Nigel, the following is only my opinion & is not aimed directly at you my friend...personally i dont think the vast majority of Archaeologists are not knowledgable enough to be FLO's as iv had 3 now & each 1 has refused to even investigate some pieces which were obvious to people diligent in this field...& 1 didnt even know Romans used Lead curse tablets until i put him straight, now does that warrant a trust in your FLO?...unless its a statue resembling a God or something obvious to all like a Roman Gold coin, in my opinion they just dont want to know...FLO's are employed with a £19k salary to investigate finds found by the general public...not just dismiss them as rubbish because they havent seen a similar before & dont know how to investigate it through lack of knowledge & hands on experience which is exactly what happened to me over a Dozen times & more which i found ignorant & took offence to seeing as i was paying his wages & getting nowhere.
Im not saying & never have stated that i know for fact the Slate piece is & was made by man, what i have tried to obtain is a plausable answer to my request for reasons why it has identicle notch & all other resembling factors as the flint pieces if it isn't? Archaeologists are all too quick to state "Natural" & "Oh no it isn't" because of the simple fact their lecturer didn't know either...& his predecessors' only facts were solely "Guesses" which we assume as facts today...but they will all say on the telly & at colleges "There is so much we dont know...so much undiscovered still buried beneath" yet when something unseen before that immediately stands out to them is bought in by Mr J.Public its "Natural"..."oh no" & "Never seen a similar so i dont think" ....its arrogant, ignorant & insulting...especially when its them you're doing the favour for by bringing it in in the First place............but if they started to find something that is duplicated many times over in every factor, they would make a guess for its purpose...make a guess at naming it...then we all know it would be a great discovery ...would make headlines & finally be known for fact it was the latter...all detectorists will tell you the same...& Archaeologists wonder why they are not liked by very many people....personal opinion only.