Sock Puppet Steve and the Nighthawks

"Steve" is ostensibly a UK archaeologist
who sides with the collectors
but refuses to reveal his name

The coy individual representing him or herself as a pro-collecting archaeologist called "Steve" has a few thoughts on stopping nighthawks. On Andy Baines' blog there is a post "How to eradicate "nighthawks" from metal detecting", 29 May 2014). He agrees with me that one way is to make it harder to buy and sell dug up items without documentation of legal origin. Mr Baines also thinks metal detectorists can also spot illegal activity and report it: "we know what to look out for and we know the signs [...] We are the eyes and the ears on the ground and we can make a difference".

"Sock Puppet Steve" replied expressing concern about the "hearsay and anecdotes" that he feels are used to besmear artefact hunting and collecting. He suggest that readers "have a read through the English Heritage report on the subject to get an overview of the topic from all involved parties". Although its compilers came up with "very little concrete evidence that would stand up to proper scrutiny" he feels that a spinoff of the report was the alleged willingness of detectorists "to work with the various enforcement agencies to deal with the issue". The willingness of other metal detectorists to "work with the various enforcement agencies to deal with the issue when and where is appeared" is severely limited. They in fact refused to take part in information gathering to create the report. There was an NCMD boycott (this and other reactions are fully documented on my blog for anyone who cares to look it up). That is the main reason information is scarce, "responsible detectorists" refused to co-operate. "Steve" then goes on to postulate that the "rise of the nighthawks" (sic):

was as a direct result of various archaeological bodies and individuals using their influence to get local authorities, County Councils, landowners/ large estates and institutional landowners to deny access to all detectorists [...] nighthawks thrive where negative access policies operate for legitimate detecting access. The best way to deter these people is to have legitimate searchers on the land unless of course it is protected by various bits of legislation and then it is up to those bodies that control these areas to deal with the issue as they see fit.

What an extraordinary thing for an archaeologist to say. "Negative access" is when a landowner decides for their own reasons not to allow artefact hunters (or others) onto their land. Putting the "blame" on them for "nighthawking" seems rather an odd approach. Would "Steve" argue that landowners should be inviting strangers onto their land to cut down the number of thieves? That sounds like saying if the banks make loans and credit more easy to obtain, it would cut down the number of bank robberies. Basically "nighthawking" consists of metal detecting by guys who could not care less whether they have permission to go on the land. I'd guess that the majority of them are NOT people who first went to landowner X and asked nicely if he could go on those fields and only did so illegally after going through the motions and being refused. "Sock Puppet Steve" seems optimistic about the future:

"Greater vigilance is the way to deal with the nighthawks and now the Police have finally decided to tackle them after years of indifference, the writing is on the wall for them. "

Really? How many times are metal detecorists visble from the road approached by uniformed policemen asking what they are doing? There are now probably 10-16000 active detectorists in the UK, on a nice sunny spring day many of them will be out tekking at the weekend. How many of them will be approached by a "vigilant" police officer in the course of the weekend's searching? How many police cars are slowly cruising the back lanes, stopping at farm gates to scan the horizon, vigilantly looking for nighthawks instead of policing something else? My feeling is that, rhetoric aside, in reality the UK police only go out to investigate a report of illegal activity if and when a landowner spots and reports suspicious activity. The way to get the police reaction is for landowners to be more vigilant when metal detecting is concerned, and this means warning them and keeping them informed about their rights and obligations.

 I am also a bit puzzled why "Steve" would say that in the case of land "protected by various bits of legislation", rather than being a police matter, it is "up to those bodies that control these areas to deal with the issue as they see fit". That too would be primarily the landowner wouldn't it? What other bodies does he have in mind which "control" scheduled sites and SSSI that can put boots on the ground? What heritage site guards does he have in his area of the UK?

But, since everybody insists it is a minority activity, is sorting out policies and means of dealing with illegal artefact hunting more important than sorting out policies on artefact hunting and collecting as a whole and dealing with it in a more sustainable and archaeologically beneficial manner? I think not. It's a distraction.