Tuesday 22 October 2019

Metal Detecting Ancient Woodland


I was alerted by a reader to some metal detecting videos on the "iDetect" You Tube channel that shows a bloke hoiking aarttefacts out of what passes for ancient woodland in the UK: He says:
all the idiots/the uneducated/ the oafs of the world of Metal Detecting [should] have their contact with the outside world cut off. I refer specifically to a video from 'YouTube Superstar' iDetect uploaded on Sunday 20 October 2019 which very clearly shows him pilfering antiquities from [ancient woodland] These idiots need to be stopped before further damage to the record is caused. [...] Behaviour of this 'idiots' type hurts me to my soul. Where is the education? Where is the drive to learn about the area, where is the ambition to share their findings? All disregarded to increase their following. What is English Heritage doing to properly protect these sites and stop such oafs rampaging through British history?
The video (below) is pretty shocking, detecting in ancient woodland where there is no ploughing and the coins are within inches of the surface (No gates to shut as per NCMD, but "UKMetal Detectorists' Code of Best Practice for Responsible Treatment of the Archaeological Record" anyone?). ? He also notices that once he's stripped the artefacts out, no more are being brought to the surface, the site is simply trashed and 'gets more difficult to get fings from'. He says right at the beginning that he'd been metal detecting there a year earlier and spent a lot of time there. Refers viewers to the "fallen over tree' that he'd been hoiking stuff from earlier. He said he had the gamekeeper's permission - no mention there of the landowner that I heard. 

Near the end of this over-long look-at-me exercise in ego-stroking we hear the bloke say "Oi've got a bucket full of Roman coins, they don't do anyfink for me".

I reckon, listening to the way the man talks, "educating him" through PAS outreach or anything else would be a bit of an uphill battle.

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TREASURE IN THE ANCIENT WOODS??? posted on You Tube by iDetect 35K subscribers ( 6,272 views) 
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But it gets worse, my reader is convinced the Roman material coming up here is from a known and protected site:
Sparsholt Roman Villa. [...] I know this for two reasons. Firstly I spent a lot of time on that excavation and as it was one of my first it is in my memory as if it happened yesterday. Secondly another archaeologist I keep in touch with from that area walks their dog on the country park where the villa is sited. She sent me the link immediately, she is 100% sure it is that location. She is going there tomorrow to take images which match the exact location they filmed from to pass to Winchester City Museum who are the custodians of the artefacts discovered. 
The video channel has lots of films, how many of them are made on the same site?

Some pasture detecting ("double dipping") too:
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WTF! FIRST HOLE TREASURE FOUND..posted on You Tube by iDetect 27 May 2019 

The Sparsholt villa is of course a protected site (as I believe are parts of the woodland it is in - and of course no 'gamekeeper' can give permission to detect here in lieu of the landowner). The County Archaeologist has been informed.

7 comments:

Brian Mattick said...

No prizes for guessing how he voted in 2016!

Paul Barford said...

Actually, those were my thoughts exactly as I listed to the vacantly aggressive tone of his voice in this video.

"Jes get on wiv it!"

Brian Mattick said...

And:
We already voted
You lost - suck it up
Another referendum would damage democracy
We knew what we were voting for
We'll be better off

;)

baldrobins said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rossco said...

I'm a metal detectorist, if this is the case I'm angry, Harry (idetect) isn't liked in the metal detecting community by many true detectorists and he should NOT be seen as a figure head for us. He does NOT represent me. This is dreadful.

Paul Barford said...

Yes, I can imagine (though he does have 35000 subscribers!). He rather blotted his copybook by attacking "the man with a hat" like he did a couple of weeks back (not that I like that tedious pompous old guy any better).

So what is a "True detectorist"?

Rossco said...

Also alot of youtube subs are American and there metal detecting laws are very different and they live watching UK detecting vids as the coins and artifacts we can find in ploughed land are exciting to them as there "western" history only goes to 1700ish but mainly.

I love history and I hate the "them and us" elemebt if detecting and archeology but if this a schedule monument then Harry needs reporting.
I find it appauling.
I youtube (Grow Your Own Life) and I make the odd detecting video but I also have made videos explaining the rules and the dos and don't.

I honestly think Harry dosent care, just a rouge.

 
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