.
This 2010 document has just gone up: "The Future of the Hobby by The UKDN Team". Mike Heyworth, of the CBA, Sally Foster from Historic Scotland and Michael Lewis from the Portable Antiquities Scheme attempt to answer the following question about "metal detecting in the UK":
This 2010 document has just gone up: "The Future of the Hobby by The UKDN Team". Mike Heyworth, of the CBA, Sally Foster from Historic Scotland and Michael Lewis from the Portable Antiquities Scheme attempt to answer the following question about "metal detecting in the UK":
As we enter a new decade what does your organisation see as the challenges facing the hobby, where do you see positive bridges being built, and where can metal detectorist and other involved parties assist in this process of cooperation and modernisation?Sadly nobody really looked at the challenges of making hoiking collectables out of sites match any sensible notion of conservation. Lewis in his text (actually just a paper from the March 2010 Newcastle conference Outreach or enforcement: lessons learnt through the Portable Antiquities Scheme [Text of presentation]) attempted to brush aside the issue though.
If metal-detecting had been banned or restricted before it became popular (it was licensed until 1980), then we would be in the same position as most European countries. That is to say, most archaeological objects would perpetually remain in the soil - ‘preserved in situ’, never to be excavated - many subject to agricultural damage, or looted.Needless to say this is an object-centred view. Is not the main feature preventing the existence of much more restrictive use of metal detectors on ancient sites the existence of the PAS?
1 comment:
If the activity was regulated.... "most archaeological objects would perpetually remain in the soil - ‘preserved in situ’, never to be excavated - many subject to agricultural damage, or looted."
That sentence could have been spoken by an artefact hunter could it not? It illustrates how PAS has moved from being a statutory coping mechanism to a metal detecting champion.
Since when is preservation in situ in Europe a bad thing? Since when is "better out than in" is a valid archaeological stance? Since when is agricultural damage in some places a reason for extracting artefacts from everywhere at random for fun or profit? Since when will regulation laws not be enforced and will mean mass looting by PAS's currently "responsible" partners?
It's all pub talk IMO, much quoted by artefact hunters - but why should PAS talk that way about the public's assets? The bottom line is that preservation in situ and regulation of artefact hunting exists abroad and is supported by most archaeologists abroad and has a less damaging effect than British laissez faire. PAS is not making logical or evidence-based or archaeological arguments - it daren't - it is mouthing detectorese.
Post a Comment