American Digger "Invites"

Among the "Responses to Pissed (sic) in Poland…" we find the following contribution ( July 17, 2013 at 3:17 pm) from American Digger Magazine. It is unsigned, but I am willing to bet that this is Butch Holcombe writing.

While we tend to agree that “Wally” is blinded by prejudice and old school thinking that hurts all interested in learning about the past via artifacts, we will try to keep an open mind. Perhaps he would like to come on the Relic Roundup show and defend his position? Consider this an invitation.

A few comments follow:

1) Hmm. A bit short on manners in Georgia. Generally when you address an invitation to somebody, you use their real name, and not refer to them as "[Warsaw] Wally". An invitation would also be written in the second rather than third person and would be signed. So, no I do not consider that an "invitation".

2) Note from the beginning the negative attitude embodied in my being called to the blackboard to "defend my position", implying the detectorist listeners (mostly the same people appearing on the Stout blog it seems) are going to have their "fun" at my expense trying to dislodge me from my "position" where I am placed as the passive victim of whatever they want to throw at me live on air (at three o'clock in the morning, to boot). Other contributors to previous episodes of the show have had more positive and interactive tasks, discussing how archaeologists and collectors can work together for common benefit, for example. Instead of being asked in a concrete manner for my thoughts on ways forward, I am being immediately placed in a position of defending a static and undefined "position". I really do not see any sense in such a discussion.

3) It may be comfortable for tekkies and artefact collectors in general to consider that the only reason what they are doing to the archaeological record is challenged is because of "prejudice". In my case, I'll point out that I set out the reasons why I consider the benign image that collectors like to project about what they do, an untenable vision. These are conclusions I have come to from observing artefact hunting in two countries at first hand from several points of view since the mid/late 1970s. Whatever Mr Holcombe (or whoever) would like to think, what I present here results from an assessment made after looking into a topic (for just under forty years in fact) rather than a pre-judged opinion. Among the sources for this assessment has been discussions directly with artefact hunters and collectors (for the past 13 years at least, though I was visiting metal detecting clubs in the UK in the late seventies and talking with detectorists in Poland in the '90s).

4) I really see nothing "old school" in desiring to preserve the archaeological resource from plunder merely for collectables for entertainment and profit, or failing that, enforcing (real) best practice leading to sustainable management of that resource. It seems quite a fundamental issue in modern archaeology.

5) As to conserving the archaeological record "hurt[ing] all interested in learning about the past via artifacts", I really do not accept that. There are many ways to learn about the past, not all of them through artefacts alone. As far as I am concerned, the main way we should be learning about the past is by using whole of the multifaceted information contained in the archaeological record (of which the contained artefacts are a single component). Even if, for the sake of the argument, we ignore that and say the way to the past is through artefacts alone, is the ONLY way to use them through personal collections? I would say not.  In fact is not the reference only to personal collection as a route to understanding the past in itself incredibly "Old School"? ("Petrarch" and all that.)

In any case, the archaeological heritage is not the private property of a single individual with a spade to destroy for his own personal pleasure or profit.  So what that Bazza Spademan learns something about the past by digging up a coin of Nero ? The rest of us know about Nero, there are books written about Nero and his times, why cannot Bazza Spademan learn about Nero and his times from reading a book, and not selectively and unreflexively hoiking out pieces of the archaeological record from first century AD archaeological sites?  Bazza may be having fun, but what does that leave for the rest of us and future generations?

5) Note the attitude of entitlement exhibited by this minority group of exploitive hobbyists. They consider it is I who have to deffend the conservationist position, rather than they who have to provide some better arguments justifying what they are doing.

6)  In any case, are they really expecting me to get up at three in the morning over here to talk to a bunch of metal detectorists phoning in daft questions from half way round the world?

I really feel no need to "defend" my position on this or anything else, on Holcombe's "Relic Roundup". Neither is it at all clear what I would be defending it from (Lisa McIntyre and her vision of Shangri-La?). I have access to forums, I have several blogs. Anyone who wants to learn my "position" can do so, anyone who does not can keep away. Anyone who wants to try to question my position generally does (usually though, it has to be said, by methods of the schoolyard than reasoned debate - there is no reason to think "Relic Roundup" would be any different). Artefact collectors and their archaeologist "partners" are welcome to use the comments section of my blog to add their own thoughts. Mr Holcombe however has failed to show up so far.

It is up to the reader to decide whether I am capable of defending my views on the topics I write about, or whether (as I attempt to show) there is a case for the collectors to answer. That's what this blog is about, presenting the other side of the story from the glib comforting claptrap spread about by no-questions-asking collectors and dealers, and their "partners" the archaeologists of the PAS-fold.  But also, I do not want anyone to take my word for it, I encourage anyone and everyone to register with a few detecting and collecting forums (Yahoo-ancient artefacts, Moneta-L for example) just to see for themselves what goes on there behind the façade.