of the whole recovery of information and knowledge, and your skill proves to be of use, then it's a very good thing.
M
The facts are clear, indiscriminate digging through the layers of the past to only remove the metal work destroys context, destroys sites, destroys the fragile remains of our past, and it does so without records, without any form of detailed information that adds to our knowledge.
We try to be understanding, we try to get the detectorists on board with the wider picture, and some genuinely do, it can be a very useful tool, and keen amateurs can be very skilled.
The reality is though that too many are thoughtless and just don't give a damn.
We bought a metal detecting kit for our sons, then buried 50 coins in the garden and let them loose. I'm still digging up the coins twenty years later
but they found a lot of nails and screws.The kit ended up up the loft, and hasn't seen the light of day since. I'm going to the coup this week, it's going into the electronic junk container.
If you're going to do it, do it at home, or on a public beach or after a festival or the like. Or, find your local archaeological group, they might not be initially welcoming because they have experienced just what Boatman said; if they know there are sites of interest the unscrupulous are out there with their headlamps and spades; but if doing the work opens up your mind to the potential of the whole recovery of information and knowledge, and your skill proves to be of use, then it's a very good thing.
M
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But that childish interest in buried treasure translates into "indiscriminate pillaging of the historical record" and the reason for the anti posts. If you want aggression see the reaction of detectorists to criticism.
I admit to a loathing of metal detectorists. I know they can be incredibly helpful and useful, but I have worked sites where I needed permission from the Govt. before I could even put an origin marker into the ground so that I could grid off for survey and geophys, did preliminary grids and came back the next day to fields pitted with holes
I try to be even handed and calm about it; it's all of our heritage, not just the archaeologists and historians trying to make sense of, interpret and research the past, but the indiscriminate abuse of that heritage, that tells us damn all except a monetary value of robbed out metals, is theft from every one of us and worse, it's theft of our children's history and heritage for ever. We can't restore it, it can't be gotten back. It's trashed, it's obliterated.
Used with care, forethought and recorded, the details could tell us so much more than just yet another mangled AS belt buckle or Roman denarii.
There are good metal detectorists out there, responsible folks who care as much about the context and secure recording as any archaeologist does.
Unfortunately they are swamped by the fundamental orifices just out for a sneaky beaky with a handy spade.
Totally agree. Metal detectors exist, you can't uninvent them, and there have been a huge number of discoveries due to the efforts of sensible, thoughtful detectorists, who take what they do seriously, and report finds, or even better, leave things in situ if they think there is more than just a single coin. I've even know professional archeologists who've started off as detectorists.
However, there are a fair number, som highly experienced, and some just newbies who don't know any better, who destroy sites, who steal whatever then can, who rip often intrisically worthless but academically incrediably valuable finds out of context. They destroy knowledge, and shred the reputation of the good guys.
If detectorists dont want backlash, they need to admit that there are a fair number of arseholes who do detecting, and don't really seem to care further than what they've found, and what they might put it on Ebay for. Personally, I'm all for a proper licence scheme - the good guys would be fine with that. People have the right to go detectoring (and yes, beaches will generally at least pay petrol money), but they have responsibilities as well. And if they are irresponsible, then they need to be made to pay for that big time.
And the bad guys? Yep, they wouldn't bother getting a licence just as is now the case with hand guns in the UK.
I do worry at the propensity for otherwise liberal-minded folk to call for legislative intervention to such challenges.
K
I do worry at the propensity for otherwise liberal-minded folk to call for legislative intervention to such challenges.
K
Live in my country where nothing is old.
Maybe the ashes of fur trading posts from no more than 3 centuries ago.
Prior to that, you're to the upper edge of your lower lip in the Stone Age.
It has been so for probably 30,000 years.
Even before shovels, Man has been a grave robber.
Maybe the ashes of fur trading posts from no more than 3 centuries ago.
Prior to that, you're to the upper edge of your lower lip in the Stone Age.
It has been so for probably 30,000 years.
Even before shovels, Man has been a grave robber.
Don't forget to rescue those wee 9v batteries. The less than professional grade unit purchased for my Daughter takes 5 which cost half that of the detector!!
K
As a retired, but still active, archaeological surveyor, I am unhappy regarding the use of unsupervised metal detecting. I was involved in the aftermath of a hoard of Roman gold being found in Scotland. The detectorists sold the hoard without declaring it and only because a local historian got to hear of it was the hoard recovered. I later surveyed the area where it was found, together with some detectorists who were closely watched and their finds surveyed in, which is how it should be. The real value of metal detectors is checking through the spoil, that has been excavated, for any missed metal.
Fair comment but as I recall the Staffordshire hoard was found by a detectorist, im sure there are unscrupulous people but that applies to all jobs or hobbyists during the 1st illegal gulf war nato forces plundered historical artifacts which some ended up in the vaults of the british museum, and CIA/MI6/NATO funded isis,isil,is,Daesh are destroying historic sites all over the middle east all without a detector in site
Doesn't excuse our carelessness with our rheritage though.
There's another point. It's our climate, again.
We have very, very little organic preservation in this country. Everything rots in our temperate climate. We don't get preservation in ice (like Oetzi or the Greenland finds) and we don't get preservation by dessication such as the sites in the Middle East.
We have finds in very specific situations; anaerobic wetlands or wet soils, some bone in shell middens, where the chemical background supports the minerals in the bones instead of leaching them out, and very, very, rarely in dry-ish, mineral rich, caves.
That's it.
Otherwise our organic archaeological record is incredibly poor, however, very occasionally we get fragments of textiles preserved where they have lain against copper rich metalwork, such as brooches or belt buckles….you know ? the pieces the metal detectorists rip out of the ground
Bogs preserve stuff like butter, and in effect tan skin (the bog bodies) but the bones are leached out and reduced to collagen which, like jelly, slowly disperses, (that's why the bodies all look so crumpled; their bones have gone to mush), and woollen fabric. Linen doesn't survive well in bogs, it simply rots. Linen survives dry though, which we don't get, or against the copper rich metals, bronze, brass, etc.,
It all just reinforces the need for care, for being aware of, and recording stratigraphy.
If you're looking for Roman, and you hit Medieval, tough. You have to work your way through the Medieval and record it properly as you go, before you can get to the period you're actually looking for.
Doesn't work that way for metal detectorists, does it ?
M
There's another point. It's our climate, again.
We have very, very little organic preservation in this country. Everything rots in our temperate climate. We don't get preservation in ice (like Oetzi or the Greenland finds) and we don't get preservation by dessication such as the sites in the Middle East.
We have finds in very specific situations; anaerobic wetlands or wet soils, some bone in shell middens, where the chemical background supports the minerals in the bones instead of leaching them out, and very, very, rarely in dry-ish, mineral rich, caves.
That's it.
Otherwise our organic archaeological record is incredibly poor, however, very occasionally we get fragments of textiles preserved where they have lain against copper rich metalwork, such as brooches or belt buckles….you know ? the pieces the metal detectorists rip out of the ground
Bogs preserve stuff like butter, and in effect tan skin (the bog bodies) but the bones are leached out and reduced to collagen which, like jelly, slowly disperses, (that's why the bodies all look so crumpled; their bones have gone to mush), and woollen fabric. Linen doesn't survive well in bogs, it simply rots. Linen survives dry though, which we don't get, or against the copper rich metals, bronze, brass, etc.,
It all just reinforces the need for care, for being aware of, and recording stratigraphy.
If you're looking for Roman, and you hit Medieval, tough. You have to work your way through the Medieval and record it properly as you go, before you can get to the period you're actually looking for.
Doesn't work that way for metal detectorists, does it ?
M
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