Tompa: 'Huge Numbers of Finds Reported to PAS by Professional Archaeologists'?

Artefact hunters in Britain and beyond have been pointing to the "number of finds recorded" by the Portable Antiquities Scheme as a proof of how responsible the country's eight plus thousand artefact hunters are. They are implying that all of these finds are reaching the PAS from metal detectorists, and that certainly is the impression that the rest of us have been getting. "Cultural Property Observer" Peter Tompa has been keeping a close eye on the PAS and raises a point which needs to be addressed. He asserts (in a comment to my request for information on the average size of that excavation archives) that archaeologists are  supposed to report their finds "under either the Treasure Act or the PAS". On his own blog he develops that point "the guidance to archaeologists seems clear on that point". He postulates that British professional archaeologists should "report finds that don't meet the definition of treasure- only if they do so will the PAS database created with the help of the public be complete as possible", and suggests that there be a survey conducted into whether "whether English and Welsh archaeologists report under the Treasure Act and the PAS and if not, why not?" and criticises me for my comments on what he said. His post has received the support of several collectors and metal detectorists  here, here and here.  They seem to accept that what their US lawyer friend says about British archaeological policies must be true, "The fact that Mr. Barford had to delete his earlier comments speaks volumes.." guffaws one. (I deleted a comment from my own blog because it was unnecessarily rude, we cannot allow the discussion here to drop to metal detectorists' levels, can we?)

It seems to me that a point is being missed in this rather one-sided discussion. An average archaeological project, even a small one, will produce several hundred 'small finds'  and other artefacts, and a large one tens and hundreds of thousands. I am not privy to how many find-producing projects took place in England in Wales in 2013. It would probably be several hundred at least, each of which produces several hundred finds which according to Peter Tompa and his metal detecting pals will have been reported to the PAS to bulk it out and make the "PAS database created with the help of the public [as] complete as possible". In 2013 55176 records on 80876 objects were added to the PAS database (so that's about 40 000 less than the number of objects in an iron objects report I wrote for Canterbury Archaeological Trust from a single site a while back). If Mr Tompa is right, then the PAS database is being swamped by finds reported from their projects by professional archaeologists (as is the case in the Treasure Trove process of Scotland) which would mean that concomitant numbers of finds can be deleted from the total of those submitted by eight-thousand plus artefact hunters with metal detectors. That would give nothing for the metal detectorists to guffaw about.

Of course in reality there is nothing to explain away, the PAS is not financed to record finds coming from professional archaeological projects. There are other venues, other media for that. The PAS is for the objects found by people not having access to those venues, members of the public who are not professional archaeologists. The PAS (used to?) call themselves a "community archaeology" project. Peter Tompa has (again) seriously misunderstood the function and background to the PAS and is misleading his readership. 

But then, what's this doing in the 2013 statistics?

Controlled archaeological investigation	37	33
Controlled archaeological investigation (stratified)	156	105
Controlled archaeological investigation (topsoil stripping)	2	2
Controlled archaeological investigation (unstratified)	381	347

Is this in some way the result of metal detectorists collaborating with archaeologists on sites? In which case, why are these finds here? Have the finders kept them rather than handing them in to the project director? What is the explanation of 156 objects found in stratified contexts on a controlled archaeological excavation in 2013 turning up in the PAS database? Do the archaeologists conducting the project and the landowner know? Where are these objects now? (The ones I looked at were all "returned to finder", was that the archaeologist, or an artefact hunter working within an archaeological project?). More clarity would be desirable here, just what is the PAS and its "partners" engaged in here?