UK Metal Detectorists Melt Artefacts

"The Romans used to call lead
plumbumb hence the word plumber"

Tinopener (Mon Jul 14, 2014 10:43 pm)

On a metal detecting forum near you, there is a thread called "Why do we find so much scrap lead pieces on our fields?" and it makes pretty mind-boggling reading. The thread creator (one "Black Adder") starts off by giving a whole load of links to the use of themetal in antiquity and the more recent past. This makes clear that a lot of the lead present in fields is there s the result of human activity in the past. So what is the reaction of those who declare they are only interested in learning about the history? Take a look, look beyond the "good post M8" one-liner claqueurs at what the others say. Member "loud ed" (Tue Jan 04, 2011 9:56 pm) confesses he's taken:

molten lead by the bucketfull on some fields [...] take it all home give it a rinse and if its scrap and put it in a bucket and weigh it in at the end of the year

"Scottycooper" has a booze bucket (Tue Jan 04, 2011 10:17 pm)

All my lead is going into a bucket, just as the post above mentioned, as soon as I got 2 ton, im cashing it in, then im taking a week off work, going down the pub and drinking its wieght [sic] in booze!

"Shufly" (Tue Jan 04, 2011 10:24 pm) says:

I think its a good thing its non-ferrous, that means its worth more.. [emoticon]

Other members thank Blackadder for the information. "The Mole" (Wed Jan 05, 2011 7:38 am) struggles with the spelling to say:

excellent post b.a this will be very helpfull to the novice detectorist as no doubt like myself i have found lead in the field and just thought nothing of it, just thought it was scrap if anyone can add to this post with other things to look out for that us beginners might regard as scrap im sure it would make our learning curve that bit easier and we might not miss things through lack of knowlage top marks for that one ba [emoticon]

Member "Tekka" from Middlesbrough must be pretty dense (Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:13 pm)

Thanks BA. a new field we detected monday i was digging lots of lead that is white in colour, so i take it this means its been down there a while? i was getting a bit miffed at digging it and it never crossed my mind that it meant there has been activity in the area though we did wonder how so much got there.this now makes sense and the field a bit more intrsting [emoticon].

Glenfiddich (Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:02 pm) is enthusiastic:

a very well written editorial there Bruce so well done mate [emoticon] I like it [emoticon] on a recent dig down South a coupe of weeks ago I was with Paul AKA "Oldest Swinger" and he said something similar to your theory about finding lead as all I could do was moan every time I dug up the damned stuff but then Paul told me that it was actually a good sign as it meant that there was previous activity there on the very field that I was finding the stuff in and it has now made me think differently about things when I go detecting [emoticon][emoticon] Cheers Bruce [emoticon] its a good educational story [emoticon]

All those suggesting detectorists are learning about history might reflect on the meaning of this sort of comment found time and time again on the forums. Have a look at Saffron's folksy imagined "bit of history to add to the field" [reflect on what this guy knows about soldering].

It is worth reflecting too about one fundamental issue. If these artefacts are evidence of past activity, and the artefact hunters are removing that evidence from sites in order to put in their "booze buckets", what kind of record is being made of the evidence as it is taken away? What kind of recording has been taking place done by the airheads who did not even realise that they were removing evidence of past activity from a site? How many unaware (ignorant) airheads are there and how many responsible recorders are there in Britain's 16(?) thousand metal detectorists out there hoovering up buckets and buckets of historical metal artefacts, in many cases to sell off as 'scrap'? Why is it that after eighteen years of expensive PAS "outreach" there is still a place for posts like of Mr "Blackadder" giving information which comes as news to people like "Glenfiddich (joined forum Mon Oct 11, 2010)"? Just what have the PAS been up to in the area of educating artefact hunters and other finders about the significance of what they take out of the archaeological record?

TAKE A GOOD LOOK at this behaviour, for these are precisely the sort of people the PAS wants to grab more and more millions of public quid to make into the "partners" of the British Museum, archaeological heritage professionals and to whom they want us all to entrust the exploitation of the archaeological record. Take a good look and decide what you think about that as a "policy".  

Vignette: Not really "interested in their history", liquidating collections of  non-ferrous historical artefacts, worth more like that.