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Another thought-provoking post by Heritage Action "Outreach: the term turns" for all those fans of an archaeology-collector "partnership" to ignore. But why should they feel that they do not really owe everyone an answer to this? What KIND of outreach is British archaeology doing these days, to whom and to what aim?
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Thanks Paul.
Your question is pretty important:
“But why should they feel that they do not really owe everyone an answer to this?”
All I can tell you is that far from answering any questions we raise, apart from a couple of oblique sideswipes at our erosion counter in the comments section of your blog I don’t think Dr Bland acknowledges our existence at all – not in our hearing anyway.
It’s a shame, as although we are inconsequential numerically we’re significant in one respect – we’re the only members of the main heritage stakeholder (the public) that takes an interest in all of this. I guess it’s the way we tell it.
Not that I crave his attention. But I DO think, as you say, they really owe everyone an answer to the questions that we raise. I’m afraid they fall down on that obligation in two ways not one because apart from their very obvious duty to inform the public about PAS’s policies I also think the outreach budget is not deployed in the way that the situation demands:
It is easy to fall into the assumption that artefact hunters ought to be the main outreachees but actually that’s a fallacy – it is landowners that have absolute control of the activity, not metal detectorists, and it is therefore they that ought to be receiving the bulk of PAS’s visits, talks, attention and advice (in particular to "ask the local archaeology service if they approve of detecting on the land") - and yes, warnings about what is appropriate and what isn't. At least, they ought to if the main purpose of PAS outreach was to reduce the damage arising from metal detecting (which I seem to recall it was at the start!)- but not if the main aim is to boost the database, and hence the immortality of PAS itself.
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