local tv: metal detectorists vs archaeologists lock

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Paul Barford P
Paul Barford May 31, 2007 05:42:09
Replying to Littlestone

Absolutely Littlestone. But surely what is the fundamental issue is this of collecting.

Is it really increasing human, my, your, the public's, knowledge about the past that Joe Boggins (made up name) has in his back bedroom a collection of (among other things) dozens, nay hundreds of brooches taken from a variety of Roman and Anglo Saxon sites within driving distance of his home, and also those he found on rallies in Yorkshires and Suffolk? He may even have a little notebook which records roughly where each one was found. Some may even be recorded with the PAS with six-figure NGRs. But what happens to that collection (and the notebook) when Boggins passes on to the "great detecting fields in the sky"? Nobody has attempted to answer the question where are those nine million objects and the information they once contained? What about the nine million little holes in the archaeology of countless archaeological assemblages all over the country? That information is lost forever. We hear glib assertions (including from Minister Lammy) that all these collections are to the "public good" but it seems to me that all the arguments about this are pretty spurious once you start to look at them more carefully. Especially in the context of the very real problems and very serious damage that worldwide collection of archaeological artefacts is causing to the archaeological resource. Of course that is precisely the context in which the "pro-artefact hunting (detecting)" lobby will NOT want you to invite people to look at it.

Apart from Joe Boggins' back bedroom, Roman brooches and coins metal detected unrecorded in many cases from archaeological sites in Britain can be bought on ebay to be collected by Japanese teens or by Connecticut hillbillies and Ohio rednecks. Fine, nice for them, but this raises the fundamental question whether the keeping of contextless objects as seried collectables scattered between thousands of ephemeral personal collections all over the world a good way to be curating the archaeological record?

N nigelswift
nigelswift May 31, 2007 06:42:03
Replying to Paul Barford

Littlestone, if you listen to Paul you may not get the full impact of just how severe is the loss....

He says that Joe Boggins
"has in his back bedroom a collection of (among other things) dozens, nay hundreds of brooches taken from a variety of Roman and Anglo Saxon sites within driving distance of his home, and also those he found on rallies in Yorkshires and Suffolk?"

Just yesterday, a detectorist wrote
"I have got 120 Roman brooches FROM JUST ONE FIELD"!
It is statistically likely that PAS haven't breen informed and it is practically certain that he will continue to harvest it until it yields no more. I wonder what that field was? Most probably, no-one will now ever know.

Of course (and assuming this IS one of the majority of cases that PAS weren't informed about) there is SOME good coming out of the situation. Either there will be a payback in terms of pride for the detectorist when he opens his Roman brooches draw, OR there will be a sense of pride on the part of 120 Connecticut hillbillies when they open THEIR drawers. I'd hazard a guess that as a conservator you have a tinge of annoyance about such a scenario and the fact that those are the only benefits that can be seen from such a wretched little process. And I think you'll be hard pushed to propose a "middle way" solution....
- a significant British Roman site gone without hope of future discovery and its only memorial a shadow of an outline in some acquisituive b***'s secret box of curios....
And there are a minimum of TEN THOUSAND detectorists in Britain, all of whom are dedicated to researching where they can find the "most productive" sites.

M moss
moss May 31, 2007 08:03:50
Replying to Paul Barford

Paul Barford wrote:
Apart from Joe Boggins' back bedroom, Roman brooches and coins metal detected unrecorded in many cases from archaeological sites in Britain can be bought on ebay to be collected by Japanese teens or by Connecticut hillbillies and Ohio rednecks. Fine, nice for them, but this raises the fundamental question whether the keeping of contextless objects as seried collectables scattered between thousands of ephemeral personal collections all over the world a good way to be curating the archaeological record?
Could'nt agree more, as Littlestone says knowledge is far more important than the price of said artefacts in the market. But of course we are dealing with human nature here, the need to acquire 'treasure' to own it, to sell it. An Indiana Jones mentality, for the archaeologists, the prize is academic recognition, for the metal detectorist its the thrill of the hunt.
So called treasures don't belong to the MDs or the landowner, they belong in the wider community and we have to recognise that history is not in the ownership of any individual but is an ongoing process that must be recorded in all its truth......
the government, in the form of David Lammy, does little to inspire confidence when all it can do is congratulate the hobby in its treasure seeking activities, but there again this is the 21st century we are in the business of selling everything that has any value - Ebay at least teaches us that lesson.