In the light of the frequent designation of artefact hunters as "wannabe archaeologists" (sic) it is quite instructive to see how some metal detectorists see archaeologists. For example
"Top Commenter" Joe Woods is apparently addressing me, writing (January 16 at 9:51pm):
You
are a total jerkoff. If no one pays you to excavate you just sit in your
hole in the wall and bitch while others (metal detectors) are finding
history before its lost to time and degradation.
Hooray for artefact hunters, eh? Heritage heroes 100%. Oddly enough, not all archaeologists are "paid to dig" - some get paid to teach, others to keep records, some to analyse material from other people's projects, others work in heritage administration. Artefact hunters are not so much "finding history" by their unregulated and unmethodological hoiking, they are obliterating it. As David Knell points out in reply to him, "
Objects that have already survived hundreds of years are unlikely to be
"lost to time and degradation" any time soon. That's just a rather
feeble excuse to grab them". Hear hear. Meanwhile one
Stephen William Sylvia opines (
January 17 at 8:25pm):
If
I had to guess I'd say Mr. Barford is probably an archaeologist, a
field of endeavor inspired by English "adventurers" robbing Egyptian
tombs of countless millions in precious artifacts. The ad should have
shown Indiana Jones ripping off the bling.
Mr Sylvia, who urges
knowing US history, guessed the "endeavor". He's not so good on the history of the origins of the discipline though, or the nationality of the first egyptophiles.
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10 comments:
Answer to one of them ...
No, Joe Woods. Metal detectorists are not "finding history"; they are finding objects. History can be based on a scientific study of the context. In most cases metal detectorists destroy that context when they dig out the objects.
Objects that have already survived hundreds of years are unlikely to be "lost to time and degradation" any time soon. That's just a rather feeble excuse to grab them.
I think the ad is funny and the part showing the thieving metal detectorist is just 4 seconds of the commercial. It is a parody but then let us not forget that this is in America and Americans just don't get parody or irony do they?. I can't believe they get so upset over it, especially since it is obviously meant to be humorous.
I think the problem is that unlike most US tv, there is no canned laughter to tell metal detectorists when to laugh. So they don't.
Good point. Americans need to be told when and what to emote as part of their greater national social conscience. That's why they clap when a plane lands, because it has been inbuilt into them that this is what you do, and not "is it really appropriate to do this?"
No David, wrong wrong wrong.
If a detectorist digs an object and then puts it into a draw and the nothing else happens to it then that is history now lost.
Where as we responsible detectorists which the vast majority of us are will enter a report for pas and take said objects to the flo to have them identified and logged. The exact areas they were found are logged, other objects from the same area are also logged. Now we have documented information of many objects from one area and can now speculate as to what was happening in that area back then.
How is that history lost forever? I really dont understand. As surely now there is an archaeological record for that area where as before the detectorist found the objects there was nothing, just a ploughed field or a grid reference.
Or have I got it completely wrong?
I look forward to your response david
What, do you think, is the purpose of "logging"? What "other objects from the same area are also logged" and why?
Is the PAS set up as an end in itself, or is it set up to try and make what we can of a BAD SITUATION?
So what if we have a findspot "logged" for the Crosby Garrett helmet? What does that - in itself - tell us about the archaeology of that site? How much MORE would we have known about that site if the helmet had not been hoiked in a half-metre deep hole dug into the archaeology?
What about the "Petham Balsamarium?" http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2014/01/what-state-to-be-in-petham-balsarium.html
Responsible detecting, maybe, but what do we know about the context of deposition?
And so the misunderstanding goes on.
Metal detectorists are not "finding history"; they are finding objects.
Artefact hunting, whether or not you "log" a few of the bits and bobs you hoik, destroys history.
Are you REALLY saying Mr Baines, that if we set up a Portable Antiquities Scheme in Syria that the digging of artefacts out of the sites there would not matter?
I really don't understand your link to syria Paul. If the sites there are scheduled and not supposed to be dug on then its illegal anyway so how would a pas system stop illegal looting. If its not illegal then yes surely a pas system will be better than objects being looted and not recorded at all.
I would also like too note that if items deemed very historicaly important I would have no hesitation in informing and getting in professional archaeologists to continue the digging. I want to find history not destroy it.
Oh for goodness sake, focus, focus Mr Baines. We were discussing "artefact hunting as a means of "finding history" - not "stopping illegal digging". Two entirely different topics. You seem to think you can shift the argument from the one to the other and nobody will notice?
The archaeologists came in to look at the hole in the Crosby Garrett find, what has that given us?
What about those jerks who called in the archaeologists after they'd dug all around that lead coffin? What archaeological context do we have for that find (on a known Roman sites)?
Digging down 'blind' with a metal detector and a spade is too coarse a technique to "find history", it prevents recording of context.
No Paul it was you who shifted it. The discussion was about artefacts that had been in the ground years and david said they would come to no further damage staying there. You then shifted it to the pas system and syrian looting pits. Slow down with your post replies and read what you write instead of going off on a tangent
Oh for goodness' sake !!
Mr Baines you were bellyaching over on Steve Broom's blog about you being irritated by detectorists all being labelled "thick/stupid and thugwits ect..." Yet here you yourself give a perfect example of EXACTLY what I am talking about. There really is no point attempting to discuss somebody who gives the impression that they have not the faintest idea what day of the week it is, or whether they are coming or going.
IF YOU"D CHECKED, you'd have seen that what you in fact wrote in reply to David Knell above was [quote]:
"If a detectorist digs an object [up] and then puts it into a draw[er] and the[n] nothing else happens to it then that is history now lost. Where as [sic] we responsible detectorists[,] which the vast majority of us are[,] will enter a report for pas and take said objects to the flo to have them identified and logged [sic]. The exact areas they were found are logged, other objects from the same area are also logged. Now we have documented information of many objects from one area and can now speculate as to what was happening in that area back then. How is that history lost forever?"
YOU were writing about "finding history", I answered that, now you say you were writing about stopping illegal metal detecting.
Well, basically this is not what I would consider an intelligent conversation. It does not take a university degree to see the need to keep on topic and not wander off onto a random series of tangents like someone demented.
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