Thursday 3 December 2015

Detectorists, Yep....


Yes, Lance and Andy dug right next to the fallen standing stone. Oh, PAS will you be writing to the BBC? Eighteen years of "outreach" seem to have got us nowhere at all. The writer of this series sees it as a perfectly normal thing to do. As I have always emphasised - artefact hunters target known sites.

This one is on Wolves Farm Aldham St Mary 52° 3'32.37"N   0°58'42.05"E,
the stone does not appear on Google Earth

Lance could have dug anywhere in the whole landscape - but the metal detectorist gravitated to the most visible antiquity marker in it, the known site. By hoiking this artefact out, he has removed any chance of establishing its association with other elements of this site. "With a fallen stone" is no provenance, and we can learn next to nothing from the find even if we know its findspot to eight or ten figures.

It seems from what a little birdy tweeted that in the Christmas special (already filmed) Lance's find ends up in the BM Treasure department. Will he get a LVA-PAS telling-off there? What about the Nazi gold he had in his hands a few episodes ago? Will he have reported that?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Couldn't be worse timing could it? Implying there may be treasure round standing stones, just when the shops and dealerships are full of special Xmas offers on detectors. It's a certainty there'll be holes reported at various ancient sites in January.

Of course, PAS and others including the detecting organisations COULD issue a statement but won't - so in my book those holes will be their fault as much as the programme makers'.

Brian Curtiss said...

What does that text say that's superimposed on the picture? I can't make it out can you Paul?

Paul Barford said...

It is the credits, this is the last second of the programme. You can see the whole of episode six as a pirate copy here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTstDTvyOgM&index=6&list=PLoeHlL9mR_GX3UO5UMSI7qluIUQWjiXPw (and if you follow back to the poster's account, the whole series until it gets taken-down as a copyright infringement.

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Brian Curtiss said...

I probably won't be participating in his copyright infringement but thank you for the reply and for the link.

the barnacle said...

paul if you take the time to watch the first programme it shows the context the find was lost in Doh.

Paul Barford said...

Umm, eh? You what? I think you do not actually understand the point being made do you? Do you metal detect by any chance Mr Wright? Thought so. Go and ask your FLO what I meant.

the barnacle said...

its a fictional well written comedy, and not based on fact, i understand your view and point your trying to make, but please dont confuse the two and try to compare them, if it had been a genuine setting in a documentary your argument would of had more clout, by the way ring pulls dont all have the makers name on them either.

Paul Barford said...

Well, I think that what this series showed was pretty true to life (would you not agree?). The writer has studied the milieu very carefully.

I think that metal detectorists DO target known sites - I note absolutely no forum comments to date say "but we detectorists do not do that...". So I think it is worth drawing attention to this issue and discussing it. You want to dismiss it.

You do NOT undertstand the point I made, and it is "would have" and not "of". (Of is not an auxiliary verb as every Polish student of English could tell you.)


 
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