Detectorists Behaving Badly

Lachine, Montreal, street scene

It seems some metal detectorists really have no feeling for time and place, everybody else is expected to share their overriding sense of entitlement. In one of the more interesting developments of the last few weeks some metal detectorists over the sea were proclaiming their intent to broaden their horizons and sign on to some  free online archeology course ["Archaeology's Dirty Little Secrets"] run by the Joukowski Institute, Brown University.  See here ("Folks, Brown University Archeology") and here. Bill of Lachine gives his reason for signing up as:

"since we do have frictions from time to time with the Archeology community I believe it would be good to have some of the members fluent enough to be able to discuss intelligently with them or coach the other members of the forum". 

That sound like good news, doesn't it? Less edifying is what he then adds (he obviously has no idea that it's a long way from an online certificate to a Polish excavation permit):

"And after I get my certificate I might head off the Warsaw to visit a mutual friend... I hear he has a very big back yard... just shouting dig me... dig me". 

Well, all those plans quickly came to nothing. The course began Monday 24th Feb 2014.  By Sunday March 9, 2014 at 12:01 pm, (just 13 days later of an eight week course) Bill from Lachine is complaining:

In the discussion area I posted up a thread asking “Are acheologists prepared to work with detectorists”. I wanted to get an up close view about their perception of us.

Wow.  I guess he's the kind of bloke that would join a vegetarian cookery discussion group and insist on starting a thread about 'pork butchery' and get huffy when he gets a cool reception. But who is "they", other course members?

Let’s just say that at one point Harry Lieb and me took the gloves off when we got tired of the bashing from some idiot based in Germany. We had asked them to toss him off the course and they wouldn’t so that’s what set us off. He was advocating a complete ban on detecting period…. [...] They see us as a threat because guess who’s finding all those hoards in the UK. In any case I pulled out of those course…. a bunch inflated egos with no substance. 

So it's the simplistic old "jealousy" argument ("guess who’s finding all those hoards in the UK") used to bolster self-esteem when faced with opposing arguments. So, within a few days of enrolling on a course about archaeology and its methods, an artefact hunter is strutting his stuff on the forum before he had any chance to learn in what way archaeology differs from "just digging up things"?   That seems a very arrogant approach to becoming more archaeologically fluent to be able to engage in constructive discussion Lachine Bill stumbled at the first hurdle. Just look at the typical tekkies' reaction to the comments of a European gentleman enrolled on the same course seeing such a thing ("We asked them to toss him off the course and they wouldn’t"). How elitist of the academic staff of Brown University not to fall prostrate in the face of the tekkie demands to chuck one guy off an archaeology course for expressing opposition to artefact hunters and looters (remember this comes hot on the tail of the Ruelzheim Treasure story in Germany). For this the metal detectorist labels him an "idiot".

I guess the metal detectorist cannot see who here has an "inflated ego with no substance". People like this can't even manage an eight week online course without causing a fracas, and as I have pointed out before, the capacity of some of them to learn anything is severely limited, which makes it all the more surprising that the opposite is still the prevailing assumption at the basis of the Portable Antiquities Scheme.