"the whole fence excavation had a top archaeo on site for the whole time. the coin slipping through has probably arisen during backfilling when the archaeo I think doesn't have to check it."

I'm a mere bumpkin who doesn't understand the niceties of the required procedure. However, you'll appreciate that as a member of the public who reacts to the result not the process, I'm a bit surprised to find something that ought to be in a museum sitting on the surface days after an excavation at a place as spectacularly important as this. As a bumpkin, I have to wonder how it slipped through metal detecting or seiving or whatever, not to mention a final visual check. You may tell me one or more of those aren't considered requisite, but I still remain a bemused bumpkin, with a museum-worthy coin.

I'm sorry to labour the point. I've always been careful to attack decisions and strategy, not individual staff or individual mistakes. But it's the context that sensitises me. Everything that gets done at this hill, for years, seems to be substandard or badly thought out or wrong. Perhaps they think we're vindictive troublemakers. Perhaps they're wrong. One side or the other is, for sure.