UK detectorist Andy went out this morning looking for a farmer who'd le him hunt for artefacts on their land. He did not have much luck:The second and third farms I dropped in on were straight no's and the muttering of people going on their land without permission before. Permission searching really opens your eyes to how huge a problem night hawking really is, it seems nearly every farmer has a story too tell.But when Oxford Archaeology were doing their Nighthawking Survey they could not come across any of these stories (I guess they did not go knocking on doors and asking) and they concluded there was not much nighthawking going on. So what is the truth of the matter?
UPDATE 16th Feb 07:23
For those ever-clueless tekkies who cannot be bothered to find out themselves something they do not know and want everything given to them on a plate: HELM Library: Nighthawking-survey; This blog has a search engine too: search?q= Oxford+Archaeology+Nighthawking. Instant answers for the intellectually lazy. I have a theory that this is why certain people use metal detectors to try and understand the past rather than read a book. Articulating facts obtained from different sources, and finding out things is apparently a huge challenge for some of them.
UPDATE 16th Feb19:20
For the benefit of intellectually lazy people lacking in initiative who cannot be bothered to follow the links given above... If they'd followed the links, they'd find I am very sceptical about the results and interpretations of the Oxford Archaeology Nighthawking survey. I discussed them at some length (giving my reasons) when the report came out. The report had concluded that nighthawking was no less of a problem than it had been, and almost dismissed it as a threat to the archaeological record. I argue why this is extremely doubtful, the survey was based on incomplete data (and that was largely because the NCMD and detectorists in general refused to co-operate with OA). It needs doing again. Vacant people who conclude from this that "[Paul Barford says] night hawks do not exist, apparently" should consider becoming a lollipop man, or anything else less taxing than trying to articulate an opinion.
Vignette: Lollipop man says "STOP".
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6 comments:
Im not sure of what your getting at here Paul. I must have knocked on the doors of more than 40 farms over the last few years and must have been told by a good half of them that they do not allow it due to having people sneaking on there land before and leaving holes or due to letting some one on with permission and then everyone else sees that and thinks it ok for them to just trespass. Im not sure of the study you talk about but I have experience of knocking on doors
Oxford? Study? Nighthawk? Bleep, bleep shhhhhh !! Ask your FLO.
Nope your still making no sense. Im not sure if you are trying to call me a liar? Why would I lie about being refused permission.
Ah well that's interesting I live in the county with the highest reported numbers of night hawking. Maybe explains why probably just under half have refused me because of it
No he's not calling you a liar, far from it, he's saying your survey says 50% of farms have been nighthawked whereas the Nighthawking Survey (Google it) were given little evidence for it and all your colleagues, to a man, say nighthawks are a tiny, tiny minority.
If they're a tiny minority they're very busy to have raided half the farms in the country.
Look at this.... http://diaryofadetectorist.blogspot.com/2014/02/night-hawks-do-not-exist-apparently.html
The man is a hopeless case. I gave him the links to give the background to my remark here and he's either not read them, or cannot understand plain English. Pathetic.
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