Rallying around the artefact hunters

British archaeologists have long refused to pay attention to the dissonance between the politically-correct pro-collecting policies they have adopted and what happens on the commercial artefact hunting rallies which current cultural "management" (I use the term loosely) policies encourage UK farmers to organize. These are a different thing altogether from the lone “metal detectorist” sweeping the fields around his home (and, it is argued by the pro-collecting lobby, learning about the history of his area) which is the usual subject of the pro-collecting fluffy bunny propaganda.


In a commercial artefact hunting rally, hundreds of metal detecting artefact hunters descend on a site or sites known to be likely of archaeological interest and in an uncontrolled fashion strip the whole are within the boundaries of the rally site of any artefacts that might be there. The landowner instead of protecting the historical resources of his land makes a tidy packet selling part of them off to the paying collector. Some of the latter come hundreds of kilometres to be there, they stay two or three days at the most and then go home. There is no question of them researching the history of the site exploited – they are mainly interested in getting together with like-minded individuals and collaboratively grabbing a bit of the loot of the land, the artefacts to add to their growing personal collections or sell on an internet auction site. If there have been arrangements made for voluntary recording, then some participants may show some of what they have found to be recorded before they all disappear into scattered ephemeral collections all over the country.

British archaeologists have only now decided to create a “Guidance Note on metal detecting rallies” for their "partners" the artefact hunter who goes on such commercial rallies. This apparently makes recommendations “designed to limit the impact on the archaeological record” (recommending not holding the commercial artefact hunting rally would do that guys !). We are told that this note “supplements the Code of Practice for Responsible Metal-detecting in England and Wales” well, of course since they are so self-evidently damaging, one would have thought that real joined-up thinking about artefact hunting would have put them at the forefront of such a Code, wouldn’t it?

But there's more: “The Council for British Archaeology is encouraging Natural England to send this Guidance Note to all landowners entering into Environmental Stewardship (ES) agreements, in order to promote good practice when rallies take place” - on Environmental Stewardship land? Good practice or not, what kind of stewardship of the historical environment is that providing? Surely the Council for British Archaeology should be encouraging English Nature not to allow commercial artefact hunting grabfests on countryside conservation scheme land?

It gets worse. We are told that ”The guidance makes 16 recommendations, including a notice period of at least 12 weeks for the local Historic Environment Record (HER) and Finds Liaison Officer (FLO) so that any known archaeological sites can be identified and proper preparations made for the recording of finds.” Known archaeological sites eh? What happened to the little propaganda piece that the reason "we" accept artefact hunting and collecting is because the searching of these "unsung heroes of the UK's heritage" (sic) leads to the discovery of new sites?

The document itself says: “Landholders and rally organisers should also be aware that there can be considerable cost implications for both PAS and Local Authority staff in ensuring an adequate archaeological response to a rally.” I am sure they are very grateful to them for using public money to send professional archaeologists out at weekends and on public holidays (when these events are usually organized) to do the job so the landowner can pocket the proceeds and we do not all lose so much information as we would if they were not there at all. I’d say however the “guidance note” is missing a sentence or two here. Why should everybody bear the costs of this and not the organizers who profit (handsomly)?

What is totally lacking here is any guidance for individual archaeologists participating in commercial artefact hunting rallies what they are and are not supposed to be doing there and how they can avoid infringing archaeology’s own codes of ethics by doing so. Participation in such an event and treating it as an archaeological project involves the archaeologist who subscribes to the IfA Code of Conduct, as well as the EAA ones insisting certain conditions are met. If they are not, then the archaeologist subscribing to such codes has no business to be there. It will come as no surprise to learn that neither organization is listed as being asked their opinion.