UK Metal Detectorist Loses sight of What She (Hopefully) Learnt in the MA

Over in the UK, Kirsty Logan, ignoring what was said about the environmental issues, continues to moan that artefact hunters are being unfairly victimised:

Kirsty Logan @RabbleChorus · 33 min
W odpowiedzi do @RabbleChorus @PortantIssues i 3 innych użytkowników
It just appals me that the same DETECTORISTS ARE THIEVES attitude is STILL percolating through archaeology nigh on 20 years after being a hobby detectorist led me to do an Archaeology MA. Never mind the positives, never mind the democratisation of our history, nope, all thieves. 

1) The  'artefact hunters are knowledge thieves' attitude in fact is not "percolating through archaeology" in Bonkers Britain (though it is in most other countries of the world). I hold that this should not be the case. Artefact hunting, the way it is done in the UK is damaging the archaeological record and the public's understanding of archaeology and the aims of studying the past. Hoiking archaeological artefacts out of archaeological contexts and assemblages without adequate record or (in many//most cases even) reporting is trashing the archaeological evidence that the searched site contained.  

2) "positives". If you look at it dispassionately, the overall balance of artefact hunting (everywhere, including the UK) is overwhelmingly negative. That is a view I think is not difficult to defend if you look at all of the evidence.  

3) "the democratisation of our history", what does that even mean? Artefact collecting is no better a way of democratisation of "history" than reading books about it (and if you are going to go semantic about it, then reading books is consuming history, taking artefacts is destroying the information base).

Again, though, this deflects discussion of what is and should be an environmental issue into one on "collectors rights", "access to the past". It is not democratising anything for one generation to squander a resource leaving very little of it intact for those who come after. That's just wasteful consumption, something I would have thought that XR sympathisers like Ms Logan would actually be against. But of course there is always the NIMBY principle to take into account.