Saturday, 20 January 2018

Nur Fur Detectorists: The Red Pill about Artefact Hunters' "Contribution" to our Knowledge of the PASt


If we look at the pricing details for the use of the data entered in the past and currently on the UKFD we see that grabby detectorists with their smug feeling of entitlement think it is perfectly 'fair' to charge a member of the general public who's interested in seeing what a crotal bell looks like fifteen quid for the 'privilege'. But look at the red rectangle. The membership package for a 'professional' will cost them a hundred quid. That seems to be pretty symptomatic of the real degree to which artefact hunters are engaged in 'creating new knowledge about the past' through a partnership with archaeology.  Here's what they say about their entitlement to charge us for even seeing what has been pocketed from the archaeological record:

I have a better idea. Let archaeologists demonstrate to these patronising creeps their 'integrity' by simply boycotting their commercial database. That is entirely within the terms of the current Code of Conduct of several major archaeological bodies, to have nothing to do with extralegal commercial transactions involving decontextualised archaeological material. The very idea!


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