Diggin' in Virginia

In the past couple of decades, US archaeologists have developed a methodology of examining extensive topsoil sites such as battlefields and military encampments in a manner that helps reconstruct the flow of a historic fight, give insight into military strategy or, at a campsite, illuminate the living conditions of the soldiers there in a way that documentary evidence alone cannot. This approach was pioneered in the US. The work done at the site of Battle of Little Bighorn, Custer's Last Stand (1876), in Montana for example is a classic of this methodological approach in which metal detector users were involved. It also shows how easily the evidence held in the top few inches of topsoil can be destroyed if part of it is taken away by artefact hunters and collectors.

From Virginia, Brigid Schulte reports ('Unearthed War Relics See Battle Again Archaeologists Decry History Buffs' Digs ', Washington Post April 16, 2006) on a three-day commercial "safari" relic hunt called Diggin' in Virginia one weekend this spring, which was anything but the careful systematic work needed to investigate such a site. More than 200 relic hunters (interestingly dressed mainly in camouflage as in the UK) swept the fields of Brandy Rock Farm in Culpeper County with their metal detectors. To take part they'd paid a couple of hundred dollars each.
Obviousl some thought it was worth it. One metal detectorist is stated to have found a Confederate ‘Mississippi belt plate” apparently worth $12000, while others are quoted as getting excited about finding a Minié shot as “about as close as you can get to stepping back in time."

The site of this metal detecting rally – a form of exploitation of the archaeological resource which she reports is becoming increasingly popular in parts of the USA - was an 1863 Civil War campsite. While the “dig” was perfectly legal, the site was stripped of a large amount of any evidence of past activity it may have contained. Since no recording of findspots seems to have taken place here and all the finds have anyway been scattered into 200 personal collections and on eBay, that is now one more site of this period that can no longer be studied by more sophisticated investigation techniques to understand the past.

The same weekend as Diggin' in Virginia, 200 relic hunters roamed Fort Powhatan on the James River during the Texas-based North South Hunt, jockeying to see who could mine the most Revolutionary and Civil War goodies. (The same group holds the Grand National Relic Shootout and the Git R Dun hunts in Virginia.)

Again, it appears no recording of findspots was done and information was lost and the site irreparably damaged by the selective and unrecorded removal of part of the evidence.

US archaeologists are not slow to point out that such metal detecting rallies represent the wholesale destruction of evidence of the past. Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the state's Department of Historic Resources says: "These digs are like ripping the pages out of a book as you read and setting them on fire […]"It's an outrage."

The metal detectorists counter such concerns with the same time-worn old excuses that we see in the UK . The relic hunters deny any connection with “the bad guys -- the ones who use night-vision goggles and sneak into protected sites at night to dig things up, or the ones who sell what they find on eBay”. “Metal detectorists” “have such a passion for the past”, “they write books on what they find” (references please). Some "pinpoint what they dug up”. Others have "donated hundreds of hours to help archaeologists”. “many of the places they dig have been ploughed for 140 years and that artifacts have been scattered, there is no context" (not true- see above). "This stuff's just rotting in the ground," “If these sites are so important, why haven't archaeologists staked their claim?” (heard of conservation guys?). We’ve heard it all before, it cuts no mustard when the overall effect is erosive and destructive.

Members of the Council of Virginia Archaeologists have begun protesting to state legislators and other officials and are enlisting the aid of local historic preservation groups. They've also contacted landowners to get them to stop the digs. Last year in the state's General Assembly, lawmakers considered a measure that would have required relic hunters to get written permission from landowners before digging, and to catalogue and report what they found. The bill also would have established that relics belonged to the state, not any individual. It was resoundingly crushed in committee. Del. Kenneth R. Plum (D-Fairfax) said he got hundreds of angry e-mails and letters for sponsoring the bill. "I was not prepared for what happened to me," he said. "The floodgates opened."

Oh, we can imagine. On a safari you are told never to get between a hippopotamus and water, it will attack you. Equally anyone suggesting that like some other finite resources artefacts in archaeological context should be under some form of state protection is asking for trouble from US collectors. Still, I do not expect Democratic delegates do much hanging around on US collectors’ forums and listen to the anti-establishment “cold dead hands’ pose-striking there.

What is more interesting is the anger that seems to have been directed at a proposal that it is reported “would have required relic hunters to get written permission from landowners before digging”, what on earth is so devastating about that? What actually is wrong in obliging those who dig up an historical site and take away artifacts from it to “catalogue and report what they found”?

We have all been witness to the constant barrage of calls from the artefact collecting community, and the US artefact collecting community in particular, for all those “source nations” (with their “restrictive laws” which stand between them and the ancient geegaws they want to decorate their collections with) to adopt “the British system”. By this they mean hefty rewards for reporting state-acquired finds, archaeologists working as “partners” of the artefact hunters to record as much as possible of the findspot information, but teh artefact hunter talking away (for example to sell to US collectors) as much as they want. So why is it so difficult for them to apply a system based on similar principles in their own country? Why are US relic hunters against the recording of finds? Why have US detectorists not even set up something like the UKDFD, let alone lobbied strenuously for the US government to set aside the funds required to set up an archaeological outreach programme like the PAS which would record finds made by members of the public in the course of their everyday and recreational activities? It seems to me that before calling for other nations to change their whole system of heritage management to suit the US collector, US advocates of collectors' "rights" should be applying it consistently to their own land. Before they can convert foreign governments, civil society and artefact hunters to the British system, let them convince their own. So what about it ACCG, when do you start?

Photo: "History Buff" looking for pieces of the past to take home. Photo Lucian Perkins.