Some time ago I asked David Connolly to post a query for me on his BAJR archaeological forum, which he did. It was about how excavated assemblages compare with collected assemblages from sites (in other words what metal detectorists collect from a searched site compared with archaeological practice). It seems like a pretty simple question. My first attempts to find the answer from excavation reports did not really produce much of an answer, if the data are there, they are scattered throughout the volume. I thought it would be better to ask folk who'd been working with archives, they'd have made estimates so they know how many boxes to buy for example. So I asked (6th January 2014, 03:34 PM):Metallic Finds Rates on excavations
The result is pretty astounding. Immediately Seneschal P. Prentice judged: "possibly the singlemost (sic) ill conceived and useless questionaire (sic) i have seen in years". Wow. The justification of that remark was pretty noteworthy (P. Prentice 8th January 2014, 01:58 PM):I'd like to get some statistics on finds rates/proportions from excavations in the UK.
What I'd like are some figures for
1) the number of coins found
2) the number of other non-ferrous artefacts (small finds)
3) the number of iron small finds (I'd need to know if nails are included)...
...from excavated sites of ROMAN and MEDIEVAL date (though Post-med would not be rejected).
The idea is to compare this information from excavations with a set of data I have for objects collected by metal detectorists in East Anglia for something I am writing.
Ideally I'd like figures from 15-20 sites of different types and different regions if that is possible.
My thinking is that several of your members will presumably have worked on depositing excavation archives in recent months and will have such figures to hand.
Any help given will of course be properly acknowledged.
[The questions] appear deliberatley (sic) designed to elicit unsupported data from industry professionals, to be used in a spurious argument/vendetta against metal detectorists. [...] i said pointless and ill conceived because i have no doubt that any archaeologist worth employing who read the request would see through this clumsy attempt to be used and would not supply the requested data.Well, that's going in my paper (spelling mistakes and all). Archaeologists did not want to get involved in any form of fact-finding which might aid in discussion of the hobby, in order to protect it. He's already convinced before he's read them, that any argument constructed on the basis of gathering information on artefact hunting in the UK is going to be a "spurious" one. Wow.
So they did not supply the requested information, they instead went off on a tangent and talked in the next five pages of that thread about metal detecting topsoil, about topsoil stripping and a whole load of other stuff, but only one unit actually replied off-list with some helpful information to my request.
Shame on the rest of you. Are you really so insecure in your convictions that you will deliberately obstruct anyone attempting to gather material in order to construct an argument that may challenge them? Is that what British archaeology has come to in its love-affair with the artefact hunters? Pathetic.
By the way, in the unlikely event that anyone in British archaeology who has not drunk from the poison well of Bloomsbury and still has a smidgen of intellectual curiosity about this issue is interested in helping investigate this point, I'd still be grateful of some help getting through the grey literature in distant Britain to get a few dozen more results. Thanks.
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6 comments:
Paul, your notorious for getting information and twisting it. Did you expect anything different than the response you got ?
Ask in Ireland and France Paul.
[Is that the real Andy Baines, or the fake one?]
Am I? In my published work you mean? This is for the book I am writing. Yes, I did expect archaeologists to be a bit interested in getting some basic facts and definitions collated and discussed instead of all the usual glib platitudes everyone comes out with. The book of course is not just addressed to a British audience. I'll get the facts, despite attempts to cover up.
I am sure when the book is published, there will be no end of folk saying something is "twisted" but then, being in black and white, that rather obliges them to point out exactly where, instead of the usual insinuations and character assassination you lot seem to think is all that is needed to 'fix' the situation.
we'll see who has the most persuasive arguments.
Well, I could get the information at the drop of a hat from my Polish colleagues, but the Roman coin content of a lowland site here is not really all that comparable to that in lowland East Anglia or Oxfordshire. Obviously to have any meaning you'd have to compare like with like as far as possible. It was just the attitude which really annoyed me. As far as I am concerned what they call "spurious arguments" are the arguments to which they have no answer.
But they are perfectly welcome to show where the argument (or its factual basis) is wrong when they've read it, that's what we publish them for, but BEFORE they've read what somebody has to say? That seems to me to suggest insecurity more than anything else.
I must say I am quite surprised with the response you received!
I for one would find your results an interesting read and hope you get your information.
Bob
I suspect the problem is that ignorance is bliss, if I write a persuasive argument then they'd actually have to take a position. Let's see if I can.
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