Fish-in-Barrel "Archaeology", Metal Detecting as Imagined "Citizen Science" in the Czech Republic

Citizen science  

The 'English Disease' is spreading even in Central Europe:
Balázs Komoróczy 2022 Archaeology, Metal Detecting, and Citizen Science in the Czech Republic

Abstract
Although the legal conditions are perceived as restrictive, metal detecting has become a popular activity in the Czech Republic. In 2017, a questionnaire survey revealed that a significant segment of this community is made up of passionate people interested in history and archaeology. The majority of professional archaeologists consider metal-detecting finds to be important and believe that cooperation with metal detectorists is necessary, beneficial, and acceptable. A collaborative project called “Joint Forces in Order to Discover the Common Archaeological Heritage of the South Moravian Region” aims to create conditions for citizen science among the metal detectorists in the region. By using tools such as expert workshops for the employees of professional institutions, meetings, educational workshops and field activities with interested members of the public, and production and distribution of printed and digital information materials, the partners in the program have long endeavored to improve the mutual understanding of all relevant actors of society and administration. The creation of circles of citizen collaborators is in progress in several archaeological institutions; nevertheless, this process is far from over. In 2020, with the creation of the Portal of Amateur Collaborators, this activity acquired a unified digital scheme for the registration of finds.

Although the Czech scheme public finds recording scheme calls itself "PAS", if you look at the blurb https://amcr-info.aiscr.cz/?page=pas, it is a quite different concept to the UK's ineffective @findsorguk . More akin to the UK's Proposed Institute of Detectorists. I am not sure what that really achieves apart from more dots on distribution maps.

Their flagship publication seems to be:
Balázs Komoróczy, Petra Golanova, Matej Kmosek, Marek Vlach, Michaela Kmošková 2020, 'New metal and glass finds from the Late Iron Age in South Moravia (CZ). The contribution of citizen science to knowledge of the La Tène settlement structure in the Břeclav Region', Přehled výzkumů 61/2.

Abstract
The ‘Celts Beneath the Pálava Hills’ exhibition was installed at the end of the summer of 2020 at the Regional Museum in Mikulov. The museum prepared the exhibition in cooperation with the Moravian Museum and the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno. Along with other unique exhibits, an assemblage of 70 metal artefacts stored in Dolní Dunajovice in the study collection of the Research Centre for the Roman and Great Migration periods of the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, was chosen to be displayed for this event. The article presents 47 small artefacts made of copper alloys, 18 coins and five glass artefacts from 17 cadastral units, which enriched the exhibition with a variety of characteristic LT C and D1 finds. They do not form a complete collection, as their common denominator is that they were found in 2011–2017 solely by metal detectorists working together with the archaeologists from the workplace where the finds are stored. These never-before-published artefacts and the qualities of each deserve to be presented both to the public and the professional community. These artefacts include finds which, in the context of the Late Iron Age of south Moravia, are unique objects (including two bronze figurines) that are significant contributions to the clarification and differentiation of the topography of the La Tène settlement structure in the studied region.

Read this carefully, and you get the impression that these detectorists (called for some reason "citizen scientists") have been handing in artefacts they've been finding and aan exhibition was put together to make use of them. Whether or not the dots on the distribution map tell anyone anything much of use about the "the La Tène settlement structure", what it tells us is about the structure of detectorist search areas - some of which were known sites anyway.

In any case this collaboration consists of tekkies bringing stuff to the academics, cap in hand, for them to do their artefactological/typological bla-bla (and for some unfathomable reason metal analyses) publish and keep. That's not "citizen science", it is treating the services of the metal detectorist in an instrumental way, and its value as archaeology I would say is highly doubtful. The colourful dot-distribution map means, precisely, what in terms of the archaeological contexts of the sites these loose typological geegaws were hoiked from? So, they have pictures and descriptions of loose scattered "things" taken from deposits, but what do the latter mean?

What is "citizen science", apart from a trendy term currently being usefully employed in grant-applications? What kind of "science" is using a commercially (readily) available specifically designed dedicated tool for finding buried metal to... uh (checks notes).. find buried metal and dig it up? That is not science, any more than beachcombing, birdwatching, bottledump digging and beermat collection are.

Which definition of science does using a metal detector to detect a piece of metal and dig it up to pocket it comply with? https://merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science.

Definition of science
1a: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method
b: such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena: 'NATURAL SCIENCE'
2a: a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study 'the science of theology'
b: something (such as a sport or technique) that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge 'have it down to a science
3: a system or method reconciling practical ends with scientific laws 'cooking is both a science and an art'
4 capitalized : 'CHRISTIAN SCIENCE'
5: the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding