Thursday 8 August 2013

Veracity/Accuracy of PAS Findspot Data


There's an interesting discussion ongoing at the moment on the HERFORUM at Jisc about including PAS records into HER records. Some HER officers have questioned the veracity/accuracy of PAS findspot co-ordinates. Dan Pett defends his organization:
I'm sorry to hear this is your view. The Scheme's staff, managers, volunteers and finders have worked very hard since 2003 to improve the veracity of the find spots that we record.
Now how can they do that if its the finder who is supplying false data? But then I think PAS see the term "veracity" of information from artefact hunters and collectors a slightly different way: "Out of over 1/2 million records, only 48,264 now do not have any coordinates attached" (by the way, is that not about ten percent of them?) What measures does the PAS have in train to determine whether the finder is supplying the actual findspot of an item, and not one that is merely convenient? How many times have they caught an artefact hunter for example trying to present an object as having been found where it actually was not? One of my own first contacts with metal detectorists (more than forty years ago) involved a situation precisely of that nature which involved me in a lot of unnecessary fieldwork before the truth dawned on me that he was lying. But he's dead now and it will never be known now how many other finds which he brought to the Museum had been given false provenances.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Depends which way you present the figures, PAScentric or realistic.....

In the time since PAS started only 9.5% of recordable artefacts dug up have been given any find spot details whatsoever which makes discussion of the accuracy of the remainder a tad like how many angels can etc etc....

Sometimes I just want to throw up! ;)

kyri said...

if a famous rare coin can be stolen from a museum and the local flo gives it the green light[only a tip off from another detector stoped the coin being sold on] than anything can be legitimized using their system.its fundamentaly flawed because they rely on the finder for all the info.
kyri.

 
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