Tasting History, Not just one way to "Access the PASt"

 

       Sensory homunculus

James Slater, possibly pseudonymous detectorist, seems to be under the impression that none of my readers will have heard these arguments about "touching history" before. Let's have a look at them and the mindset behind them. He posted them as a comment to an earlier post, trying to deflect the discussion there from the treatment of a hoard documented in a video. Here it is with its original spelling and punctuation:

Most of the hoards in the British museum's have been found by detectorists, some of the best Celtic, Roman, Saxon and medieval artifacts have also been found by detectorists, handed in sometimes free of charge. People can visit those museums and view the many artifacts and hoards of treasure. Can I ask you a question? Lets say there was a Saxon gold hoard in a field and detecting wasn't allowed, how long would it take the farm machinery to smash those artifacts beyond recognition? Many artifacts such as Roman brooches come out of the soil smashed to pieces by power harrows and other farm implements. If we have an opportunity to recover thousands of long lost artifacts and coins and save them from certain destruction then we should take it providing of course it is done in the right way.

Many detectorists including myself have handed many rare coins and artifacts free of charge to local museums and also schools. I myself donated five Roman coins and five medieval coins to my local primary school but I did it under one condition, that the children were allowed to examine the coins and handle them.

I did that because our children are never allowed to feel and touch their own history but that's not how it should be. I donated five rare medieval coins to my local farmer which I found on his land. Why? Because the farmer should be allowed to hold and touch the coins that his ancestors touched over 800 years ago. History is not about locking artifacts and coins in cupboards and museum basements, it is about allowing others to experience and touch their own history. The history of common people. I've given the vast majority of everything I found away to friends and family who appreciate their heritage. I know many detectorists who do the same and I think you are being unfair to the hobby, it's not full of people who are in it for the money like you think it is, it's full of people that are genuinely interested in recovering history from the ground that otherwise would have been lost forever or destroyed by farm equipment. Would you rather see a ten year old child hold a 2000 year old Roman coin in her hand or would you rather that coin be lost forever? History is under our feet, people need to see it, feel it and touch it because it was their own ancestors who lost it.

First of all, let us note the use of the personal pronoun, like artefact hunting and collecting, it's all about "me, me, me".

1) "Most of the hoards..." most of the hoards that we have more than just a heap of loose objects from, but actual information about their internal structure and external context were excavated by archaeologists. That's what the post he's trying to avoid discussing was about, this one was trashed because carelessly dug up like potatoes by artefact hunters. 

2) "a Saxon gold hoard in a field" object-centred. What does "beyond recognition" mean? An item remains recognisable long after it has become of little interest to an antiquities collector. Also what about the majority of Anglo-Saxon hoards that are on unploughed land, or below plough level" This hoard was, until some oiks came along and hoiked it roughly out.

3) "Roman brooches come out of the soil smashed to pieces" Object-centred. I answer this separately below.  "providing of course it is done in the right way" and there is teh crux of the matter, after 24 years of expensive outreach detailing the "right way", the tekkies can't actually do that (Kirk Smeaton Hoard a striking case in point). Left to themselves, they just trash a lot of what they dig into - and again it is NOT about just getting loose objects ("before the plough gets them").

4) Schools are not places to curate "rare coins and artifacts" (sic). What's the idea of handling them? You do realise that corrosion products on objects dug out of the soil (and especially if you've benzatriazoled them too) are toxic? Look at the dermatitis visible on detectorists' hands on almost any UK metal detecting video. Do the parents know about the health risks? 

5) "I did that because our children are never allowed to feel and touch their own history but that's not how it should be". There are five senses. Taste is an important one too, but I'd not recommend putting freshly dug up metal objects on your tongue. Touching is not the same as getting to know about. Groping a newly-met girl in a nightclub is not the same as getting to know her, Mr Slater. 

6) "I donated five rare medieval coins to my local farmer which I found on his land". What? What entitlement there! In Britain, the rare coins belong to the landowner Mr Slater. And don't you forget it.

[More about touching here].

7) Mr Slater confuses "history" with objects, and groping coins and artefacts with "experiencing [our] own history" [time for my NCMD 15th century Union Flag vignette] 

8) "I've given the vast majority of everything I found away to friends and family who appreciate their heritage. I know many detectorists who do the same", what happens to them after that? Where do they go? What about the documentation? Why do you dig up stuff you do not need? Or what "need" does giving them away fulfil psychologically? What does the Code of Best Practice for Responsible Metal Detecting say about that? Personally, I'd not consider accepting gifts of loose artefacts hoiked by a detectorist who can't be bothered to look after them properly himself any form of "appreciating [and respecting] the heritage". For me its just the same as those that buy ivory knickknacks and cheap phones that "fell off the back of a lorry", but hey they are your friends.   

9) "I think you are being unfair to the hobby, it's not full of people who are in it for the money like you think it is" WHAT?  I very clearly and very consistently call the problem I am discussing here "collection-driven exploitation" not "commercial-driven exploitation", I think you are muddling me up with somebody else - or muddling me with the same stereotype as Suzie and Bonnie in that dozy and lazy article. 

10) "History is under our feet, people need to see it, feel it and touch it because it was their own ancestors who lost it".

Hmm. One can also experience history by visiting a Gothic cathedral, watch the evening light reflected from the footworn floor, touch the columns, look for medieval graffiti. Under your feet you can walk along hundreds of kilometres of real Roman roads, or drive down them, considering why there is a bend just there. You can observe and trace out with your eye the humps and bumps of a medieval field system in the mists of an autumn morning. You can download a digitised old map of a village onto your phone and walk around the village with your kids, maybe at dusk, seeing where things were and imagining how it was. Stand outside where the smithy, the tavern were, read the old graves in the churchyard. The same goes for any medieval town where you do your shopping, the street plan. There are trees standing in the landscape that were once parts of the structure of parks belonging to the old house that once stood on the hill, what other traces of that park remain in the modern landscape?  That big stone at the corner of the field, was it once a standing stone, or just an erratic pulled there by a steam plough?  

Show the kids how to find that. In the area around their homes, far more immediate than some old Roman emperor. 

In a country like Britain, there are literally millions of places where you can experience history without trashing it. To experience some of them however, you will have to read up about them, maybe that's the problem?

As for "holding history". That bit of pegmatite used to make a kerbstone by the newsagents (stroke it) crystallised 230 million years ago, deep in the earth's crust, and aeons of movement and erosion brought it close enough to the surface that it could be quarried. The toolmarks on it show how. These ones came to the town in the 1920s, and it's reused here, the rest are in the road by the church. That's a story too. The flint gravel in your drive or in the beach where you went on holiday formed from siliceous goo in a warm sea  more that 66 million years ago. Some of it will have fossils in it - our ancestors too. 

Artefact hunting destroys more evidence than it allegedly "preserves", and people like you can get your historical kicks other ways, just by using a bit more imagination.  

There is history all around us, and you HAVE often unrestricted "access" to it. So why do you allege you are being "denied access" if we say we don't want artefact hunters digging up stuff, trashing sites, so they can "touch" or give away and impress kids and their friends with the lose bits of archaeological evidence they carelessly hoik out of the ground?