PAS "Recording" and Dumbing Down the Wem Hoard

This is the Mail's account of the Wem Hoard (Millie Vincent, 'Hoard of silver coins and plates dating back to the Dark Ages were cut into pieces when the monetary system collapsed after 'Roman-era Brexit'... Mailonline, 4 September 2019). Pretty unbelievable narrativisation from the FLO here

Speaking after the inquest, Mr Reavill said: 'This hoard was discovered last summer by three metal detectorists that reported it to my colleague. 'That hoard is the largest hacksilver Roman hoard we have from the West Midlands. It contains both hacked-up vessels and brooches and buckles, but it also includes a number of Roman coins from the very end of the Roman Empire. 'Analysis which has been done at the British Museum suggests that it goes in the ground in the fifth century - 460 to 500AD. 'We know at that time that the monetary system in Britain has completely collapsed and we are based on a sort of bullion - the weight of the silver in the coins and the objects. 'That's been hacked up and put into very small pieces so that it can be paid out to people like mercenaries to protect you, but also to traders. 'The Romans traditionally leave Britain in 402 AD and that's seen as the Roman Brexit, as it were - we are at a point where that whole Roman system has collapsed, and the only way that you can go and spend money is by hacking up the old coinage and weighing it in to buy products from abroad, but also to pay people to protect you. 'So these fragments of silver vessels and things no longer function as an object but have turned into money.

I wonder at that syntax, "we (who?) are based on", "it goes in", "that [bullion] has been" and "put into pieces", "go and spend money"... let's hope he has been misquoted by the Mail reporter.

Now was there a "Roman Brexit"? Is that how it happened, Mr Reavill? A referendum maybe and "we" decided to send "the Romans" packing? That really does not tally, does it with the phrase about "a number of Roman coins from the very end of the Roman Empire" does it? Now look at this: LVPL-9CF012 The latest coins that can be identified are 402(ish) so a good two generations before the end of the Western Roman Empire, two centuries before Heraclius, and a thousand years before the fall of Constantinople. Misleading rhetoric. The idea that this hacksilver was used to "pay mercenaries to protect you" (sic) seems to lack any evidence in this deposit...

But what really makes me wonder just how much of a grasp the speaker has is the notion that after this alleged "Roman brexit", people in the West of England were using hacked-about silver to "to buy products from abroad". Please Mr Reavill, show us the evidence from the PAS database of foreign objects coming into your region in the late fifth century, 460 to 500AD.

Daily Mail photo is better than the fuzzy one currently on 
the PAS database and seems to show different objects...

As for the PAS record itself (made, it says at the bottom 11 months ago), look at it:

 HOARDUnique ID: LVPL-9CF012 [...]  WEM, SHROPSHIRE Richard Abdy, Richard Hobbs and Roger White 1 AR denarius and 66 AR siliquae and hacksilver to AD 402 BM ref.: 2018 T799 PAS: LVPL-9CF012
Circumstances of discovery Found by three metal detectorists through responsible metal detecting The Coins [....] 

Hmm, blindly "pulling out handfuls of silver" from a 45m hole into a still buried deposit is now officially "responsible detecting", yes? Really? My, how standards are dropping. Also recording standards, the database record contains a summary report (not even a list) of the coins... and nothing else, there are ingots, wire, cut sheet fragments and an annular (penannular?, photo is fuzzy) brooch and a whole lot of other stuff shown in a general photo, but NO REPORT. Come on PAS, what is this? Although we would not suspect it looking at the huge predominance of records of coins in the PAS database as a whole, (real) archaeology is a good deal more than coin fondling. Where is the description of the other components of this deposit?

Perhaps instead of making up trite moralistic ("modern relevance") fairy stories about the objects brought in by metal detecting for Daily Mail consumption, we could first have a proper, accurate and reliable description of the items you lot are fantasising about. Can we have a proper Treasure Report please - like the Treasure Act says.