Artefact Hunters, Collectors, Their Helsinki Facilitators and the Ubiquitous Roman Hobnails

Archäologische Illustrationen (a drawing and design agency specialised in every kind of archaeological visualisation based in Berlin) showed a piece of recent work and comments 'Hobnails are very common finds on Roman sites. They rarely appear in museum collections because they were considered mundane and boring - Sorry, we don´t think so!' Archaeologist Mike Bishop adds:  'Hobnails are interesting in their own right, but also because accumulations of them can be one of the best clues to the location of Roman battlefields. Marquita Volken has even demonstrated that they are datable'.

But the PAS database, reliant on collecrtors contains all of 51 records from a VERY restricted geographical range, so what kind of "archaeological data" are artefact hunters in England and Wales providing for archaeological research? How can PAS data "fill the gaps not addressed by archaeological fieldwork", if the PAS
'data' (I use the term loosely) are full of gaps from the outset?

A question I'll wager the European Network of Archaeologists Advocating Collaborating in Collection-Driven Exploitation of the Archaeological Record in loot-central Helsinki is not willing to debate in a civil fashion, because these academics apparently have a lot of grant money dependent on having everyone believe something else.

See also: Dobat, A., Deckers, P., Heeren, S., Lewis, M., Thomas, S., & Wessman, A. (2020). Towards a Cooperative Approach to Hobby Metal Detecting: The European Public Finds Recording Network (EPFRN) Vision Statement. European Journal of Archaeology, 1-21. doi:10.1017/eaa.2020.1