A recent post by UK metal detectorist John Howland on the topic of material in storage waiting to be deposited in museum archives is the subject of a text by David Knell ('Bizarre twist on a "scandal"' 3rd April 2014). Howland uses the story in a rather puerile attempt to slam British archaeology "and gives lie to their the slur that metal detecting damages the heritage" (sic). Howland suggests that the remedy to insufficient funding of archaeology (in this case by developers going bankrupt part-way through a project) should be to starve archaeology of money altogether:
he comes to the startling conclusion that the "last thing archaeology needs is more money" and instead to plough it into the PAS so that it can do a better job of "properly recording and classifying OUR heritage". The word "heritage" here of course means not the fruits of scholarly research but the decontextualised bits of metal that detectorists like Howland reap a reward from by digging them up out of the ground.As Knell sarcastically points out, "I can see other countries such as Italy or Greece gasping in envy and admiration at the sheer genius of our priority". Knell also points out that there may be some ten thousand metal detectorists eager for their partner PAS to get their exclusive hands on the cash, but there are 63 million inhabitants of the UK who should also get a say:
H[owland] might find that a large proportion of thinking people would feel that the "scandal" is that cultural institutions such as museums and archaeology are severely underfunded, and that of course was the point the BBC article was actually making.
As 'detectorbloke' quite rightly notes in a comment to Knell's post (3 April 2014 23:41), objects in archaeological stores are at least in a place where they are waiting to be processed and analysed, unlike artefacts scattered in various ephemeral personal accumulations in people's homes which are not. What about the artefacts found in a long career of metal detecting of Mr Howland for example, what has he got stashed away unclassified? And his detecting buddies?
Over in the States, Peter Tompa has a few critical words about this too ('Unclassified Archaeological Remains Piling Up in Storage', Wednesday, April 2, 2014), he writes:
"such information never finds its way into the archaeo-blogosphere, which instead insists every last shard must be under the control of state sponsored archaeologists so it can be properly studied and preserved".
This is nastily echoed by Arthur Houghton III () and metal detectorist Dick Stout (), neither of which seem to have much of a clue what this is about.
In the case of this blog, firstly, it is clear that the topic discussed here is portable antiquity collecting (and not the detailed discussions of organization of fieldwork, or the consequences of developer funding or planning policy, there are other archaeologists who blog on that). Secondly, the transatlantic "Cultural Property Observer" has not been observant enough to realise that problem that is discussed in the BBC article results from a breakdown in the system created to remove British archaeology from state sponsorship. It is this system which is failing here.
Most people on reading the original news item will realise that its purpose was to put pressure on
the purse-string holders by generating concern among members of the
public who genuinely care about the past, and get them asking why this
situation exists. It is therefore interesting to look at the reaction of the 'members of the public
who say they are 'interested in the past'. In fact all they are
concerned about is their own selfish concerns (gimme gimme) and using
this information in their nasty vendetta against preservation. They are
not really a bit concerned about the state of British museums, if they
can use it against "the archaeologists".
Of course, none of these people trying to turn this situation against heritage professionals has the slightest inkling that museums and their infrastructure are not financed by archaeologists, or even from the same source of finance, but from the budgets of local authorities for 'culture', budgets which are perennially being cut. Are any of the metal detectorists crowing about this at all concerned about cuts in local government budgets for culture? From this reaction, I would think not.
Of course, none of these people trying to turn this situation against heritage professionals has the slightest inkling that museums and their infrastructure are not financed by archaeologists, or even from the same source of finance, but from the budgets of local authorities for 'culture', budgets which are perennially being cut. Are any of the metal detectorists crowing about this at all concerned about cuts in local government budgets for culture? From this reaction, I would think not.
And what does the PAS make of Mr Howland's suggestion that the UK government should step in and give cash to the PAS to process these archives from suspended commercial projects and deposit them in museums? Perhaps they should be depositing the other non-Treasure finds they handle in museums too? Come on PAS, give Mr Howland an answer- he's got people writing to the Minister of Culture, Media and Sport urging adopting such a solution and moving some of the FLOs to Northern Ireland.
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